The Columbus Dispactch
July 5, 2008
Pakistan’s assault last weekend on a militant stronghold in the Khyber tribal area might have been a sop to the Bush administration, fuming over Islamabad’s peace deal with the Taliban. But I doubt that the Pakistani army or government will, or can, rein in anti-NATO guerrillas in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s assault last weekend on a militant stronghold in the Khyber tribal area might have been a sop to the Bush administration, fuming over Islamabad’s peace deal with the Taliban. But I doubt that the Pakistani army or government will, or can, rein in anti-NATO guerrillas in Pakistan.
A Pakistani-Taliban peace deal appears to have bolstered the flow of Pakistani fighters into Afghanistan. Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid says many of the 56 militants killed in a military operation there were Pakistanis.
The Pakistani army had pushed for the Taliban deal and, what has enraged the Americans even more, its paramilitary troops are reported to be training Taliban guerrillas. Some Pakistani officials say the recent American air strikes that killed 11 of their soldiers were a U.S. warning to their army.
So why is the Pakistani army helping the Taliban? I asked Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, at a dinner reception in Arlington, Va. The ambassador said he prefered “not to answer this question.” After a pause, he added, “The army operates in Pakistan’s social environment.” I was surprised by the envoy’s effort to explain, rather than deny, his military’s involvement in Taliban activities.
Pakistan’s “social environment” is indeed overwhelmingly supportive of the guerrilla movement to expel NATO troops from Afghanistan. The discredited Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf led the “war on terror” against the Taliban and al-Qaida to gain U.S. support for his military dictatorship. But the current democratically elected government, sensitive to the public opinion, considers it suicidal to do so. Government officials also point out that Musharraf’s military crackdowns against the Taliban have increased the guerrilla group’s popularity and militancy.
During a fall trip through Pakistan, I was told by politicians, scholars and ordinary folks that they didn’t differentiate between NATO and Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Pakistani youths, supported by the CIA and U.S. arms, fought to roll back the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
In Islamabad, Sen. M. Enver Baig of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party reminded me that the U.S. government and media called the anti-Soviet guerrillas freedom fighters. He reiterated that the Taliban were resisting “American hegemony,” but that they “don’t hate Americans.”
The Taliban belong mostly to the Pushtun tribes, who make up 42 percent of Afghanistan’s population and nearly 20 percent of Pakistan’s. Pakistan has twice as many Pushtun as there are in Afghanistan. Many Pushtun (used as singular and plural) in Pakistan and Afghanistan resent the boundary, drawn by the British colonial power, that divides them between the two countries.
The Pushtun are known for their hospitality and spirit of independence. Unlike al-Qaida, the Taliban didn’t have an anti-American agenda. Their belief that they had a “duty” to protect their guest Osama bin Laden made them face the catastrophe of the 2001 U.S. invasion. In the Bajaur district of the tribal area, I was told that if President Bush had become the Pushtun’s guest, they would have protected him with their lives.
Similarly, throughout history the Pushtun have shown indomitable valor in beating back invaders, some of them superpowers of their day, such as the Greeks, British and Soviets. Today, most Pakistanis and Afghans believe that the Pushtun will drive NATO forces from Afghanistan as well, and Pakistanis overwhelmingly support their campaign.
Apart from Pakistan’s pro-Taliban social environment, strategic calculations weigh heavily with the Pakistani army, which dominates the management of Islamabad’s Afghan (as well as Kashmiri and nuclear-arms) policy. Army officers resent the warms ties Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government has with India, Pakistan’s arch adversary. And they believe that because NATO will one day leave Afghanistan, they need to make sure Kabul doesn’t come under the influence of a hostile power, especially India.
The Pakistani army is cultivating the Taliban because it sees them dominating political life in the post-NATO Afghanistan. They ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, when Pakistan’s relations with it were the closest ever.
The Pakistani army values Islamabad’s relations with the U.S., but it thinks it can’t ignore Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan. The army has, however, diminished its support for the Taliban in an effort to placate the Bush administration, hoping, somewhat desperately, that the Americans eventually will realize that they someday will need to bid Afghanistan farewell, but that Pakistan can’t.
