It has been a decade of trauma and pain for most Pakistanis ´ dominated by a gradual but unprecedented spike in violence, largely attributable to Al Qaeda and its Pakistani force-multipliers (in the words of Daniel Benjamin, the UN Counter-Terrorism coordinator). That basically means the Tehreeke Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkare Jhangvi (LeJ), Lashkare Taiba (LeT), and some other shades of Taliban, mostly nestled in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. Most of the groups have, directly or otherwise, been part of the military establishment questionable calculus for quite some time, until some of them began biting the hand that had fed, raised and tolerated them.
After the first suicide bomber killed some of those who were attending a service on March 17, 2002 in the only church in capital Islamabad Diplomatic Enclave, nearly 300 suicide bombings across the country have rattled Pakistan to the core, rendering it as one of the most dangerous places on the face of the earth.
The daring twin-suicide bombing on the house of a regional army commander in Quetta, capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, on September 7th, underscored the death and destruction that Pakistanis have experienced from the north to the south; the two attacks early morning left at least 27 killed, including the spouse of Brigadier Farrukh Shehzad, the director general of the para-military Frontier Core (FC), Baluchistan and injured several others.
This latest incident, for which the TTP claimed responsibility, delivered another stark reminder of the volatility that the 9/11 incidents and the US-led war against terrorism has brought upon this country of over 180 million.
Ten years on, and Pakistan ´ used by the US as the bulwark against the Soviet-Russian expansionism in the 1980s ´ reels under the consequences of multiple crisis essentially rooted in the unholy alliance that the United States had cobbled together to defeat the Soviet-Russians ; political (polarization), insecurity (raked up by Al-Qaeda and its Pakistani Taliban affiliates, insurgency (Baluchistan), and economic downturn (stagnation, inflation, diminishing investments).
Much of Pakistan current crisis and their cumulative impact is essentially rooted in CIA-ISI-led anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s, followed by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States.
After General Pervez Musharraf September 19th speech, when he offered President George Bush Pakistan ‘unconditional support’, theU.S-led coalition unleashed a bombing campaign on targets in Kabul on October 7th in a bid to dismantle the hosts of Osama bin Laden i.e. the Taliban regime. This war, initially thought to be a positive venture for the world as well as region security, has so far turned out to be politically as well as financially a disaster not only for USA, but also for Pakistan.
Even a cursory look at events in the past decade suggests that Pakistan has remained in the eye of the storm, and has as a result of its alliance with the United States in the anti-terror war faced multiple challenges; more than 35,000 innocent lives, and roughly 3800 security personnel lost, and displacement of millions of Pakistanis from the conflict-hit areas in the northwest.
The official Economic Survey of Pakistan (2010-2011) says thatthe financial cost of war that stood at $2.69 billion in 2001-2002, has soared to $17.8 billion in 2010-2011. The cumulative cost, it says is over 67 billion dollars in terms of flight of capital, loss of investments, damages to the infrastructure off terrorist acts since Pakistan became partner in the atrocious war on terror.
The resultant singular focus on internal security and counter-terrorism has directly impeded the socio-economic growth. Both gobble up roughly 1.5 billion dollars, in addition to the six billion dollars that goes into the defense budget any way.
A geo-political cost that Pakistan continues to pay is its branding asFailed State or one of themost dangerous places on earth. As a result, foreign investments have dried up, and the tourist industry, that used to attract thousands of foreigners to the northern areas in particular, is not even five percent of what it was before 9/11.
The Taliban upheaval in Swat/Malakand, South Waziristan, the ensuing military response to undo the challenge to the stage, displacement of millions due to the army offensive, followed by devastating floods in 2010 simply aggravated the crisis of governance that had already been in the making before the 9/11 tragedy.
As the war on terror sucked Pakistan deeper into one crisis after another, the institutional response to it has been wanting; the attacks on the heart of Pakistani military establishment ´ the General Headquarter – (Oct 10, 2009), three ISI regional centres (2009/2010), the daring siege of the PNS Mehran Naval basein Karachi (May 22nd, 2011) are only few examples of the lack of preparednesson the part of the security agencies. Most state institutions have remained engaged mostly in fire-fighting, rather than carving out a long-term approach to deal with the al-Qaeda-inspired militancy.
Almost all security agencies still seem to be in a reactive mode, and suggests that the responseto acts of terroris still based on the conventionalintrusive approach i.e. personal information gathering, poor technological skills,coupled with complacency, and socio-political factors such as ethno-linguistic relations within the community, and at times political pressures.
Secondly, except for a small, though important, show-case initiative of deradicalisation programmeSabaoon (theDAWN)run by the army, the government has little to flag in terms of a sustained, comprehensive and focused counter-radicalisation programme to address the creeping monster of religions radicalistaion. While Sabaoon represents a good effort to rehabilitate hard-core militants, it certainly cannot cater to the radicalization of thought that is gradually taking place in the society.
Thirdly, radical militant movements drew quite a bit of strength from their past nexus with the military establishment. For quite some time, many of the key militants such as Baitullah Mehsud (killed in a CIA-drone strike on August 5, 2009), his successor Hakimullah Mehsud, Maulvi Fazlullah (Swat/Malakand)exploited the gray area that was available to them as a result of their past associations with the Inter-Services– Intelligence (ISI) or other intelligence outfits. Much of this nexus is clearly broken today but a lot has yet to be done to send a loud and unambiguous message to militants of all shades that their services are no longer required. Nor are their militant activities tolerable any more.
This message in fact constitutes the core of any canvassing that Pakistan wants to do in its favour; the Afghan Haqqani Network and the Lashkare Taiba as well as Jaishe Mohammad (both allegedly supported by the military establishment for anti-India operations in Kashmir) remain a big question mark. Only straight messaging and tangible action on them would help Pakistan in conveying to the world it has turned the pageonpolicies that used militancy as a foreign policy tool and looked at non-state actors as important crutches for advancing its geo-strategic objectives.
Fourthly, the mighty Inter-Services– Intelligence, that serves as the main early-warning and policy-making institutions for the security apparatus, must also address genuine concerns of friendly countries such as China, which has of late expressed displeasure over acts of terrorism in its Muslim-dominated Shinjiang province, allegedly carried out with the support of members of the Uighur East Turkestan Movement based in Pakistan.
Lastly, Osama bin Laden eliminationMay 2nd, and an extremely muted reaction by his sympathizers within Pakistan, most probably offers a big opportunity to the Pakistani security establishment to change its view on India and Afghanistan. Bin Laden and his Pakistani affiliates like the TTP were the publicly declared enemies of Pakistan. Now, with bin Laden gone, and three of his associates including Yunis al-Mauretani captured from a hideout in Quetta first week of September (2011), Pakistan probably can think away from the perceived threats that al Qaeda Central poses to the state.
While the state institutions need to stay focused on the ideological monster, another pressing job at hand is to take a fresh look at relations with its eastern and western neighbours.
Without changing the strategic outlook particularly on India, official claims of shift in the security paradigm would simply sound hollow. Besides, a perennial state of confrontation and animosity vis a vis big and economically progressing India will only bleed Pakistan more than achieve anything in geo-strategic or economic terms. Recalibrating Pakistan policy towards India by no means amounts to capitulation to the eastern neighbor.
On the one hand Islamabad must move on in its relations with India based on a new realism embedded in a realistic assessment of the international political-economic size and clout of India. On the other, while it must transition from a reactive to well-thought-out proactive foreign policy, it also needs to bury the cold-war era mindset.
The obsession with, and dependence onnotions such as the ¿strategic depth in Afghanistan’ or ‘Pakistan strategic geo-political location’ have only bled this country than accruing long-term benefits to it. The current crisis and challenges arising out of them demand a recalibration and re-prioritisation of the foreign and domestic policies, failing which the slide into further political insecurity and governance chaos would be hard to contain.