Beware Those Treacherous Afpakis

Beware Those Treacherous Afpakis

by Eric Margolis





President Barack Obama has now taken full ownership of the Afghanistan War.
Gone are Washington's pretenses that a western "coalition" was waging this
conflict. Gone, too, is the comic book term, "war on terrorism," replaced by
the Orwellian sobriquet, "overseas contingency operations."

Obama's announcement last week of deeper US involvement in Afghanistan and
Pakistan - now officially known in Washington as "Afpak" - was accompanied
by a preliminary media bombardment of Pakistan for failing to be
sufficiently responsive in advancing US strategic plans.

The New York Times in a front-page story last week that was clearly
orchestrated by the Obama administration charged that Pakistan's military
intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), has been secretly
aiding Taliban and its allies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2003, the NY Times severely damaged its once stellar reputation by
serving as a primary conduit for fake war propaganda put out by the Bush
administration over Iraq. The Times has been beating the war drums for more
US military operations against Pakistan.

Even so, these latest angry charges being hurled by Washington at Pakistan's
spy agency ring true. Having covered ISI for almost 25 years, and been
briefed by many of its director generals, I would be very surprised if ISI
was not quietly working with Taliban and other Afghan resistance movements.

Protecting Pakistan's interests, not those of the United States, is ISI's
main job.

According to Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Washington threatened war against
Pakistan after 9/11 if it did not fully cooperate in the US invasion of
Afghanistan. Pakistan's bases and ports were and remain essential for the US
occupation of Afghanistan.

Pakistan was forced at gunpoint to accept US demands though most of its
people supported Taliban as nationalist, anti-Communist freedom fighters and
opposed the US invasion. Taliban, mostly composed of Pashtun tribesmen, had
been nurtured and armed by Pakistan.

Many of Pakistan's generals and senior ISI officers are Pashtun, who make up
15-18% of that nation's population and form its second largest ethnic group
after Punjabis. ISI routinely used Taliban and militant Kashmiri groups
Lashkar-i-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Pakistan was enraged to see its traditional Afghan foes, the
Communist-dominated Northern Alliance of Tajiks and Uzbeks, put into power
by the Americans. The Northern Alliance was strongly backed by India, Iran,
Russia, and the Central Asian post-Communist states.

Pakistan has always considered Afghanistan it "strategic hinterland" and
natural sphere of influence. The 30-million strong Pashtun people straddle
the artificial Pak-Afghan border, known as the Durand Line, drawn by
Imperial Britain as part of its divide and rule strategy.

Pakistan supports the Afghan Pashtun, who have been excluded from power in
US-occupied Afghanistan. But Pakistan also fears secessionist tendencies
among its own Pashtun. The specter of an independent Pashtun state -
"Pashtunistan" - uniting the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistanhas long
been one of Islamabad's worst nightmares.

Pakistanis are outraged by US bombing attacks against their own rebellious
Pashtun tribes in the frontier agencies. Most also strongly oppose
Washington's "renting" 130,000 Pakistani troops and aircraft to attack
pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen. A majority believe the increasingly unpopular
and isolated government of President Asif Zardari serves the interests of
the US rather than Pakistan.

Pakistan is bankrupt and now lives on American handouts.

Its last two governments have been forced to do Washington's bidding though
most Pakistanis are opposed to such policies.

The US has ignored intensifying efforts by India, Iran, and Russia to expand
their influence in Afghanistan. India, in particular, is arming and
supplying Afghan foes of Pakistan.

Washington sees Pakistan only as a way of advancing its own interests in
Afghanistan, not as a loyal old ally. Obedience, not cooperation, is being
demanded of Islamabad.

President Barack Obama announced that more US troops and civilian officials
will go to Afghanistan, and more billions will be spent sustaining a war
against the largely Pashtun national resistance in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

None of this will benefit Pakistan. In fact America's deepening involvement
in "Afpak" brings the threat of growing instability and violence, even the
de facto breakup of Pakistan as the US tried to splinter fragile Pakistan
just as it did Iraq.

It is ISI's job to deal with these dangers, to keep in close touch with
Pashtun on both sides of the border, and to counteract the machinations of
other foreign powers in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal belt.

Many Pakistanis also know that one day the US and its allies will quit
Afghanistan, leaving a bloody mess behind them. Pakistan's ISI will have to
pick up the pieces and deal with the ensuing chaos. Pakistan's strategic and
political interests are quite different from those of Washington. But few in
Washington seem to care in the least.

ISI is not playing a double game, as Washington charges, but simply assuring
Pakistan's strategic and political interests in the region. The Obama
administration is making an historic mistake by treating Pakistan with
imperial arrogance and ignoring the concerns and desires of its people. We
seem to have learned nothing from the Iranian revolution.

March 31, 2009

Eric Margolis [send him mail], contributing foreign editor for Sun National
Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new
book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict
Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.

Copyright © 2009 Eric Margolis

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