- Saturday, with a metric ton of high explosives, Pakistan
was forced to confront a checkered history and an increasingly troubled
present. In microseconds Islamabad's posh Marriott hotel and surroundings
were turned into a fiery mass of broken bodies, destroyed vehicles and
burning buildings. The reported culprit was an Islamic extremist who drove
up to the hotel gate and detonated his lethal charge before anyone could
react against him. That may be the basic truth, but the events surrounding
this catastrophe are complex and the precise causes will be difficult to
map in the recently very troubled Pakistani political landscape.
-
- The knee-jerk reaction in the West is to blame this on
al Qaida or the Taliban. However, many innocent bystanders lost their lives
or were injured in the US raids or drone attacks. A broad slice of the
Pakistani political class was offended by the unilateral attacks. It
is therefore simplistic to assume that no one other than terrorists of
interest to the United States and NATO would be offended enough by US raids
and their "collateral", read unforeseeable, consequences to fight
back.
-
- One must start by recognizing that this was not just
another simple dissident bombing. It occurred at a time when not only
are internal Pakistani politics in potentially toxic flux, but the country
is seen by numerous Pakistanis as under attack by American forces in its
northwest frontier. As narrowly viewed by US force commanders in Afghanistan,
and apparently by US officials in Washington-including President Bush who
signed off on US raids into Pakistan-the results of those raids should
have been viewed positively by Pakistan. After all, outlaw elements in
Pakistan's lawless northwest frontier were being killed and maybe disciplined
by outside experts at no charge to the Pakistani Government. That latter
point holds only if one discounts the reported killing and wounding of
innocent bystanders.
-
- The problem was that neither the Pakistani Government
nor apparently the US Ambassador to Pakistan had been informed in advance
of the attacks. Rather, in keeping with a policy adopted by the Bush administration
after 9-11, US forces had simply violated the territorial integrity of
Pakistan, an ally in the War on Terrorism, to conduct attacks on alleged
al Qaida terrorists and their Taliban supporters. The likely political
repercussions of this action in Islamabad and throughout Pakistan seem
not to have been considered.
-
- Pakistan's only recently restored democracy is fragile.
Its present two week old government-led by Asif Ali Zardari-husband of
the recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto-has the narrowest of mandates
to govern. It is already operating as a coalition in which no one party
has a majority, and that government could fall at any moment. His government
also is operating in an environment of widespread as well as high level
opposition political discontent with fighting an "American war",
as reported by Time/CNN on line. But what may have been, as some foreign
analysts suggest, a pro-forma objection to the US raids by Pakistan's army
commander and its newly installed President is, as a result of this bombing,
now a dug-in political posture that could bring down the government if
Pakistan's borders are not honored by the United States.
-
- This writer has suggested before that it is time to put
the War on Terrorism in Pakistan on hold while that government gains the
confidence of the people and particularly gains non-violent control of
its dissident outback. That task is not simple, and even with the best
efforts of Pakistan's law enforcement and military forces it may take some
time as well as some leadership and elite/popular adjustments. But waiting
it out is better than driving Pakistan into a failed state. While it is
obviously an unintended consequence, the US-led War on Terrorism is destabilizing
Pakistan.
-
- As this bombing demonstrates, the price of satisfying
but largely pointless raids in Pakistan's frontier with Afghanistan can
be the provocation of mass murder and the possible end of Pakistan's democracy.
In modern warfare, especially bush warfare, the law of unintended consequences
operates without mercy. In any case, further US raids will do little for
the War on Terrorism except possibly generate headlines in US media. But
those attacks will add to political discontent and bloodshed, and the failure
of that government could provoke loss of official control over Pakistan's
sizable nuclear arsenal. That in turn could be a terrifying boon to terrorism
extremists.
-
- Pakistani endurance of such unintended consequences as
Saturday's hotel bombing is obviously limited. Recent Pakistani firings
on US helicopters in the northwest frontier region make that point better
than words. It is time to stand down to avoid the growing disaffection
of Pakistan's only loosely integrated minorities, as well as to pacify
its major political groups. In so doing, Americans, especially our troops
in the Afghanistan campaign, may be made safer by a sensible respect
for Pakistan's border on its northwest frontier.
-
- ******************
-
- The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer.
His immediate pre-retirement positions were as Chairman of the Department
of International Studies of the National War College, and Deputy Director
of the Office of Counterterrorism and Emergency Management. He is author/co-author
of five books. His current work is A World Less Safe now being offered
on Amazon. He is a regular columnist on rense.com. He will welcome comments
at wecanstopit@charter.net.
|