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by No Exit from Pakistan (pdf)


  168

  No Exit from Pakistan

  Pakistan’s military, General Kayani, shared a secret fourteen-page memo with

  President Obama in late 2010. The memo called into question U.S. motives

  and methods in Pakistan and Afghanistan, even going so far as to suggest that

  Washington was working to maintain a “controlled chaos” inside Pakistan.115

  A year after that memo, the United States and Pakistan had reached a com-

  plete impasse. American frustration and anger over Pakistan’s inaction against

  Afghan Taliban and terrorists in North Waziristan – along with suspicions

  about how bin Laden could have escaped Pakistan’s attention in Abbottabad

  for so long – had by that point led a number of American policy analysts

  and politicians to argue for a purely coercive or “containment” strategy in

  Pakistan.116

  In different ways, the KLB debacle, Washington’s expanded counterterror-

  ism operations on Pakistani soil, and mixed U.S. signals regarding the war

  in Afghanistan all set the stage for the calamitous deterioration in relations

  between Washington and Islamabad from 2010 to 2012. The Obama admin-

  istration made its share of mistakes; there are good reasons to suspect that a

  more sure-footed American approach might have done more to snap Pakistan

  out of its dangerous, entrenched patterns.

  In the end, however, Pakistan’s course was set and maintained by its own

  leaders. For their own reasons they refused – in the face of American threats

  and inducements – to cut ties with terrorist organizations or to tackle head-on

  the broader problem of extremism in their society. Those failures ate at the core

  of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. If Washington had believed Pakistan to be a

  trustworthy partner, there would have been no need for Raymond Davis to be

  spying on LeT in Lahore, no need to fly a stealthy helicopter into Abbottabad

  without informing General Kayani, no need for Admiral Mullen’s pointed testi-

  mony before Congress. Looking to the future, unless Pakistan takes a different

  approach toward terrorism, militancy and extremism, cooperation between

  Washington and Islamabad will continue to rest on rickety foundations.

  115 For an account of this exchange, see David Ignatius, “Our High-Maintenance Relationship with Pakistan,” Washington Post, July 13, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/

  david-ignatius-pakistan-us-have-a-neurotic-relationship/2012/07/13/gJQABEDoiW_story

  .html.

  116 See, for instance, Bruce Riedel, “A New Pakistan Policy: Containment,” New York Times, October 14, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/a-new-pakistan-policy-containment.html; Stephen D. Krasner, “Talking Tough to Pakistan,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2012), http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136696/stephen-d-krasner/

  talking-tough-to-pakistan.

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  6

  From the Outside-In

  U.S.-Pakistan Relations in the Regional Context

  The city of Peshawar stands at the door to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal

  lands, the famed Khyber Pass, and Afghanistan. For hundreds of years, it has

  served as an outpost and garrison, but also as a way station for invading armies,

  missionaries, and traders of all stripes.1 Driving along its streets, it is easy to tell Peshawar is close to the Afghan border and the mountains; clusters of women

  are hidden behind burkas, and in winter men don traditional brown woolen

  shawls to ward off the chill. All around, three-wheeled Chinese Qingqi scooters

  mingle with bicycles, donkey carts, cars, and brightly painted trucks and buses.

  Peshawar has always felt the reverberations of decisions made in distant

  capitals. In that respect, the city is much like Pakistan as a whole: seemingly

  distant, and yet still thoroughly connected to the wider world. In the context of

  Peshawar’s storied history, connections with the United States are short indeed.

  But remote Peshawar, like the nation of which it is a part, has at times played

  an outsized role in U.S. policy.

  In the early Cold War, American U-2 spy planes took off for missions over

  the Soviet Union from nearby Badaber airbase, including the ill-fated flight of

  Francis Gary Powers that exposed America’s secret program to the world. In

  the 1980s, Peshawar was a meeting point and refuge for many of the Afghan

  fighters who formed the core of the CIA- and Saudi-sponsored mujahedeen.

  Osama bin Laden cut his teeth recruiting Arab fighters in Peshawar, and the

  city’s ties to terrorism and the Taliban have persisted well after 9/11.

  Before 2006 much of Peshawar was considered relatively safe. Even terror-

  ists, the logic went, needed peace in Peshawar to do business, recuperate from

  1 For a short summary of Peshawar’s history, from Persian and Greek to Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and British rule, see Ahmad Salim, ed., Peshawar: City on the Frontier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), especially pp. 160–6. For the classic history of the Pashtuns and the Peshawar region, see Sir Olaf Caroe, The Pathans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).

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  170

  No Exit from Pakistan

  the fight in Afghanistan, and watch over their families. Yet the local dynamics

  shifted, and Peshawar’s fragile balance could not last. Peshawar found itself

  at the leading edge of a shocking wave of violence that would soon crest over

  Pakistan.

  On an early morning in November 2006, as I stared out the window at

  the grayish brown winter landscape punctuated by farms and villages along

  the highway midway through a ride from Islamabad to Peshawar, the radio

  picked up the chilling news of Peshawar’s first suicide bombing. A terrorist had

  strapped explosives to his chest and blown himself to pieces near a city police

  van. Two officers were wounded. Peshawar had entered a tragic new era.

  Since then, the city has suffered terribly. Between 2006 and 2010, over

  400 terrorist attacks struck the city, killing 866 civilians and wounding nearly

  2,500 more.2 Many of the city’s wealthier residents have moved away to escape

  the violence. Extremists have also made a point of desecrating symbols of

  Peshawar’s traditionally tolerant Sufi culture. In one of the most egregious

  examples of this trend, in March 2009 they bombed the mausoleum of the

  revered seventeenth-century Pashtun poet, Rahman Baba.3

  Not surprisingly, Pakistan’s terrorists attacked U.S. facilities in Peshawar

  with a special vengeance. In late summer 2008, gunmen opened fire on the

  vehicle of the top diplomat at the U.S. consulate as she left the gates of her

  home in what had been considered one of Peshawar’s most secure, upscale

  neighborhoods. The next year, a massive suicide car bombing rocked the Pearl

  Continental hotel, a landmark that had served as a regular meeting spot for

  local journalists, international aid officials, and politicians. Washi
ngton had

  been in negotiations to purchase the hotel for use as an expanded consulate.4

  In April 2010, the U.S. consulate itself – so well fortified that locals offer-

  ing directions there said it looked like “Guant ánamo” – was the target of a

  car bombing and commando-style assault that killed six but failed to breach

  the perimeter. These threats forced many of the U.S. diplomats and devel-

  opment officials who would normally live and work in Peshawar to decamp

  to Islamabad. But that commute also came with serious security risks. Sev-

  eral weeks after the U.S. raid on bin Laden’s compound in May 2011, the

  Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide motorbike bomb attack

  on an American vehicle headed from Islamabad to Peshawar.5

  In spite of its twenty-first-century troubles, Peshawar can still evoke the

  spirit of a bygone colonial era. History is strong there. The headquarters of

  2 Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, National Counterterrorism Center, http://www

  .wits.nctc.gov.

  3 Saba Imtiaz, “Revisiting Rahman Baba’s Shrine,” Express Tribune, June 26, 2010, http://tribune

  .com.pk/story/23782/revisiting-rahman-babas-shrine/.

  4 “11 Killed in Peshawar PC Blast,” Daily Times, June 10, 2009, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

  default.asp?page=2009610story_10–6–2009_pg1_1.

  5 “Pakistan Taliban Bomb US Consulate Convoy in Peshawar,” BBC, May 20, 2011, http://www

  .bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13465910.

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  From the Outside-In

  171

  the paramilitary frontier forces in the imposing Bala Hisar fortress overlooks

  the city with a colonial stare. Sitting in its courtyard under the stars one spring

  evening in 2010, a Pakistani army officer recounted tales of daring raids on

  militant compounds along the Afghan border. Earlier that day, the provincial

  governor shared tea and his views on regional diplomacy in his palatial British-

  era residence, surrounded by manicured grounds and strolling peacocks, its

  interiors graced by enormous paintings of noble warriors and muskets mounted

  above fireplace mantels.

  There is indeed a tension in Peshawar between past and present, as there

  is throughout Pakistan. But this is not a simple battle pitting the traditional

  against the modern, or Islamists versus the “West.” In 2006, a provincial politi-

  cian explained his reasons for a new law that would have imposed something

  just short of a Taliban-style “vice and virtue” ministry in the province.6 On

  arriving at his office, I could see immediately that he was no bearded extremist,

  spouting conspiracy theories and dogma. Far from it; the politician was an

  articulate U.S. green card holder and former pizza chef from northern Virginia,

  whose sons had attended American public high schools and believed that the

  same curriculum should be taught to boys and girls in northwest Pakistan.

  Pakistan’s multiple identities are at war in Peshawar. In a single politician’s

  family, indeed in his own head, different manifestations of modernity and

  globalization are often in conflict.

  Like the rest of Pakistan, Peshawar also has its progressives, liberals, and

  leftists, although in dwindling numbers. In 2010, a group of Peshawar univer-

  sity students proudly recounted to me how their peers had chased away Zaid

  Hamid, one of Pakistan’s most rabid anti-Western and hyper-nationalist tele-

  vision pundits, when he tried to give a lecture on campus.7 Hamid, who sports

  a trademark bright red hat and spins the most fantastical conspiracy theories

  with conviction and fervor, rose from obscurity in 2008. For several years he

  appealed to thousands of young Pakistanis with his strident nationalism based,

  in part, on an unorthodox reading of Islamic scriptures.8

  The Peshawar university students went on to complain that outspoken crit-

  ics of the United States like Hamid tend to be Pakistanis with no firsthand

  experience of the present insurgency along the Afghan border, and no sense

  of how dangerous the Taliban have become. Some even said they supported

  America’s drone campaign, because without it they would suffer from either

  Taliban oppression or destructive Pakistani army operations.

  6 “Frontier Cabinet Okays Hasbah Bill,” Daily Times, July 5, 2005, http://www.dailytimes.com

  .pk/default.asp?page=story_5–7–2005_pg7_5.

  7 For an overview of Zaid Hamid’s rapid ascent in 2008, see Manan Ahmed, “Pakistan’s New Paranoia,” The National, March 11, 2010, http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/pakistans-new-paranoia.

  8 For a profile of Zaid Hamid, including his references to the controversial hadith on Ghazva-eHind, see Amber Rahim Shamsi, “Will the Real Zaid Hamid Please Stand Up?” Express Tribune, May 9, 2010, http://tribune.com.pk/story/11701/will-the-real-zaid-hamid-please-stand-up/.

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  172

  No Exit from Pakistan

  These students and their professors are potential American allies, but they

  also threw darts. However bitter they were about their own government and

  military, they found U.S. policies in the region even more confusing and

  frustrating. As they marched through their own narrative of the past six

  decades of history, they concluded that whatever America’s professed motive

  or agenda, the superpower had supported Pakistani dictators and abused

  Pakistani sovereignty. In their eyes, U.S. policy has left behind a trail of extrem-

  ism, militancy, and political repression.

  What they most wanted to know from me, standing before them as a vis-

  iting American lecturer, was what the future might hold. The long history

  of Peshawar, that quintessential frontier city, had taught them that decisions

  made in distant capitals like Washington could change their lives. What did

  the United States have in mind for Peshawar – and Pakistan – now?

  I responded by retracing the steps in their historical narrative, observing that

  in the past Washington’s interest in Pakistan has been heavily influenced by

  the broader regional and international context. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship

  has never existed in a vacuum. Formative American decisions to engage or

  distance from Pakistan were made in the context of Cold War developments,

  from Washington’s early fear of Soviet advances into the Persian Gulf, to the

  subsequent reality of Moscow’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Later, it was

  the attacks of 9/11, rather than any particular concern about internal Pakistani

  dynamics, which rekindled U.S.-Pakistani ties.

  Judging from that history, one way to think about the future course of U.S.-

  Pakistan relations is to think from the “outside-in”; in other words, to ask

  how the United States is likely to interact with Pakistan’s neighbors and then

  consider how those relationships will influence ties between Washington and

  Islamabad. How
will Washington assess its geopolitical interests in the wider

  region five or ten years from now? How will the United States balance those

  concerns with Pakistan-specific issues, like terrorism and nuclear weapons?

  Peering just over the horizon, it is clear that no matter what happens in the

  endgame of the Afghan war or how present disagreements between Washington

  and Islamabad are resolved, Pakistan’s enormous neighbors to the east – India

  and China – will occupy an increasing share of U.S. attention. Rather than

  reprising the “AfPak” framework of the early Obama administration, in which

  Pakistan and Afghanistan were lumped together, the future should require

  Washington to think in the “quadrilateral” terms of connections between

  China, India, Pakistan, and the United States. Together, these will be four

  of the world’s largest countries by population, all nuclear powers, and all with

  established – at times conflicting – interests in the heart of Asia.

  global power shift: china’s rise

  With the benefit of hindsight, historians will frame the early twenty-first century

  as the beginning of a new era defined not by Iraq, Afghanistan, or al-Qaeda,

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  From the Outside-In

  173

  but by the reemergence of the Asia-Pacific region. Its central protagonist will

  be China, a state that – after hundreds of years in the shadow of the West – is

  re-emerging to assume a role of power and leadership.

  A visit to Pudong, the urban district across the river from Old Shanghai,

  gives a visceral sense for China’s rapid ascent. Built on farmlands starting

  in the early 1990s, Pudong alone now boasts a population of 5 million, a

  gross domestic product (GDP) larger than that of Croatia, and one of the

  world’s most dramatic skylines, especially at night when the bulbous forms

  of the soaring Oriental Pearl television tower are illuminated in garish hues.9

  Bankers know it as the home of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, where the

 

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