Will History
Repeat Itself?
By Dr M. Shahid Alam
Northeastern University
Boston
In
January 2002, when President Bush named Iraq,
Iran and North Korea as the first targets in his
‘global war against terror’ –
the putative ‘axis of evil’—
few noticed a curious omission. Pakistan was not
on the list.
The targeted countries – we were told –
sought weapons of mass destruction. In truth,
Iraq and Iran were targeted because they stood
in the way of Israeli ambitions – and they
had oil.
Although Pakistan has been unlucky in oil, it
could make stronger claims as a target for American
and Israeli ire. It is the only Muslim country
with nuclear weapons, a nuclear proliferator,
the Taliban’s chief patron, and a sponsor
of jihadis in Kashmir.
Why, then, did the US not target Pakistan?
Six years later, this question is not less pertinent:
and for two reasons. After being stalled by the
Iraqi resistance, US plans for war against Iran
are again gathering steam. If Iran is such a tempting
target, why not take a few potshots at Pakistan
also?
In addition, since their rout in Afghanistan,
bands of Muslim ‘extremists’ have
found safe havens in Pakistan’s northern
districts, as well as Quetta and Karachi. More
ominously, last July, the Taliban challenged the
authority of the state in Pakistan’s capital.
Yet, there has been little talk in Washington
or Tel Aviv about adding Pakistan to the ‘axis
of evil.’ This is the Pakistani paradox.
This paradox has a simple explanation. In Pakistan,
the US had effected regime change without a change
of regime. Almost overnight, following the attacks
of 9/11, the US had drafted the Pakistani military
to wage war against Muslim extremists. The US
had gained an army: and Pakistan’s military
dictators had gained longevity.
Yet, could the Pakistani military deliver on its
promise to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda? At
first, it appeared that it was succeeding. General
Musharraf boasted that Pakistan had collected
$50 million in exchange for extremists handed
over to the US.
These losses, however, did not deter the extremists
from regrouping; and before long they were attacking
NATO forces in Afghanistan from bases inside Pakistan.
As NATO casualties rose, the US ratcheted its
pressure on Pakistan. And by August 2004, Pakistan
had deployed 100,000 troops to guard its frontier
with Afghanistan.
The extremists now began targeting Pakistani troops.
In September 2006, in the face of rising losses,
Pakistan pulled out its troops from Waziristan
in return for a Taliban promise not to mount attacks
from bases in Pakistan. It was an improbable truce.
In reality, the Taliban had ‘liberated’
Waziristan.
The US was unhappy about the truce. And with good
reason: Taliban attacks in Afghanistan began to
rise after the truce. Since then, US has been
ratcheting its pressures on Pakistan to hunt down
the extremists operating out of bases along its
northern frontier.
According to the Newsweek of Oct. 8,
the Pentagon is now demanding that General Musharraf
“turn much of Pakistan’s military
into a counterinsurgency force, trained and equipped
to combat Al-Qaeda and its extremist supporters
along the Afghan border.”
This Latin American approach to counter-insurgency
is not likely to work in Pakistan. Their military
juntas were firmly rooted in the elites and middle
classes, set apart from the leftist insurgents
– mostly Amerindians or Mestizos –
by both class and race. The boundary between the
adversaries in Latin America was firmly drawn.
In Pakistan, the insurgents are Muslim nationalists.
They are drawn mainly from Pashtun peasants, but
they enjoy broad support among the peasants as
well as the middle classes all over Pakistan.
On the other side, about a fourth of Pakistan
army consists of Pashtuns; and mid- and low-ranking
officers are middle-class in their origin and
orientation. Only the top military brass identify
firmly with the elites.
In Pakistan, the boundary between the opposite
camps is not as firmly drawn as in Latin America.
As a result, as Pakistan army escalates the war
against its own people, this boundary has been
shifting, shrinking the support base of the military
elite.
If this is the irreversible dynamic behind the
US-inspired counterinsurgency, it is unlikely
that Pakistani elites can long sustain their decision
to fight America’s war against Muslim nationalists.
Recent events support this prognosis. As the military
has escalated its offensive, its reputation has
plummeted. Hundreds of soldiers have surrendered
or, more likely, defected. General Musharraf has
rescinded corruption cases against Benazir Bhutto
to court her party; but this has eroded the standing
of her party.
How is this ‘civil war’ likely to
end? In one scenario, at some point, an alliance
of Muslim nationalists – the fighters and
their allies in the army and civil society –
will enforce their own regime change, and create
an Islamist Pakistan.
This will end the civil war, but not Pakistan’s
troubles. Instantly, US and Israel will clamor
for a regime change of the hard variety: through
covert operations, air strikes, invasions, and
civil wars.
As these events unfold, the US may well decide
to start a war against Iran. This can only advance
the timetable for an Islamist take-over in Pakistan.
When that happens, the US and Israel will be engaged
in a major war along an Islamic arc stretching
from Lebanon to Pakistan – and perhaps beyond,
to the north and the east.
Is this the ‘clash of civilizations’
that the Neocons had advocated – and have
worked so hard to advance? Over the past century,
the nations that initiated the two major wars
eventually came to regret them. Is it likely that
this history may repeat itself?
Once begun, the course of wars cannot always be
foretold. Germany, Japan and Italy learned this
lesson the hard way. With some wisdom, the US
and Israel could learn this lesson the easy way
– from the mistakes of belligerent nations
before. Even now, it may not be too late to take
this lesson to heart, and avoid a major war that
promises to be catastrophic for all sides.
(M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern
University, Boston. He is the author of Challenging
the New Orientalism (North Haledon, NJ: IPI,
2007). He may be reached at alqalam02760@yahoo.com)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
