Opinion

Why is the Swat Peace Deal Good for Pakistan?
By Ahmed Quraishi
Islamabad , Pakistan

The peace deal in Swat is confusing Pakistanis and Pakistan-watchers across the world. The central question is: Is the deal good as Pakistan says or bad as America says?

One of the classic examples of the confusion is this headline from the US newspaper, USA Today: ‘ Pakistan appeases militants, endangering itself and US. The Deal allowing Islamic law in key area emboldens Taliban, al-Qaeda.’

Here are quick answers and explanations that should dispel confusion, expose fallacies and establish the Pakistani interest in Swat and the tribal belt adjoining Afghanistan:

QUESTION: Why is Swat peace deal good for Pakistan?

ANSWER: Let’s admit it. The situation on the Pak-Afghan border is confusing even for the most seasoned experts on the region. Most self-styled ‘terrorism’ experts you hear these days generally interpret developments through the prism of US government and military interests. The media develops its perspective based on these experts, indirectly promoting US government interests. The problem with this interpretation is that it leads to biased analysis that ends up hiding important pieces of the puzzle.

Thanks to the biased coverage of the Anglo-American news organizations, there are many pieces to this puzzle that escape the eye of the public opinion in Britain and the United States, not to mention the rest of the world that is beholden to the Anglo-American media machine.

First, understand the players on the ground in Swat [and to some extent in tribal belt]:

Militants who only attack American and allied occupation soldiers in Afghanistan.
Militants who only attack Pakistani civilians and military across Pakistan.

US drones DO NOT ATTACK the second type, the anti-Pakistan militants. They only attack the Afghan Taliban that are giving the occupation forces a hard time in Afghanistan.

Pakistan ’s priority is to eliminate those militants who only attack Pakistani civilians and military, as in Swat, and also in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, FATA.

This is a major point of divergence between Washington and Islamabad.

The problem in Swat is that three distinct elements are fighting there: the Leaders, the Foot Soldiers, and the Criminals.

1. The Leaders: These are the shady commanders of the so-called Pakistani Taliban. Most of them are unknown, with no history linking them to the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. They are mostly local. But the secrecy surrounding their identities and the new ruthless tactics they have introduced in the region [throat-slitting, FM radio, hanging in public squares, and other psychological warfare tactics] show a degree of expertise in guerrilla warfare that never existed in these areas before 2004. There used to be small groups, well known to both locals and to security officials but nothing like these cutthroat professional guerrilla leaders that operate today across western and northern Pakistan. Some Pakistani officials believe that what they are seeing in Swat and in some of the other areas close to Afghanistan is something that bears the classic hallmarks of an organized insurgency, sustained from beyond the borders but using local commanders and fighters. In fact, the presence of well trained foreign mercenaries masquerading as Afghan Taliban and fluent in Pashto has been reported on several occasions. Pakistani officials have shared some evidence regarding this with the highest level of US military and intelligence.

2. The Foot Soldiers: These are the regular members of the militias in Swat. They are mostly local. Some of them are passionately religious, angry at Pakistani government and military supporting the United States, Others have been convinced that they are fulfilling a religious duty by supporting with these militias that claim to be Taliban. There is no doubt that tactics such as suicide bombings and the extreme barbarian methods used by these militia members against local Pakistanis were introduced by mercenary elements coming from Afghanistan. These gory methods are designed to make the local population subservient to the brutal militia. There are two other places where such methods were used. One is Iraq where the Americans unleashed their own terrorism squads that maligned the Iraqi resistance by committing indiscriminate atrocities. Another place is Algeria, an oil-rich country where the United States is supposed to have used the same tactics, in cooperation with the Algerian military, to convince Algerians to stop supporting the ‘terrorist’ religious parties that had won fair and free elections. The guerrilla methods are the same and the only common element between the two examples and the Swat example is US interest. In Swat, most of these Pakistanis who are regular members and ‘foot soldiers’ of these militias in Swat are misguided elements whose religious zeal is exploited by ruthless and professional guerrilla warfare criminals that command these militias.

3. The Criminals: Local criminal groups that have been emboldened by the chaos in the area. While they are all locals, Pakistani officials are astonished by the endless supply of weapons and money that sustain these groups.

QUESTION: Why does not the Pakistani military eliminate the so-called ‘Pakistani Taliban’ in Swat? Why let Swat fall?

ANSWER: There are two reasons why Swat fell to these criminal militias that pretend to be Taliban. First, the military came late. The army was busy on two fronts, the west and the east. It was not watching Swat, which was the responsibility of other security forces. Second, Swat fell because the local police and security forces were unable to match the organizational and material capabilities of these militias, receiving aid from Afghanistan. Well trained elements were sneaking into Pakistan in large numbers. On Jan. 11, 2009, for example, 600 fighters crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan to attack a Pakistani military base. These fighters were Afghan but were not part of the Afghan Taliban. So who were they fighting for? Who armed them? Who paid for them? And who sent them? Second, Pakistani military could and still can clear Swat in a few days but only at a great cost in lives of ordinary Pakistanis. The beauty of insurgent warfare is that it deliberately plants itself among civilians. So when the regular army attacks, civilian casualties will end up creating more enemies for the known force (the military) and bolster the case of the unknown and hidden force (the militias). The tactics of both Hezbollah and Hamas in south Lebanon and Gaza are two good examples of this.

QUESTION: The Pakistani military and ISI are involved in supporting the so-called Pakistani Taliban in Swat?

ANSWER: This perception is exactly what the demonization of Afghan Taliban and the creation of a fake ‘Pakistani Taliban’ is all about. Pakistan has supported Afghan Taliban, so create these monsters inside Pakistan, call them ‘Taliban’, make them kill ordinary Pakistanis mercilessly, and when anger builds up, point the finger at Pakistani military. What no one notices in the Pakistani media is that everything that the so-called Pakistani Taliban do ends up supporting the US government and military’s argument for boosting troops in Afghanistan and advocating US military intervention in Pakistan. And the answer to the question above is, of course, no. Pakistani military and ISI are not likely to support those who have on many occasions killed Pakistani soldiers mercilessly and decapitated their bodies.

QUESTION: Richard Holbrooke says 9/11 perpetrators, Mumbai attackers, and the Swat extremists are the same?

ANSWER: Mr. Holbrooke is either a novice on the affairs of this region or is deliberately promoting a confusing sales pitch that supports the military and strategic interests of his government in this area. The key players in Swat have been described in detail in paragraph 1 above. They hardly have known links to the Afghan Jihad, let alone any links to the 9/11 perpetrators who were from al Qaeda. As for the Mumbai attackers – if the Indian version of the story is true and if the Indian government answers a list of 30 Pakistani questions and the ‘loopholes’ in the Indian story turn out to be convincing – are from Lashkar-e- Tayyiba, which is a Kashmiri group that has been fighting Indian soldiers inside Indian-occupied Kashmir and has not been active in global struggle like al-Qaeda. Mr. Holbrooke is deliberately sowing confusion in making the above statement.

QUESTION: So if Pakistan signs peace deals with the militants, and US stops drone attacks, then what will work?

ANSWER: The US is misleading the entire international public opinion when it says that the roots of Afghan problem lie in Pakistan. The core of this entire problem is the US failure at political reconciliation in Afghanistan. This is the key to the entire US-made, post-9/11 Afghan tragedy. Armchair strategists cannot exclude at will a huge segment of Afghans from power by calling them ‘terrorists’. Washington routinely dismissed reasonable Pakistani suggestions for internal Afghan reconciliation in the weeks that led to the creation of a new Afghan government in Kabul in 2002. Instead, Washington allowed its policy to be influenced by elements that are strongly pro-Indian and bought the Indian view on how things should be done in Afghanistan [especially on punishing the Pashtuns] and how Pakistan and its military and its intelligence should be targeted as a means to defeating the Afghan Taliban. Even now, the US military is somehow not willing to recognize the vast indigenous support to the Afghan resistance. There is no way to eliminate the insurgency in Afghanistan without political reconciliation inside Afghanistanitself. Drone attacks and peace deals in Pakistan are irrelevant. US and NATO failures in Afghanistan are destabilizing the region. The mess in the Pakistani border areas is a result of the failed American project in Afghanistan, not vice versa.

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