Posted on 06/27/2002 1:58:24 PM PDT by milestogo
Nothing reflects the contradiction in Pakistan’s national security policy more than the incident Tuesday in which a clash between Pakistan Army and Chechen Al Qaeda elements in the tribal belt left ten soldiers dead. This was not supposed to happen since these elements (Al Qaeda of various hues) and their hosts in Afghanistan, the Taliban, were part of a Pakistani strategy that was meant to serve Pakistan’s multiple security interests. But it has happened because that strategy had to be reversed; the erstwhile partners are now adversaries.
But while contradictions may have sharpened since Sept 11, they are not owed to the events that day or subsequent to it. Even if Sept 11 had not happened and there was no compulsion for Islamabad to immediately effect an about-face on its strategy, the relationship between the Pakistan government and the so-called jihadi elements was innately informed by a deep contradiction: the interests of a nation-state versus groups operating on the basis of an abstract notion of pan-Islamism. The state survives and sustains itself on the principle of raison d’état; the jihadi groups do not believe in that principle because they do not operate within the framework of a nation-state. Their refusal to accept geographical limits is both an ideological as well as an operational imperative.
But while this contradiction is obvious enough, there was another, lesser-known contradiction, too. The state wanted them for ‘reasons of state’, they played ball because it served their utilitarian, operational requirements. The state was happy to capitalise on their pan-Islamism and get them from all over the globe because that meant more trained and motivated manpower; they were happy because the exercise allowed them to network and put to test pan-Islamism in ideological as well as operational contexts. Thus, the contradiction itself, within a certain geopolitical context, not only made the relationship possible, it helped sustain it.
But there was another policy contradiction too. After raison d’état required expending the Taliban-Al Qaeda partners, a distinction was created between “Afghan-based terrorists” and the jihadi groups fighting in Kashmir. This, too, was raison d’état. The state may have ditched them in Afghanistan, but it still needed them in Kashmir; the distinction was, therefore, important and in keeping with the strategy. But it was a tough act, given the natural development of events at the global and regional levels, and one likely to fail despite semantic and legal/technical subtleties. So, fail it did and suddenly there are more terrorists around than jihadis.
The question is: Was everything wrong with Pakistan’s strategy? A categorical yes or no would imply a clear black-and-white situation where none exists, or existed. Every policy has its contradictions. Therefore, contradictions per se cannot be made the benchmark of a policy’s success or failure. Even so, there have to be some quantifiable means of judging a good from a bad policy. Broadly, this could relate to an assessment of the nature of contradictions that inform a policy – principal vs secondary – the costs, direct and indirect, accumulated over the years, and the policy’s saleability to other actors. For instance, how would one assess the United States’ Afghan policy of the eighties? Was it a failure, especially in light of the law of unintended consequences, since it resulted in subsequent mayhem in that country and gave rise to the Taliban militia? Or, could one posit the question, Brzezenski-like, about what is a bigger event on the scale of history: the undoing of the Soviet Union or the rise of the Taliban? If it’s the former, the policy can be said to be successful; if it is the latter, it would be described as a failure.
That may be so, but there can be another benchmark: Is the dog wagging the tail or is it the other way round? If it is the first, the policy is sustainable; in the latter case, it not only becomes unsustainable, it can put the dog to grave risk.
There is enough evidence to argue that the contradictions, even before Sept 11, had begun to work to Pakistan disadvantage. The tail, in this case the actors that Pakistan was supposed to have employed to advance its interests, had begun to wag Pakistan. This is what made the situation unsustainable. Operationally, there is reason to believe that these actors had become independent of Pakistan in ways that were detrimental to Pakistan’s interests; ideologically, they had begun to impact Pakistan, finding in many sections of the society, a sympathetic and corresponding streak. That phenomenon itself will require some hard work to reverse.
What makes the situation worse are two other contradictions. One is external, the other internal. Externally, the adversarial dyad in which Pakistan finds itself with India creates its own dynamics and threat perceptions which require a certain national security paradigm; internally, the military’s penchant to play a dominant role in politics creates another contradiction between it and civil society. Which of the two is the principal contradiction?
The threat perception from India forces Pakistanis to consider the India-Pakistan rivalry as the principal contradiction. But the fact is that a united nation against India – military plus civil society – does not translate per se into a realisation by the military to resolve the contradiction between itself and civil society. This means it may be increasingly becoming difficult for civil society to close ranks with the military. This was apparent when during the recent standoff the political opposition refused to meet with General Pervez Musharraf and demanded, instead, that he step down. Across the divide, the opposition that was baying for the BJP’s blood over the Gujarat pogrom just days previously, rallied behind the government and gave it carte blanche to deal with Pakistan. Why was that?
That was possible because, political differences apart, there is no principal contradiction between the political actors in India. The political divide in that country does not lead to issues of legitimacy in terms of staking a claim to political power since all the actors have a genuine claim to that space. The contradiction emerges only when an external force, for instance the military, usurps that political space, as in Pakistan. Thus, there is a qualitative difference between the nature and scope of political opposition to General Musharraf in Pakistan and that of the opposition to the BJP in India.
The political parties opposed to General Musharraf know that they are locked in mortal combat with him. The General has made his intentions clear. Not only has he self-elevated himself as president for the next five years, he has used the highly dubious device of a referendum to try and validate that appointment. His government has put in place a municipal system designed to undermine provincial authority and create a parallel power track aimed at a quasi-presidential system. Musharraf intends to make suitable amendments in the constitution to keep certain political leaders out of the electoral contest and give constitutional cover to measures aimed at perpetuating his power and the military’s corporate interests. If all this comes to pass, political parties and the process that invigorates them will amount to naught for a long time to come.
This is why the mainstream political parties could not, and cannot, risk mending fences with him without a fundamental change in his gameplan. In fact, in terms of threat perceptions, it can be argued that the General and the dispensation he is trying to put in place appear to be a more imminent threat to the mainstream political parties than India does to Pakistan.
This is clearly a contradiction that does not bode well for Pakistan’s interests, especially given its adversarial relations with India. But its creation is owed to the military. The current standoff between the political opposition and the military has given rise to yet another contradiction. The religious Right, which was the military’s partner because of the latter’s old policy – since reversed – has now turned against the military. The political expression of new adversarial relations feed into the principal contradiction between the military and the civil society. Technically, this means the rightwing Jama’at-e-Islami and the left-of-centre (both terms being used loosely) Pakistan People’s Party, in terms of their opposition to the military may find a common ground even as they remain ideologically apart. Thus, to the extent of the principal contradiction between the military and civil society, they would rest content with keeping their own contradiction secondary. This would not have been the case, for instance, if General Musharraf had realised that his policy reversal would make it imperative for him to co-opt the regular parties to sharpen the contradiction that exists between the JI (and the religious Right in general) and the PPP and which also exists now between the military and the rightwing because of the former’s policy reversal.
But such a course would have meant mending fences with the PPP, and perhaps also the PML (N), and allowing them to play their natural, dominant role within a political dispensation. A deal on that account may have translated in personal political space for Musharraf but not for the military and its corporate interests as a whole. Clearly, Musharraf is not prepared to accept the logic of that, which incidentally is also the logic of his policy reversal.
In the event, Pakistan remains under threat of wilting under the weight of its many contradictions, not because contradictions themselves are bad, but because they need to be constantly balanced and resolved in the face of evolving circumstances.
Granted, Pakistan would be better served by a functional democracy free of the presence of terrorists and the very people that the country had nurtured for years under both civilian and military rule. But getting there from here is not an easy task, and I think it's more likely to occur under the strong-arm tactics of a general.
But even if he accomplishes the enormous task of eliminating the jihadis, terrorists, and mullahs who have so much influence in the country, it will be quite another matter for him to hand over power to a new civilian government that is stable and will maintain his reforms.
That is his professed goal, but I don't know if it's even attainable.
Does anyone see a similarity to the contradictions between Stalin's 'socialism in one country' and Trotsky's 'world revolution'. Stalin won.
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