Defiant Pakistan Walks a Path to Isolation is by Amin Saikal, published in the Sydney Morning Herald of August 13, 1999. It had the sub-head: Islamabad's domestic and foreign policies are destabilising the region. Professor Amin Saikal is director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University.

 

 

 

Sydney Morning Herald August 13, 1999

Defiant Pakistan walks a path to isolation

Amin Saikal

Islamabad's domestic and foreign policies are destabilising the region.

The viability of the state of Pakistan must now be in question as it confronts mounting domestic and foreign policy crises.

Its Government is facing bankruptcy and growing internal disorder, and the country has within the past month suffered two humiliating debacles in its relations with India and Afghanistan which quite overshadow the current row with India over the downing of a Pakistani plane.

First, there was Islamabad's infiltration of hundreds of fighters into Indian-controlled Kashmir, and their subsequent withdrawal, under pressure from India and the international community, especially the United States.

To compensate for its defeat on the Kashmir front, Islamabad has been pressing for a military victory in Afghanistan.

In the past month, it has dispatched to Afghanistan thousands of additional Islamic militants (a good way to make sure they don't turn on the Government over Kashmir), along with many "retired" regular troops to bolster its surrogate militia, the ultra-orthodox Taliban.

This has enabled the Taliban to launch an offensive against the Afghan northern opposition forces, led by Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.

The scale of Pakistani involvement has grown so large that last week the UN Secretary-General's representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, finally broke his silence to voice extremely pointed criticism of Pakistan's role in Afghanistan.

However, as it has turned out, Pakistan has ended up with another military defeat.

The Taliban offensives, launched in late July, were decisively rebuffed by Massoud whose forces launched a counter-offensive which has not only regained all the territories which they had initially lost, but also inflicted a humiliating defeat on Pakistan.

They killed more than 1,000 Taliban fighters, including many Pakistanis, and injured and captured hundreds more.

Despite widespread reports of Pakistan's support of the Taliban, Islamabad has again denied any involvement. Yet it has done nothing either to interrupt the supply of manpower and firepower to the Taliban, or to prevent large-scale recruitment of young Pakistanis to fight in Afghanistan.

Similarly, it has paid no more than lip service to UN attempts to find a negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict. While it has publicly adopted a stand in support of a political resolution, in reality it has pressed for a military solution.

In the wake of its latest fiasco, Massoud has again called for a political solution to the Afghan conflict, but the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar - who in military matters cannot act independently of Pakistan, or, more specifically, its military intelligence, ISI - has responded by ordering further military action against the opposition.

Meanwhile, Islamabad continues to acquiesce in the Taliban's protection of America's most wanted enemy, the Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden.

While Pakistan offers the only possible route through which Bin Laden and his associates can get in and out of Afghanistan, Islamabad has repeatedly supported the Taliban's false propaganda claims about the periodical disappearance and reappearance of the Saudi. It seems Islamabad wants to use the presence of Bin Laden as leverage in bargaining with the US and Saudi Arabia.

The problem is that Pakistan's leadership does not appear to appreciate the way that the interplay between its foreign policy adventures and domestic orchestrations can only worsen Pakistan's position, and exacerbate the country's domestic problems and international isolation.

It is time for Pakistan's leaders to wake up and save the country from sliding further into the abyss, and avoid destabilising the region any further.

Professor Amin Saikal is director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University.