President Barack Obama’s special envoy arrived in Islamabad this week as his administration tackles what may be its greatest foreign policy challenge: a nuclear-armed country hurtling towards chaos.
Obama’s aides say Pakistan really ”scares” him. The country is threatened by growing Islamist insurgency, economic collapse and a crisis of governance as it struggles to establish democratic rule. Obama believes it is the key to pacifying Afghanistan and countering al-Qaeda and has appointed pugnacious diplomatic troubleshooter Richard Holbrooke as his special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
”We often call this situation Afpak,” said Holbrooke at a conference before flying to Islamabad. ”A new and fragile democracy has emerged [in Pakistan] … but the situation requires attention and sympathy.”
Leaks of a US military review conducted under David Petraeus, the American general in charge of the region, suggest Pakistan, not Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran, is Obama’s most urgent foreign policy issue.
Pakistan is al-Qaeda’s headquarters, whereas the Taliban uses its tribal territory along the Afghan border to launch attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Some Pakistani extremists who previously focused on Afghanistan have now turned inwards, spawning a vicious Pakistani Taliban movement that challenges the state.
Obama warned this month that the spillover of the Afghan war risks ”destabilising neighbouring Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons”.
The security situation in Pakistan seems to deteriorate daily. Last week’s headlines included the bombing of a religious procession in the central town of Dera Ghazi Khan, which claimed 27 lives; government helicopter gunship attacks that killed 52 militants in the Khyber area of the tribal region; the kidnapping of a senior UN official by gunmen; and the beheading of a Polish engineer abducted five months ago.
Democracy was restored last year after eight years of military rule, but many believe the government is paralysed. An unwieldy coalition and a Cabinet of about 70 ministers are jockeying for position while warily eyeing the army, which has ruled Pakistan for most of its existence.
Government decision-making is concentrated in the hands of President Asif Zardari, creating a logjam, critics say. ”We have a million problems. And there is perhaps a slowness to get the government off the ground,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, MP for the Pakistan People’s Party, which leads the coalition.
The government has been unable to forge a political consensus on the fight against terrorism, with opinion divided between political parties who favour military action and those who want to negotiate. No clear direction has been given to the army.
Meanwhile the economy, saved from bankruptcy late last year by an International Monetary Fund loan, is plagued by inflation and collapsing productive activity.
”The civilian leadership is weak and fearful of the inevitable in Pakistan, that it oversteps the mark and runs the risk of being removed [by the army],” said Rashed Rahman, a political analyst based in Lahore. ”It’s a non-functional government.”
The army has repeatedly shown that it will not bow to civilians on national security, refusing a government order last year, for instance, to place the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) under government control.
Armed extremists seem able to spread unchecked, with a Taliban-style mini-state now existing 160km from Islamabad, in Swat valley. Many Pakistanis are asking whether the armed forces are unable or unwilling to take on the jihadists, who are rapidly extending their influence.
”We say we have one of the most powerful armies, yet why can’t we even cut off the supply routes in Swat?” asked Bushra Gohar, MP for the Awami National Party, part of the ruling coalition. ”We’re patronising terror. The training camps and safe havens are still there.”
Washington’s priority will be getting Pakistan to take more military action in the tribal territory. As a carrot, Obama is promising additional non-military aid, with a plan to triple social and economic assistance to $1,5-billion a year. Western diplomats believe the military’s top brass, including army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and ISI head Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, are committed to fighting the extremists, but that there are problems down the ranks.
Many Pakistanis believe the Western powers are secretly supporting the extremists to destabilise Pakistan. And though most reject the Taliban’s methods, their message of enforcing Islam resonates.
Mosharraf Zaidi, a columnist for Pakistani daily The News, said: ”There’s no clarity in Pakistan about who’s behind the extremists. For some people it’s Raw [the Indian intelligence agency], for others it’s the CIA or the ISI. The idea that there’s political will in Pakistan to solve this is absurd. You can’t have political will when you don’t even know who the enemy is.” —