Geopolitical Analysis

By K.N. Pandita,

Ever since Taliban bounced back in Afghanistan in US’ war on terror, and the Pakistani Taliban aligned with their cross-border fraternity in the NWFP, Indian press hyped presumptuous stories of impending implosion of Pakistani state. All sorts of wild surmises are made to tell the unsuspecting audience that dismemberment of the failed state of Pakistan is round the corner. So-called Pak observers join their voices and leave the listeners in pandemonium expecting bizarre news from across the border at any odd time.

Nothing can be more comic and ludicrous than to make such wild surmises. A mature civil society understands that states do not fall that easy. The example of Soviet Union is something different. Pakistan is not a conglomerate of trans-ethnic nationalities as the erstwhile Soviet Union was. The rules of the weaknesses of a trans-ethnic society and its infirmities cannot be applied to a more or less homogenous state like Pakistan where religion and life style are powerful binding elements. 

I hope our Pak observers will summon courage to be honest and true in bringing unbiased commentaries to the people in this country. There are some hard and irrefutable facts that bind the people of Pakistan together to safeguard the interests of the nation. Apart from religion, Pakistan is the most important Muslim State in the world whose influence is extraordinary in the Muslim world and OIC. In particular, Pakistan’s relation with Saudi Arabia is very special, and any big policy decision in Islamabad that has international ramifications is never taken without consultation with Riyadh.

Pakistan is of singular strategic importance to the US. History has proved it and the US is committed not to let Pakistan fragment and go hay way. This has been the explicit desk-book policy of all administrations in Washington and Obama cannot afford deviation from that standard policy.

Equally important is the role of China in the preservation and perpetuation of Pakistan. China is a force to be reckoned with in regard to international policy touching on Pakistan. In fact even Washington will not deviate from a course set by China. For example, although the US has the strongest nuclear base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean not far from the coastline of Pakistan, yet the US could not frustrate the attempts of Beijing in helping Pakistan build the strategic harbour of Gawadar.

This being the situation in the region, it is futile to expect that Pakistan will get fragmented just because it suits some irresponsible persons among us. That is a wishful thinking and will never materialize. Those depending on such illusions would be advised to be more realistic and think of hard realities.

Pakistan’s economy is not at all in very bad position notwithstanding the global economic recession. An average Pakistani eats well and has a better standard of living. He is economically far stronger than any other person in the sub-continent. What is termed as current political instability is nothing new to Pakistan. Her society is used to it and has adapted itself to such vagaries of the politics of the sub-continent. Which country in the sub-continent is in a comparatively more comfortable situation, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Afghanistan? It is nothing less than naivety to single out Pakistan for an example of “failed state”. If Pakistan is a failed state, there is no success state in the sub-continent.

The issue of Taliban and NWFP is being blown out of proportions. We all know that even during the British colonial power, British Indian rulers had contracted a deal with the tribal chiefs in NWFP according to which they received an agreed grant per annum and in return guaranteed peace in the region. With all the turmoil that is in place in the volatile region ultimately the same formula will have to be applied by the US to buy peace on NWFP.

Actually a move has already been made by Washington towards this option. It has stopped sword-rattling against Iran and through backdoor channels is trying to use the good office of President Ahmadinejad to strike a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan including the Pakistani Taliban. President Karzai and Pakistan President too have an assigned role in the contemplated deal. It may be within a year that such a deal is concluded and AfPak issue is resolved.

It has to be understood that Pakistan was created as an Islamic state for the Muslim of India. Sensitizing Pakistani Islamists to the role of religion in shaping the structure of the state that was created sixty years ago for the Muslims of the subcontinent, it is but natural that Pakistani Muslim society will demand replacement of western manufactured penal code by the sharia law. It should have happened six decades ago. After all that was the basic understanding for the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s close association with Saudi Arabic has brought her many economic and political benefits. But at the same time, exposure of vast segments of Pakistani Muslim society to the sharia-run administration of Saudi orthodox socio-political arrangement has its impact. The rise of seminaries and its students in vast numbers has a direct link to Saudi system which has financed them lavishly. If Saudi can run the administration along sharia law, what should hold Pakistan back from following suit? In that sense Pakistani Taliban and other theocratic militant organizations in that country are within their right to ask for promulgation of sharia law throughout the country and dispense with the existing penal code of western origin.

Why should Pakistani Army resent promulgation of shria law? It has no reason. Pakistani army is protecting the Saudi monarchy. It has assured that monarchy of its services in rain and in sunshine. In the production of Islamic nuclear bomb of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia has had stakes and when the Pakistani Army or its ISI or its religious militias under various names succeed in establishing their sole control over her nuclear arsenal, it has far better understanding than flip-flop civilian leadership on how to assure the world of its safe custody. They do not need a lesson from either Washington or Beijing.

In final analysis, let us be clear that there is no threat at all to the integrity of Pakistan, and that a final resolution of turmoil and fighting in NWFP will come to an amicable settlement with the US promising a hefty annual support package to the tribal chiefs in order to win peace in the region.
(The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).