The “abandonment” of Pakistan and Afghanistan is a common and painful theme in his mind. So are fates of the militants who are now operating against India. Pakistan will not do to the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and other groups what the USA did to the 25 thousand Mujahadeen the Afghans and to Pakistan. His country will not ditch them just because the world has become once again interested in the region. He knows first hand that one cannot turn yesterday’s heroes into today’s villains.
Pervez Musharraf is methodical in his summary of the security situation in Pakistan. We are where we are because at the end of the cold war, the funding coming from the United States and Saudi Arabia abruptly ceased and thousands of hardened fighters were all of a sudden left with nothing to do.
I think that the ISI and Pakistan Military also turned their attention and newly learned skills to India and Kashmir, building up its own insurgency for low level conflicts while at the same time obtaining and developing nuclear weapons to protect its existential interests.
Back in Afghanistan, the ethnic Pastun populations fell into conflict, gelling loosely around Mullah Omar’s brutal Taliban group and warring against the ethnic Uzbeks, Hazaras, Tajiks and minority groups which formed a Northern Alliance.
Among the Taliban and warlords, the newly formed Al Qaeda spoiling for trouble began training disaffected youth who may have missed the great jihad against the Soviets.
Once Al Qaeda succeeded on 9/11/2001, Iran and the United States assisted the Northern Alliance to disperse the Taliban Pashtun but failed to sufficiently integrate or recognize the non-Taliban Pashtun.
The disaffected Afghans along with Mullah Omar eventually regrouped from Waziristan in Pakistan. With help from their cousins across the loosely defined border, the Taliban pushed back in 2003 until the present, funding their war with opium.
Musharraf worries about simultaneous rising extremism in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. A grassroots unity of extremists where politicians have failed. He believes that Pakistan should have done more to placate, infiltrate and influence the Taliban and their fierce example is leading the poor, disaffected youth in the three countries to radicalize and talibanize.
He continues to nurse the old Indian chestnut. Nuclear India means Pakistan will follow suite and every tit of India will be answered by a tat from Pakistan. He seems to want an independent self governing Kashmir and he believes that President Singh and he were about to make important breakthroughs just Musharraf lost power in 2008. India’s continued action in Kashmir and Afghanistan courtesy of India’s RAW agency is heavily resented, as is the 25 division of infantry, 3 armoured and 3 motorized divisions along with the forward air bases on India’s western border. India will always be a threat, even when terrorists are the main threat.
Musharraf is military to the core. He speaks of negotiating from “a position of strength”, that “quitting is not an option”, wants to “saturate the area with strength”, by pursuing an “effect related” strategy, instead of a “time related” strategy, to “defeat the centre of gravity”; he claims to be “a man for peace” but his background as “a man of war” is all too plain.
In February 2010, I see that Musharraf wants to get back into power (though in a legitimate way this time). He commands a room but he would love to command even more. He knows that the Pakistan leadership is weak though he does not say so. He envisions reuniting “in thought and action”, the military, the bureaucracy and political parts of government (though not necessarily in the being of one person). Peace in Asia, the Middle East and perhaps the world needs “leadership decisions”, which are based on sincerity, flexibility and boldness. Musharraf believes he is that leader.
