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The Pakistani Taliban threw down the gauntlet at Pakistan’s government following the attack by Pakistani forces on Lal Masjid, a religious seminary in Islamabad, in 2007. As most of the dead in the attack were from the NWFP, it infuriated local warlords, who blamed the United States for bankrolling the Pakistani army to do its dirty work. The suicide bombings in Pakistan in the past two years are a direct result of that.
Surprisingly, most anti-Pakistan insurrection leaders are former intelligence service agents who were serving Pakistani interests in Afghanistan and Kashmir. When they fell out with the government, they began a new insurrection in the border region.
The United States may have killed the top Taliban leader in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, in a recent drone attack, but the anger in NWFP is against Pakistani troops, who dare not step in the tribal areas. A new leader will take Mehsud’s place and seek revenge against both Pakistan and the United States.
U.S. interests in Pakistan have changed since 2001, when the main goal was finding al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The Taliban was fleeing from U.S. forces in Kabul to Pakistan, where sympathizers and supporters welcomed them. There the Afghani Taliban rested, recuperated and built training bases for a return to Afghanistan. Within two years of being displaced from Afghanistan they began their campaign to expel the United States from their country – with the help of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Although Pakistan has been receiving massive aid from the United States, Washington remains unsure whether the Pakistanis are genuinely on its side or whether they are helping the Taliban regroup on one hand while allowing the United States to use their territory to replenish NATO troops in Afghanistan on the other. The United States operates its armed drones from Pakistani bases, one of which is believed to have killed Mehsud.
From an international perspective, a mere 2 percent of the people in Pakistan behave like Westerners, go to Western schools, and speak the diplomatic and political language. The majority believes that the United States is out to destroy their religion and culture. The United States has never understood this, preferring to trust the smiling Pakistani diplomats and their top military brass.
The majority of Pakistan’s population support al-Qaida and the Taliban. This is the big disconnect in U.S. policy, which is widening as it gets more involved in Afghanistan and by proxy in Pakistan.
Now the Pashto-speaking tribesmen of the NWFP who humbled the British a century ago are ready to humble the Pakistani army today.
The British had to pass through the NWFP to enter Kabul. Their 30-year efforts to dominate the area during the 1870s were rendered fruitless by the forefathers of the present tribesmen. People of the NWFP are hospitable and inward looking. But when aroused from their deep slumber they can humble any army. The Soviet Union learned this the hard way from 1979 to 1989, while the United States is on its own learning curve now. Soon, Pakistan will also learn this.
Mehsud may be dead. Likewise, three years ago the United States killed Nek Mohammed, another leading commander in the area opposed to U.S. interests. However, neither death could kill the spirit of the tribesmen, who will recover and fight back.
Pathan is another tribe of the NWFP that fights hard, unlike the Arabs in Iraq. These tribesmen inhabit southern Afghanistan and the western end of Pakistan. Their numbers are more or less the same on either side of the border, making life easier for them and hard for invading armies.
Pakistan was very reluctant to enter this fight. But when Pervez Musharraf, the spendthrift former president of Pakistan, spent all the U.S. aid on modern guns, it nearly drove Pakistan to bankruptcy in 2008. In return for urgent aid from the United States, Pakistan became a total U.S. client state.
Still the Pakistanis were reluctant, as they wanted a bigger reward from the United States, which was Kashmir. But the United States recently persuaded Pakistan and India to hold peace talks, which had been suspended for 10 months. With Indian anger neutralized, Pakistan was free to move troops to the NWFP.
Yet this turned out to be Pakistan’s greatest blunder. The action has infuriated tribesmen, who talk of launching their own jihad against Pakistani troops. Some clever politicians in the area are also talking about a separate homeland for the Pashtun people on both sides of the border.
This is reminiscent of the call for a “Pakhtunistan” state by Khan Abdul Ghaffar, the last influential leader of the Pashtuns at the end of the British era. He never wanted to join the big muddle that is Pakistan today. His grandson Asfandyar Wali Khan today leads the only political party in the area and endorses the creation of Pakhtunistan.
It is quite possible that the free-spirited Pathans on both sides of the border will first expel the United States and then the Pakistanis from their homeland. Then they will declare independence with the support of the Baloch in Balochistan, which borders Pashtun areas in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Baloch have also been fighting for independence for decades.
The United States will remain engaged with Pakistan as long as they sense victory, but will run off when the goal becomes impossible to achieve. Their engagements in Vietnam and Iraq prove that. If a bruised United States backs off from Pakistan, the tribesmen in NWFP will wrest control from the Pakistani army and declare independence. The much talked-about Pakistani nuclear weapons will be useless.
As soon as the Pashtuns are independent, their neighbors the Baloch will declare independence and Pakistan will be truncated beyond recognition. India need do nothing, as the Pashtuns and Baloch will do what it has been trying to do for decades.
As for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, the United States will deal with them independently, as they are more afraid of them than India is. They may try to move them outside of Pakistan.
Finally, it is difficult for the United States to comprehend that misplaced aid can go a long way toward destroying a nation. U.S. diplomats have never been trained to look at issues involving culture and local customs.
In the case of the NWFP, Pakistan made a big mistake in withdrawing troops from its border with India and moving them to the tribal areas. Now they are engaged in an unending fight. The tribesmen have time on their side.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
