Frankenstein’s monster

Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf was fond of saying that the only way to resolve Indo-Pakistani problems was through “out-of-the-box” thinking. Although the retired general’s political fortunes are at low ebb, his countrymen could profitably use his advice to grapple with the nation’s formidable problems as the Pakistan army fights militants in the inhospitable terrain of south Waziristan.

Essentially, the biggest problem facing the country’s military establishment is whether and how far to distance itself from the militant organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba it has nurtured and used as a strategic asset against India and Afghanistan. Its dilemma is magnified manifold by the militants biting the hand that fed it. Various brands of militants — it is not always easy to distinguish them —  are now challenging the state.

For a time, the Pakistan army tried the softer option of deal-making, particularly in Swat. But instead of consolidating their good fortune in the valley, the militants became over-ambitious and set alarm bells ringing in Islamabad. The Swat operations followed and the army declared victory — how long lasting this victory will be remains to be seen. Having tasted power, militant organisations are answering the belated army offensives with the only coin they know: a series of devastating terrorist attacks on a variety of targets in several towns crowned by taking on the symbol of power, the military headquarters in Rawalpindi.

The army has two kinds of problems: its (and the country’s) fixation on India and the belief that American patience will snap and it will leave Afghanistan to its own (and Pakistani) devices. There is little sign of the Pakistani mindset on India changing in the foreseeable future. On the second problem, Pakistanis are seeking to extract as many goodies as they can from the United States while they conduct anti-al Qaeda and anti-Taliban operations.

The Pakistani establishment has a problem in prosecuting the accused in the Mumbai terrorist attacks as it wishes to retain the Lashkar and like-minded organisations for future use against India and Afghanistan, because it must look to the future — to the day Americans leave Afghanistan. What is complicating the issue for the army, which remains the main power centre, is that its options are narrowing. If the militant organisations it has funded and trained are challenging the very basis of the army’s power by seeking to appropriate more land and population centres to rule outside the ambit of state power, the equation has dramatically changed.

The army really had no choice but to take its military operations into the traditionally tribal-administered FATA area because that was the least it could do, given the generous financial and arms support it has received from the United States. Americans have been demanding with great persistence that Pakistan clean up the border areas with Afghanistan which serve as the base for al Qaeda in its operations against Nato and American troops there. But as colonial Britain discovered to its cost, bringing tribal societies to heel is to stir a hornet’s nest.

All indications suggest that the Pakistan army has not thought through its central dilemmas. It will perhaps take a generation to surmount the India obsession and the vicissitudes of US policy-making are still too many to forecast a likely departure date for Americans. The army, of course, is used to wielding real power with a fragile civilian government in office.

What we are witnessing therefore are tentative moves. Finally, the army has gone into south Waziristan in an operation expected to last weeks, if not months. The conditions attached to the bumper US civilian aid programme of $ 7.5 billion over five years have hurt the country’s amour propre but the army as well as the larger ruling establishment knows very well that there is a cost to becoming a rentier state. Partly, the state of play will depend upon the American resolve, or lack of it, to stay the course in Afghanistan.

The chances are that the new army-militants struggle — it is no coincidence that most attacks are mounted on army and security establishments — will intensify. In other words, the army will have to decide sooner, rather than later, to change their traditional mindset. It is all very well to plan Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan as one providing it with strategic depth against India, but when militants have become bold enough to challenge the army’s writ in the country, radical measures are needed to try to ward off the evil.

The problem then boils down to the army getting over its India mental block to plan ahead. Judging by present trends, the attempt will be to muddle through as crises pile up and the army undertakes fire-fighting operations at home while seeking to convince Americans that they are getting their money’s worth by Pakistan mounting anti-Qaeda operations.