By Dr. M. Ashraf Adeel*

* The writer teaches at the department of philosophy at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Email: adeelvc@hotmail.com

As Iraq is fast descending into a full scale civil war and Afghanistan is following the example, Tony Blair has announced a partial pullout of British troops from Basra after declaring “victory” in that part of Iraq. Afghanistan will go the same route because, after all, the policies of the US and its western allies are not different in the two countries. In both the countries, the US and its allies are supporting governments installed by them primarily through military means, and local insurgencies, premised partly on questioning the legitimacy of these governments, are gaining in strength with every passing day because of the devastation wrought by the ongoing “war on terror”.

People are dying in the thousands and cities, villages, and natural environment are being destructed systematically. The people of US-ally states have rejected US policies and their governments are under severe pressure to distance themselves from the ongoing madness. Even in the US, people no longer support the policies of Washington in this matter. November 2006 elections have signalled that unambiguously. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before the western governments still supporting Washington are forced by their people to change their stance or leave power. Also the US administration finds itself close to a crossroad in this war. Their strategy and policies are bound to undergo a drastic change in the not-too-distant future. The simple logic behind this claim is that their current policies have produced nothing but disaster for all concerned. The recent “upsurge” of troops in Iraq by President Bush seems to have failed in quelling the violence or reducing the intensity of the ongoing conflict between various sects and sub-groups.

In these circumstances one naturally wonders about Pakistan’s position in the days to come. It is generally recognised that a vast majority of the people in Pakistan do not really support extremism. However, because of lack of constitutional governance and democratic institutions, people in Pakistan do not seem to have much say in matters of policy and policy changes. As a result the country is made to follow the dictates of the US administration even more faithfully than the US itself.

The pressure on Pakistan to do more, even if it means killing without due process of law, remains unrelenting. (The US itself does not pursue its own policies under this kind of moral pressure because it can never order any killing of its own citizens without due process of law even if the most heinous of crimes have been committed.) Consequently, Pakistan finds itself in a curious situation. It must follow the US administration into the quagmire of failed policies at all costs, even when Washington itself is conducting large debates and researches to bring itself out of this quagmire through revision of policy.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s visit to Pakistan is a further step in the direction of pushing Pakistan deeper into the pit of “failed policies” by forcing it to increase military adventures into the traditionally no-go tribal areas. In this comical situation, Pakistanis all over the world are daring to wonder what their country needs to do to protect itself from the oncoming dangers of Washington’s failed policies in Iraq, in the Middle East in general, and in Afghanistan, which is our next door neighbour and whose Soviet-initiated civil war over the decades has shaken Pakistani society to its core. This is a serious worry because the Brooklyn Institution in Washington has just come out with a chilling report about the disastrous potentials of the current situation in Iraq. This report titled “Things Fall Apart,” starts out with the following warning:

“With each passing day, Iraq sinks deeper into the abyss of a civil war. The history of such wars is that they are disastrous for all involved. Asking who won most civil wars is a bit like asking who ‘won’ the San Francisco earthquake. Unfortunately, we may soon be forced to confront how best we can avoid ‘losing’ an Iraqi civil war. We hope that the leaders of the United States and Iraq will find a way to stop what seems to be an irrevocable slide into an all-out civil war. Given their repeated failures to do so, and how badly the situation has deteriorated by the time this report went to press, however, we believe that the United States and its allies must begin thinking about how to deal with the consequences of a massive failure in Iraq.”

In other words, major think tanks in Washington are already warning the US government of massive failure in Iraq with implications for the entire region and, without doubt, for the whole world.

In such an explosive and ominous situation, what is the national and international responsibility of an ally like Pakistan? Should Pakistan keep following the leader of the “war on terror” without asking any questions because such questioning, particularly in the case of Pakistan, are immediately interpreted by the “free” media in the west as well as the US government to be a sign of insincerity? Or should we ask questions and raise issues but all the same keep following even when the accusations of insincerity keep coming from all directions in the west? A third option for Pakistan is to stand up to pressure for the sake of its national interest and evolve a new policy of combating terrorism that suits its national needs and international responsibilities. The accusations of various types would continue but, in this case, they would be a price one has decided to pay for protecting national interests and doing what seems to the responsible thing to do internationally.

Continuing to follow the United States blindly would amount to plain stupidity because of the fast deteriorating situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. No nation can afford to follow its friends, even when they are as powerful as the United States, into a disaster of global proportions. Under the circumstances, therefore, sanity requires that Pakistan take its people into confidence and shape a somewhat independent policy of cooperation with the United States through the good offices of the United Nations.

Such a policy may be based on some realisations like the following:

1. The Iraq fiasco needs to be addressed at the UN level by the international community including the Iraqi people. The UN must construct a new plan for saving Iraq and the Middle East. Why can’t the UN retrace its steps, re-examine its resolutions and policies in the matter and draw up a new plan? Why can’t the United States or European Union play a lead role in this regard? Why can’t an ally like Pakistan take initiative in the matter, persuade the Islamic countries and shout for a reassessment of the role of the United States as well as the United Nations? It appears that Pakistan will do everybody, including the US and its own people and interests a lot if good by taking that route.

2. Afghanistan will remain unstable as long as it does not reconstruct its state system and does not provide basic amenities to its citizens. An unstable Afghanistan will continue to have spillovers of instability into Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan should insist that the US and rest of the international community pay real attention to reconstruction of Afghanistan before an Iraq-like deterioration in the situation. In the current scenario, where Afghanistan is receiving one of the smallest reconstruction funding in recent history, there is hardly any likelihood of a stable government in that country.

3. But Pakistan should try to persuade the international community that the task of reconstruction should be carried out under the aegis of the UNO after withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. NATO has no legal authority to operate in Afghanistan and its presence is increasingly being viewed as occupation by Afghans.

4. Pakistan deserves massive doses of international aid and investment into its infrastructure and complete rehabilitation of constitutional governance in order to stem the tide of radicalization. Regionalism may also gain strength in this environment and, hence, the spillover from Afghanistan may turn into a much larger nightmare. Therefore, Pakistan should link its cooperation with the US, and the west with its own survival through appropriate level of economic and educational development. Without a proper and modern educational system, from primary to university level, there is no way Pakistan can meet the challenges coming its way in terms of radicalization and obscurantism. Real democracy and true education are critical for our future.

Whatever their final shape, there seems to be an obvious and immediate need for a deep rethinking of Pakistan’s external and internal policies in view of the ongoing developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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