Expanding circle of isolation

Columnist MB NAQVI writes about Pakistan's growing isolation

Two recent developments need to be taken careful note of: India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has taken the trouble of writing a letter to President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of the overthrown government in Afghanistan and head of the Northern Alliance today; he controls small parts of Afghanistan, all to the north of Kabul, thanks to the de facto control of the area by Ahmed Shah Masood. Indeed the Indian government publicised this letter. It expresses solidarity and sympathy for the Northern Alliance and condemns the 'brutal massacre of innocent people, torching of houses, perpetuated by Taliban backed by Pakistan on the people of the Shumali plains in Afghanistan earlier this month. What has to be noted is the fact that the Indian government chose to publicise its position on Afghanistan in support of the Northern Alliance and directly named Pakistan among those being condemned. Its ramifications need to be studied.

The second development is that Pakistan took the initiative of arranging talks as an honest broker in Dushanbe with the Northern Alliance and with the Taliban in Kandhar. It required toing and froing to Tajikistan and Kandhar three times and it is continuing. The result was as usual nil. Though the ideal of the earlier July 19 talks in the same place that are known as two plus six and the achievements in the two plus six talks go on being reiterated. They come together, sit, talk and disperse without any net achievement while every time it increases the acrimony between Pakistan and the Northern Alliance. The latter continues to claim of Pakistan's partiality and in fact non-sincerity. Pakistan for not necessarily obscure reason does not give it up as a bad job; it soldiers on as an honest broker despite the doubts expressed about its neutrality. There must be some compulsion.

Indian interest in the current fighting in Afghanistan and support for the Northern Alliance is not an isolated matter. The Northern Alliance is also desired to be sustained by a large number of neighbouring states of Afghanistan except of course Pakistan. Iran continues to be all keyed up against Taliban, though the phase of massing of troops on Afghanistan border has passed. But it has not become any friendly toward Taliban. The governments of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Khyrgistan and other Central Asian Republics are by no means well disposed towards the prickly Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Russians stand behind all these Muslim Central Asian Republics as a sort of political and military underwriters. The Chinese are involved indirectly in the anti-Taliban line up by way of their closer cooperation with Russia and other Central Asian Republics, Shanghai Five group.

It is not to be forgotten that while the Chinese want normalisation and more cooperation with India, the Russians - who are keen on a partnership with China - are promoting a new Russia-China-India axis in Asia. This axis is not irrelevant to Afghanistan by any means, even if it might not be the chief reason for bringing it into being. America's clear-cut supremacy and its strong role is the chief cause that brought it into being. Insofar as Afghanistan is concerned, Iran is now much closer to both Russia and India, not to say to China for other reasons. The old friendship between Iran and Pakistan now lies in more or less tatters and no one seems to have any idea of how to pick up the pieces.

All this translates into one major fact: Pakistan's much talked about isolation largely originated in its coup de main administered on Afghanistan between 1994-96 when the Taliban went out of the Pakistani religious seminaries and went through Afghanistan like a knife in butter conquering all they saw. The rest of the world was not amused. Why was it unhappy?

Here was a perceived unstable and insolvent state, Pakistan, disturbing the strategic balance by converting what was still a notional buffer state into what can be seen as a satellite of Pakistan, if not its stooge. Doubtless it confers a new imperial status on Pakistan and together with its nuclear status, it gives Pakistan a new standing altogether. The brutal fact of life is that Pakistan is not a credible power to acquire that status to which the rest of the world can reconcile and settle down. Then, there was another factor - by no means minor. It is the social and political face of Taliban. These young men represent everything that inspires fear and hatred in the west and they constitute what has come to be known as Islamic fundamentalism or militant Islam.

Taliban image has been so negative that simply no one is prepared to accept it as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan - and that too when they are perceived as proxies for Pakistan. Their anti-women actions of driving them out of offices and schools and confining them to their homes and the brutal way in which they deal with the opposition groups, particularly minorities, has made them a hideous social phenomenon almost on a par with Pol Pot men - commonly hated as those who can legitimately be despised and hated. Much of this dislike of Taliban has rubbed on to Pakistan because it is seen as their sponsoring power. That is the secret of Pakistan's unpopularity and isolation in the rest of the world. This isolation has two sides: the perceived regressive nature of the forces it is promoting and the lack of confidence it has inspired as an imperial power that can adequately handle the consequences of having converted a traditional buffer zone into virtually its own territory.

There is much learned discussion about the bad image and what can be done. There is much breast beating about the Ministry of Information having failed. Despite the fact that Pakistan does not have any money to spare, large schemes of imagemanship involving a lot of dollars and pounds are being promoted - largely in the selfish interests of promoters. While no one can deny that possessing good image does facilitate any state or government, there are other matters that require prior action. Moreover, imagemanship cannot be carried on in thin air. The image has to have some nexus with reality. The country has to have certain qualities if it wants to have the image of those qualities. Mere smooth talking by emissaries in foreign capitals or taking out supplements in western newspapers or sending parliamentary delegations cannot change the image of Pakistan unless some changes do occur in its policies that can be perceived by the rest of the world. Somebody has to investigate the causes of Pakistan acquiring a bad image and to adjudge what is the truth of the matter. These image mongers, if this term can be justified, should remember that the countries have come far too close to one another to leave any state really isolated or totally ignored for non-substantial charges. Whatever changes occur in, say Pakistan, they will eventually get adequately reported, analysed and attitudes determined in all parts of the world. An appropriate change in the perceived image of the particular people will follow. Doubtless, the process can be speeded up by deft handling. But thoughtless expenditure of money in pursuit of an image that does not tally with fact is not deftness. In fact, it may achieve the contrary results.

Earlier there were fond expectations based on the axiom that the facts speak louder than theories. Therefore it was assumed that the facts written on the ground by the Taliban will be eventually accepted by the rest of the world; it will acquiesce in it. Three years have elapsed. Except those who recognised them in the first flush - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE - no one else has. Indeed we are noticing a hardening of adversarial instances by governments all around Afghanistan. It would be legitimate and prudent to expect in the days to come more financial and military aid will somehow pour into the areas nominal coffers of Rabbani government that supposedly by it. But actually these areas are controlled by the men of Ahmad Shah Masood in the name of Northern Alliance. There are many ways of doing so and, if necessary, supplies can be air dropped to sustain them. Thus the war is likely to continue and the going may become increasingly tough for the Taliban. Those who are supporting Taliban had better steel themselves for greater burdens as the Northern Alliance becomes more assertive and aggressive.

Here the concrete evidence of increasing Indian interest in Afghanistan should be seen for what it is: a warning to Pakistan. At one end most optimistic expectation the fighting will be desultory and will remain confined to northern areas of Afghanistan. There would eventually be an effective division of Afghanistan into two parts: areas dominated by ethnic minorities in the north will remain under Northern Alliance and the rest of the country that is dominated by the Pukhtoons will remain what it is. But then there is also the pessimistic scenario: Area of warfare may expand and Taliban might suffer some serious setbacks, at least initially. And when Taliban begin their offensive later there might begin an effective involvement of foreigners. That is the time to be feared. That might be ultimately aimed at Pakistan. Already Pakistan is in the unenviable position of having to sustain Taliban against long odds. A collapse of their regime that one or two big defeats - actually as a result of the likely revolts of the populace that fears Taliban rulers rather than loves them - might bring about would mean tremendous losses for Pakistan of many kinds. Let us beware.

The strategic advantages that Pakistan thought it has gained from a quick Taliban victory now look like wasting assets. It does look as if that the cost of sustaining Taliban would go on increasing while Pakistan's ability to do so would not be increasing in the required measure. Enemies can see that as much as friends can. Pakistan has crucial but painful decisions to make. The outlines of the dilemma it is likely to face is already emerging into view: should it go on compounding its earlier mistake in letting the Taliban loose on the rest of Afghanistan and helping them to win the whole of the country by sustaining them? The other horn of the dilemma is also beginning to cut its losses and start running. The latter would be a painful process and would be tantamount to slaughtering the innocents. But the choice will always be painful.

Meantime evidence is mounting that the Indians and the Americans have converging views on two key issues: Taliban and Kashmir. And both tend in the direction of targeting Pakistan as the culprit. This part of isolation - being vulnerable to punitive reactions of the US - is far more painful and dangerous. It is true that at bottom the American displeasure has more to do with Pakistan's moving in the direction away from American's non-proliferation designs than with Afghanistan and Kashmir, though the latter two issues too evince adverse reactions from most Americans. Chinese friendship no doubt survives. But it is not as open ended as it seemed in 1960s and 1970s. China began changing its basic Kashmir stance circa 1974; now it only (theoretically) supports the Kashmiris right to 'national self -determination'. It is not an unstinted support to the Pakistan stance. Afghanistan has driven a wedge - thin end so far - between Pakistan and China, though the latter's friendship remains wholly one sided (irrespective of what Pakistan says or does) for strategic reasons of the balance of power in South Asia.

On the whole, Pakistan has increasingly become isolated. The air dash of Mr. Shahbaz Sharif to Washington, apparently in pursuit of damage limitation over the failure to help make peace in Afghanistan rather than the fresh row between the Sharifs and the Army over the recent disclosures made by Niaz A. Naik, actually underscores a crisis in the Pakistan-American ties, what with failure to sign CTBT, refusal of Mian Sahib to travel to New York and of course Afghanistan, Kashmir and Osama bin Laden. Efforts of ending the isolation must begin at home, starting with a more democratic style of handling opposition. Other things would flow from a democratic approach.