The Threesome Tango: US, Taliban and Pakistan

Tango is a South American dance form where two dancers dance quite in an embrace.

However, a new type of tango has evolved in the Af-Pak region with three dancers in a deadly embrace, the Americans, the Pakistanis and the Taliban.

Now, the Taliban are not monolithic and are composed of at least two groups, the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban. The latter, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, have two sub-groups, the 'good' and the 'bad' Taliban. The 'good' and 'bad' divisions are convenient creations of Pakistani Establishment to pursue their enduring concept of 'strategic depth'. See this for details. Since the Laal Masjid episode, almost all the Deobandi terrorist tanzeems in Pakistan have identified themselves with the 'bad Taliban', thereby making it the most powerful component of TTP. The 'bad Taliban' could have easily taken on the 'good Taliban' but tribal equations, and sane counsel probably prevailed upon them from starting a war of attrition that could not have helped the larger cause of AQAM.

Even assuming that there exists 'good' and 'bad' Taliban with different objectives and worldviews, the former fighting a jihad to regain their land from foreign occupation forces and the latter an evil force to perpetuate Al Qaeda's ideologies in Pakistan, we need to investigate the latest developments in the last few weeks.

Developments are taking place on two fronts, the Afghan Taliban front and the Pakistani Taliban front. The US, Pakistan and the Taliban are involved in both the fronts. While the US is the prime mover in the US-Afghan Taliban-Pakistan tango, it is Pakistan whih is the prime mover in the Pakistan-Pakistani Taliban-US tango.

Just, what are the objectives of these three players ?

The US wants to have an honourable exit from Af-Pak without much blood loss to retreating troops as the pullout of men and material begins. The US would also like to retain some presence in Afhanistan to oversee transition from the incumbent Karzai government to whatever new power-sharing agreement is arrived at for the post-2014 scenario. The US would like to ensure, for some time to come at least, that the new dispensation that comes to power in Kabul does not become a threat to US and Western interests. A base in Afghanistan would also help geostrategically in a region where American interests are huge such as in nearby Pakisran, Iran or Central Asian Republics (CAR) or even Russia.

For the Pakistanis, the requirement is simple: a pro-Pakistan government in Kabul that would allow Pakistan to re-establish its concept of strategic-depth and remove Indian influence which had alarmingly resurfaced in the last six years in Afghanistan. Other objectives such as bottling-up Pashtun nationalism that could pose a threat to its Durand Line border with Afghanistan come next and way below in terms of immediate priority.

The Taliban also want to regain control of Afghanistan but on their own terms. They want to be seen as victorious in the end of a decade-long battle without surrendering their ideological beliefs. They want the Americans and the Western forces to be seen as vanquished in Afghanistan, and would want to reinforce their usual claim of Afghanistan being country which has the reputation of being a place where no foreign invader has been able to rule the natives, They would therefore like to see no foreign troop on their soil post the American withdrawal in c. 2014. More than anything else, they would like to trumpet two things: the only remaining superpower has been defeated through jihad and that Islam (of Osama's variety)  has won.

Let us therefore interpret the recent developments with the above paradigm in mind.

The US exit strategy in Afghanistan  has a striking similarity to what happened in Vietnam way back in 1969, not only in the fact that the talks were held in Paris then as it is happening now also, but also in the format, content, strategy and situation as well. In Vietnam too, while the US was leading the fight, several SEATO member countries had sent in troops as well. Of course, Pakistan had not. Situationally, the US was not doing well in Vietnam when Richard Nixon came to power in c. 1968 and there were wide protests within the US to withdraw from there. The US decided to train and equip the South Vietnamese troops, a programme that lasted three years doomed only to fail in the end, as in the Afghan case. The US also attacked communist sanctuaries in neighbouring Cambodia.  Secret and open peace talks ensued. The North Vietnamese were particularly tough negotiators and after nearly three years of negotiations, the two sticky points were the likely leader of the provisional government of South Vietnam and the withdrawal of the Vietcong from the South. In the meantime, the US administration was  developing the détente with China and the USSR. This development which made the North Vietnam leadership literally see red (pun intended) along with  a massive punishing air campaign of two weeks made the North agree in the end. The US also needed to engage in other foreign policy initiatives like detente which was expected to reduce not only military risks but also help bring huge economic benefits to the US and so did not want to be drained anymore by the Vietnam situation. The US was engaged with the USSR in the SALT-I treaty negotiations and wanted it to succeed. In c. 1971, the US also engaged with the Chinese through dramatic secret talks, helped by Pakistan, to normalize relationship. Ultimately, the US left Vietnam leaving South Vietnam to decide its own fate. The South and the North fought between themselves for another three years before South Vietnam collapsed and the victorious North Vietnam captured Saigon.

In Afghanistan too, a weary US (and its allies) want(s) to go back home, though there are no massive protests per se within the US, unlike in the 1960s. The US has not been doing well within Afghanistan itself though the drone strikes have been successful in FATA of Pakistan. The US has been having secret and open talks with the Taliban who, like the North Vietnamese negotiators, have not been yielding ground. It is not possible for the US to send B52 bombers and bludgeon the Taliban into submission and the drones are the effective alternates. Already, we see a big rise in the number of drone strikes in the first week of the new year. An important leader of TTP who used to send his troops to Afghanistan to fight the NATO/ISAF, Maulvi Nazeer, has just last week been taken out by these drones in South Waziristan. Many members of another commander, Gul Bahadur, have been similarly killed in North Waziristan a couple of days back. Like developing the détente with USSR and China, the twin supporters of the Vietcong, the current US administration is trying to replicate the same with the Pakistanis who created and now support the Taliban and without whose support, the Taliban would be easily decimated. The US Administration wants to re-focus its foreign policy relations to the developing situation in the East China Sea, South China Sea and the Indian Ocean areas. The Obama administration has therefore decided to ‘pivot’ itself more closely in the evolving situation in Asia-Pacific and a useless unwinnable Afghan situation is unproductive and a massive drain. It has therefore been training the ANA, the Afghan National Army, (along with friends like India) in the hope that they would be able to take over when the US left. It may be that the Americans know what fate awaits the ANA after they leave but they have to maintain a pretext of training them to shoulder responsibilities. Again, like in Vietnam, the guerrilla forces of the Taliban would overcome the ANA easily and take over Kabul and Kandahar, the two centres of power (political and religious respectively) in Afghanistan.

For Pakistan, nothing is more important than seeing the back of the Americans and seeing the re-installation of the Kandahari Taliban in power in Kabul. They would like a smooth transition without the debilitating internecine war that accompanied the transition of power in c. 1989. At times, in the early years of the 1990s, Pakistan came close to losing Afghanistan as some of its plans came a cropper, until the Taliban force was created which had no participation of the powerful but warring mujahideen leaders, Pakistan cannot afford to go through a similar exercise yet another time, what with its own precarious internal conditions. It must have also received strong advice from China, its all-weather friend, that instability must be avoided at all costs since such a situation would lead to civil war for many years. Apart from Pakistan, and to some extent China, no other player in the region is interested in seeing a re-emergence of the Taliban. Afghanistan's neighbours such as Iran or CAR (Central Asian Republics) are against Talibani control of Afghanistan. Other regional players such as India and Russia are equally disinclined towards such a development. It is only the US (some of its allies like the UK) and Pakistan who, for different reasons, prefer the Taliban.

The Pakistani Army cultivated the 'good Taliban', had 'peace deals' with them which were followed scrupulously. This helped the Pakistani Army a relief of pressure to that extent. But, times are changing now. The small component of 'good Taliban' has clearly outlived its utility though they might be close to Mullah Omar. It will be the larger 'bad Taliban' that alone can ensure peace both internally and in FATA and beyond. So long as division existed within TTP, the Pakistani efforts may be derailed and there may be a constant threat to itself. This is what Gen. Kayani meant recently which was wrongly interpreted in India as recognition at last by the Pakistani Army that threats to its existence came from within and not without. Pakistan now wants to effectively turn this 'threat within' to tackle the 'threat without'. The TTP has also been speaking the Pakistan Army's language of avenging the 1971 defeat. At the same time of offering an olive branch to the Pakistani Establishment, the TTP is also showing its ruthless face by assassinating the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister, Bashir Ahmed Bilour followed a few days later by the cold blooded murder of the 22 captured Levies soldiers who happened to be Shi'a. The latest Quetta massacre of the Hazara Shi'as is also by the same group. All these incidents sent multiple messages - that TTP would not go soft on its targets just because talks are initiated, that it will keep the pressure on the Establishment, and that TTP is sectarian with a very narrow extremist Sunni agenda that sees Shi'a as murtad,

The Pakistan Army has been unable to take on the TTP and their associates in the last eight years since they launched the operation against them. They have conceded ground to them and the writ of the state has shrunk in large areas of Pakistan where the Taliban have successfully established their rule. Places like FATA, Swat, Peshawar, Quetta, Southern Punjab, parts of Karachi etc come to mind immediately. They have successfully carried out violent attacks against the armed forces including at locations where nuclear weapons are stored, at the General Head Quarters (GHQ), airforce, navy and army bases with little counter attack by the Pakistani armed forces. The Taliban are beginning to considerably establish their sway in Karachi. At a political level, they have the overt support of all Islamist political parties and parties like Imran Khan's Pakistan-Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) which completely sympathizes with their demands and actions. A nationalist party like the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa based Awami National Party (ANP) has been literally bludgeoned into submission especially after the recent killing of Bilour. At a societal level, large scale conversions to Deobandism are taking place or are being attempted all over Pakistan. People who profess the Deobandi interpretation of Islam will provide overt and covert support to the TTP. At an international level, the peace talks between the US and Afghan Taliban have raised the question as to why Pakistan cannot have a similar dialogue with the TTP who after all are all Pakistanis. The US President has, during the joint press conference with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday (Jan 11, 2013) said options other than military hold the key for peace in Af-Pak.

The Pakistani Army, the main component of the Establishment, is therefore forced to adjust itself to the emerging situation. At the same time, it realizes that increased trade and contacts between the people of India and Pakistan, which Pakistan grudgingly allowed under pressure from the US, might, in the long run, undermine its strategic objective, that of comprehensively defeating India and destroying it if possible. Even if it may not be able to defeat India, it would be happy to see anarchy, violence and terrorism in India in the same scale as it exists in Pakistan.

Pakistan operates on cues. The green signal given by the US to play a prominent role in Afghanistan once again, the US green signal for pursuing options other than military in dealing with terrorists in Pakistan, the arrival of John Kerry as Foreign Secretary in the US, the politically-besieged, clueless and impotent Indian ruling coterie, the imminent withdrawal of the US from Af-Pak, the start of flow of funds and armaments once again from the US and above all the likely re-installation of the Taliban in power in Kabul and Kandahar will all embolden Pakistan to start another misadventure with India. The prelude to that has started along the Line of Control (LoC) already.

Is Punishing Pakistan a Solution ? - Part II

So, is there a case to be made out for the US to force Pakistan shun its wayward ways, renounce its implicit faith in violent jihad, give up on the export of terrorism across the borders into India and Afghanistan and increasingly worldwide {See the Terror Map here} , make it disband the terrorist tanzeems and their training camps, smash the nexus between the armed forces and Islamist and jihadi groups, rein-in the Pakistani Army and intelligence agencies so that Pakistan becomes a more normal nation-state, make it stop indoctrinating and preaching hatred in mainstream and madrasseh schools, and allow a natural and representative regime to take control in Afghanistan ?

Yes, there is, because everything else has failed and Pakistan is about to become even more dangerous than what it already is.

The reason is quite simple and is unfolding right in front of our very eyes. That is the danger of rising jihadi Islamism and its collusion with more traditional-looking political forces which are rising in Pakistan with the blessings and support of the armed forces. Surely, there has been support by these groups for traditional political parties even earlier. Neither the politicians nor the military can function in Pakistan without being seen in the company of these extreme right-wing Islamist groups. History is testimony to that. But, this time the situation is far more dangerous and critical. These groups never before came so close to implementing the extremist agenda and objectives of their ideology, as they are now. The 'Objectives Resolution' was adopted in the Pakistani Parliament in c. 1949, which indelibly stamped Pakistan as an Islamist country. The society and the armed forces were radicalized by Z.A.Bhutto and then Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in the 70s and the 80s. What Pakistan is about to witness is the next step in this evolutionary process, the seizure of power by an extremist sect of Islam dominated by Deobandi and Salafi groups through a proxy, Tehrik-e-Insaf, with the acquiescence of the Pakistani Army (PA). The internal situation of Pakistan has never before been so fraught, fragile and dysfunctional. The hopelessness among the people has never been so palpable, a situation that jihadi Islamists exploit so well. Among all these doom and gloom, there is one sense of achievement that has begun to appear for the Pakistanis, the thought of the impending defeat of the US at the hands of the Believers (just as they did to the Soviets in c. 1989) and the likely installation of the Taliban back in power in Kabul and Kandahar. That exalts the position of the jihadi Islamists within the Pakistani society. It is this sense of victory that will play a significant role in the drama that is about to unfold in the next few months in Pakistan. And, that will also be the victory for the more pious in the ongoing Third and the Fourth Jihads there over the kafir and the less pious respectively. {See this post to understand these jihads}

After the c. 2007 seizure of the Swat valley by the Taliban, when the rampaging Taliban came within 100 Kms of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the US decided to act in Pakistan. It decided to bring back democracy (or at least a semblance of it), install a more pliant Benazir Bhuto and forced a reluctant and unwilling Musharraf to accept this change. However, Musharraf and his civilian cohorts, who were increasingly under siege due to economic and other mismanagement (especially the judiciary), tried to threaten Ms. Bhutto so that she would opt out of competition. But, when Nawaz Sharif too surprisingly returned to Pakistan, Gen. Musharraf used all the means available to him to re-exile him. Thereafter, the only option left to the ruling clique was to eliminate her in the hope that the resulting political chaos and vacuum would enable them to retain their hold, especially as Nawaz Sharif's threat had been suitably averted. As the domestic situation and the international monitoring of the polls did not allow the usual large-scale manipulation of the results, the ruling clique had to lose power. The Pakistani Army (PA), which always disliked the Bhutto clan, had one more reason to feel intensely peeved at the turn of events, especially when Asif Ali Zardari took over the Presidency. Some of Zardari's pronouncements and actions soon thereafter, such as agreeing to send the ISI Chief to India immediately after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, unilaterally announcing a 'No First Use (NFU)' policy for nuclear weapons, his assessment of India not being an external threat as is usually made out or his attempt to bring the high-flying ISI under civilian control etc. were naturally disliked by the PA. He should have been even looked at suspiciously since the PA had always held a view that his wife, the late Ms. Benazir Bhutto, was an Indian agent. The PA tried everything possible to dislodge Zardari but he has been one-up on the PA and has tenaciously stuck to his post through clever political manouevering. Naturally, the PA is unhappy with the US for this situation. The fall-out between the US and the PA over the years, but ever so sharply in the last two years, has added to the grievances of the latter. The US has been rather openly blunt in matters such as Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, the Raymond Davis incident, the Syed Saleem Shehzad assassination, the hiding of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad, the Salala raid on a Pakistani post in the Mohmand Agency of FATA, to name a few. Therefore, in Pakistan today, the 'Establishment' also has become openly anti-US and is propping up a closet Islamist, Imran Khan, against the two traditional rivals PPP and PML-N.

The jihadi-Islamist alliance of 'Diffa-e-Pakistan Council' (DPC) has all the anti-American-Indian-Israel entities as major components. The political party of the Prime-Minister-in-waiting, Imran Khan, supports their strident call by participating in their country-wide meetings. These meetings have been attracting large crowds and speakers trot out fiery denunciations of the US and India. The US efforts to bring in Ms. Benazir Bhutto and later backing the combination of Zardari and Gilani, seem to have led to a consolidation of Islamist jihadi forces. The people at large have been also against the incumbent government because of the economic miseries. The US efforts to make the civilian government rein-in the PA and the ISI have not succeeded either though Zardari and Gilani did make serious efforts at that, something no other government, with the possible exception of Z.A. Bhutto's, has attempted before. The Memogate is a revenge of the PA against the civilian government and the American efforts. The PA is therefore angry with the US Administration and is increasingly turning to China to protect itself.

However, the annual budget of the US for c. 2013 includes a massive USD 2.2 Billion aid for the Pakistani military. In an approximately 4 Trillion USD budget, USD 2.2 Billion may appear utterly insignificant. But, it spells a significant danger for India. The US State Department offers the same old stale and patently false argument that such an aid will "provide a bulwark against extremism and support joint security and counter-terrorism efforts". This 'bulwark' theory was first propounded against Communism and was proved completely wrong as far back as c. 1962.

I quote from a document exchanged by Thomas Hughes, the then Director of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, with the then Director of Central Intelligence Agency, W.F. Raborn, on 21 July 1965, which has been recently declassified and is available in the National Security Archives of the US. ". . . We have bi- lateral security arrangements with Pakistan, as well as shared membership in SEATO and CENTO. Imperfect as any alliance system may be,there are certain minimum standards of behavior that we expect from any ally. We feel that Pakistan has fallen short of these standards in a number of respects, especially since 1962; even before that time, the Pakistanis attempted to divert the alliances to its regional quarrel with India and have encouraged other members to do likewise. Although In 1960 Pakistan had declared itself willing to send troops into Laos in support of SEATO commitments there, in November 1962 Ayub, speaking before a secret session of the National Assembly, asserted that Pakistan had no military commitment to SEATO. He added, and has repeatedly reaffirmed, that he sees India as a greater threat than international Communism. Such an attitude is clearly not in accord with the purposes of SEATO. . . In March 1963, and again in March 1965, the Pakistanis apparently offered their assistance to Peking In developing diplomatic ties between Communist China and.Turkey, Aside from countering our general objective of keeping Peking isolated diplomatically, the Pakistani action was particularly repugnant in ‘that it used ties established through CENTO'. . . . As Pakistan has loosened its ties with the U.S., SEATO and CENTO, it has increasingly come to look to Communist China for reinsurance against India. This has been a self-reinforcing process. Although Pakistan had never been a strong critic of China, the increase In Sino-Pakistani ties has come at a time when the confrontation between the U.S. and Communist China has been reaching critical proportions. Parallel to the decline in relationships with the U S . , the rapprochement with China can best be dated from the time of the Chinese attack on India, as we have noted, Pakistan refused to give any comfort to India at the time of the Chinese attack. Indeed, it has exploited India’s discomfiture for its own purposes and gone further by actually condoning Chinese behavior."

As far back as c. 1957, there were warning signals and the US Ambassador to Pakistan, James Langley described the US arming of Pakistan as follows: "The present military program is a hoax, the hoax being that it is related to the Soviet threat". In June, 1968, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Arshad Hussain, announced in the National Assembly that Pakistan had decided to pull out of both CENTO and SEATO and was 'no longer taking any active part in the military activities of these pacts'. It only found 'economic and cultural aspects of the pact as of some benefit'. Therefore, the 'bulwark' theory, then as well as now, is a big hoax. Pakistan neither was a bulwark against communism nor against jihadi Islamism. If anything, it has helped immensely with the flourishing of both of them. The arms supplied for fighting the communists were used by Pakistan only against India and Afghanistan. They were also used against Pakistan's own citizens in East Pakistan, Balochistan and FATA. A recent hearing in the US Senate on the Balochistan situation brings out the stark truth of PA's atrocities there. So, why is the US continuing with its fake 'bulwark' theory ? They may have their own reasons for that. However, the miscalculation being made by the US is that they do not recognize the fact that the PA has become insignificant in the emerging Pakistani situation. It will no longer have the power and pelf to influence the course of events for two reasons. One, the jihadi-Islamists will be able to move on their own steam henceforth and two the PA itself will subserve the jihadi-Islamists. The US efforts to 'buy' the PA will, in all likelihood, fail.

It is an irony that history has come a full circle and that too so soon. It was precisley to protect the arc from North Africa to India from being swamped by communism and to protect the 'wells of power' that the fading British Empire designed the Middle East Defence Organization (MEDO or the 'northern tier defence' as it was initially known and later to become 'Baghdad Pact') which the Americans took over, expanded the scope and called it Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). Now, that lies in shambles. Country after country in this arc has fallen for Islamists. Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Yemen have all gone to the Islamists. With the fringes gone, the core such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the UAE, the last bastion of the US, are nervous and are simmering. The US may not lose out to the Communists to retain influence in these areas, but to the Islamists who equally abhor the Americans. The pinnacle for the Islamists would however be the nuclear-Pakistan.

While the Islamic neighbourhood of Pakistan has become Islamist, the situation within Pakistan itself is teetering towards that. Unlike in c. 1988 when a similar Islamist alliance IJI (Islami-Jamhoori-Ittehad) was formed by the ISI, this time, the alliance wants to usher in its Islamist policies through its proxy, Imran Khan. Last time, it was merely to fight the PPP and the alliance was formed by Lt. Gen.Hamid Gul who has also spearheaded the formation of DPC now. There is a close similarity between what happened in Egypt after the overthrowing of Hosni Mubarak and what is unfolding in Pakistan now. In Egypt, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood and the even more extremist salafi party Al Nour have gained more than two-thirds of the seats in the Parliament. In Pakistan, the jihadi-Islamists may not be elected in such large numbers to the National Assembly for various reasons, but their stranglehold on governance would be similar (to that in Egypt) nevertheless after the upcoming elections. Like in Pakistan, the Egyptian government is run by the military commanders (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces or SCAF) and the military has enjoyed governance ever since King Farouk was dislodged by the Free Officers in collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood in July, 1952. Since then, the Egyptian military has also been running an economic empire just like the 'mil-bus' of the Pakistani armed forces and its officers have enjoyed 'entitlements' similar to the officers of the Pakistani military (though may not be on such a large and lavish scale as their counterparts in Pakistan). The difference between Pakistan and Egypt might be that unlike the Egyptian Army, the PA is already overloaded with officers and ranks of Islamic extremism, swears by 'Jihad fi Sabilillah' (which is not the motto of the army of any other Islamic nation) and considers itself as the 'guardians of the ideological frontiers of Islam'. It was the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt that collaborated with Maulana Abu Ala al Mawdudi of JI in the formative years of Pakistan. {See this post, for details} A nuclear-weaponised Pakistan would have finally slipped into the hands of the jihadi Islamists if back-door usurping of power happens in Pakistan after the next elections.

What are the implications of the developing situation in Pakistan ? This development puts not only India but also the region and the world itself in grave danger. The explosive combination of national power coupled with the possession of nuclear weapons and missiles is what the jihadi Islamists have been gunning for at least since Operation Enduring Freedom began in right earnest in the fag end of c. 2001. They will have it achieved within the next couple of years if the unfolding trajectory of events continues unchecked in Pakistan. Then, Afghanistan would be a true strategic depth for the jihadists, not for the PA. In the recent DPC rally at Karachi, the Emir of Jama'at-e-Islami (JI), the organization closest to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, made a startling claim that the jihadi Islamists who constituted the DPC were the defenders of the 'territorial integrity' of Pakistan as well the 'ideological frontiers of Islam', roles hitherto claimed by the PA and upheld as well by these Islamists. It would not be too far fetched, therefore, to imagine the PA turning into an accessory, an accomplice and a tool in the hands of the jihadis. That would be a natural reversal of roles between the PA and the jihadists. The Islamist arc from the west in North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt) to its eastern pivot in Pakistan would then consolidate and coalesce and the friends of the US in its middle such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Emirates would be simply blown away. The US will lose access to oil and gas in this region and will have to relocate its military assets elsewhere. Israel would be considerably weakened, and threatened too, in the immediate absence of US military in the Middle East. Iran would be at a considerable risk from the overwhelming Sunni extremist nations that will surround it. The world economic order, already under considerable stress in the last few years, would be irreperably damaged if the Islamists assume power in the Islamist Arc. One can easily imagine the tremendous pressure on India if Pakistan goes the Islamist way and its energy security is considerably threatened due to events in West Asia and Iran. Besides, India could even come under a nuclear attack from Pakistan. The Chinese should be under no illusion of any immunity from these Islamist forces as well. Its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Islamist Jama'at-e-Islami (JI) a couple of years back would be not even worth the paper on which it was written. There is a very real possibility that the province of Xinjiang will become East Turkestan.

The US has to atone for its colossal misconduct of the past by seeing the real danger that is emanating from Pakistan and has to brace itself for taking some tough actions. Its strategic interests will come a cropper if there is no clean break from its past (and even present) and a new policy is pursued with determination and a purpose. That policy must hold Pakistan accountable for its actions and demand course correction for good, including bringing people and organizations to justice for acts of terrorism. The US has several levers available to it. It can choose to give up its policy of appeasing the Pakistani armed forces, delay aid or even cut aid by strictly following provisions of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman act rather than the Secretary of State simply giving a good conduct certificate mechanically every year, pressurize Pakistan through multilateral financial agencies by denying loans or placing stringent conditions for loan disbursal including demanding good behaviour (just not asking Pakistan to control fiscal deficits by asking it to raise tax collection or electricity tariff etc.), denying or delaying delivery of spare parts for the arms Pakistan has obtained from the US, indict Pakistan severely for its gross human-rights violation against minorities, Balochis etc., reveal damning details of the involvement of the PA in terrorist activities against India and Afghanistan etc. These are some of the first steps that the US can take to show its determination to the 'Establishment' in Pakistan that the US meant business. If it results in no changes to Pakistan's behaviour, which is most likely to happen, it must launch into a more aggressive next phase in consultation with important stakeholders in Pakistan namely India, China, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the UK. These have to be discussed separately.

The inescapable conclusion then is that the 'soft' approach towards Pakistan had long back failed miserably and a fresh tougher approach is needed. The US has to lead this tough approach since it has been the main backer and financier of the Pakistani military and the jihadis that has brought Pakistan and the region to the brink. The US must not get diverted by Iran at this stage. It must not once again be like the US taking its eyes off the Af-Pak region and concentrating on a non-existent threat in Iraq that brough doom to itself and also let Af-Pak off the hook. The situation in Af-Pak is moving to extreme danger and the US has to decisively act now. This is a tough and long-drawn out process but there is no longer any easy way out.