Round The World

New Delhi, 21 August 2012

Too Many Cooks

Pak: WHAT’S GOING ON?

By Monish Tourangbam

Associate Fellow, Observer Research Foundation

Militants have yet again carried out a bold attack on one of Pakistan’s most sensitive and heavily guarded air force bases. Thereby, raising serious questions over the deteriorating security situation in the country. Reports that the Minhas airbase at Kamra, just 40 kilometres away from Capital Islamabad, housed some nuclear warheads significantly added to fears that maybe Pakistan had reached a point where its nuclear weapons were not safe anymore.

But for now, these suspicions have been led to rest by Pakistani officials who maintain that the country’s nuclear arsenal is absolutely secure and the Minhas air base did not house nuclear weapons as suspected.

Nonetheless, the repeated assaults on some of Pakistan’s most fortified places have only amplified the lack of confidence in Islamabad’s ability to safeguard its most prized weapon and coveted technologies like American made F-16s and Chinese made JF-17 fighter planes.  

Importantly, some of the most secured locations of all three services have been attacked by insurgents including the General Military Headquarters at Rawalpindi and the Mehran Naval base in Karachi (at least two American built PC3-Orion aircraft were destroyed in this attack) recently.

Pertinently, since the American Navy Seals operations which killed Osama Bin Laden at garrison town Abottabad and the continuing drone strikes on militants killing many, the magnified muscular image of the Pakistani Army has got a serious drubbing within Pakistan and abroad.

Remember, Pakistan became a major ally of the US in its war on terror but it decided to play its own cards to sustain various groups which it could use later for its own designs in Afghanistan when the Western forces eventually withdrew.

Though not consequential, it is interesting to note that the Kamra air base attack came just two days after Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani reiterated his country’s commitment to fight terrorism. As also, speculations of a new campaign against militants in North Waziristan, haven to the dreaded Haqqani network.

Recall, also the Kamra base had been attacked twice earlier ---- in 2007 when a suicide bomber hit a bus near its entrance and again in 2008 when militants fired several rockets into the base.

Undoubtedly, fundamentalist elements in the army and society have definitely produced a complex concoction in Pakistan whereby the State faces the wrath of insurgents groups who want to unsettle the army’s top brass in Rawalpindi and the political leadership in Islamabad. Leaving Pakistan in dire straits with a host of destabilising issues, thus strangling any chances of growth and security in the country.

For one, the political churning at the Centre over the future of President Asif Ali Zardari accused of high level corruption continues to throw politics off balance in the country. The fight between the Legislature and the Judiciary that has already claimed former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as a victim continues to hang like a razor on the neck of current Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. Compounded by relations between the military and Government becoming sour, with the ramifications of the ‘Memogate’ scandal still fresh.

Moreover, Pakistan’s relations with its major aid supplier, US, continue to be at best edgy, notwithstanding some recent patch ups like opening of the NATO supply line. And, despite all the optimism being flaunted vis-à-vis Indo-Pakistan relations, it still succumbs to terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil, and India’s demands to fast track the process of bringing to book 26/11 attacks perpetrators specially those elements of Pakistani military intelligence allegedly involved.

Besides, reports abound of Hindu minority refugees from across the border increasingly crossing over to India alleging mistreatment and lack of security. Add to this, rumours spread by Pakistan through social networking sites threatening to target people from India’s North-Eastern region living in metro cities resulted in a mass exodus.

Undeniably, Pakistan is getting things wrong everywhere resulting in the country standing at a critical juncture. Fumbling for direction towards growth, security and a positive image in the comity of nations.

Definitely, Pakistan’s double edged game of joining America’s war on terror, promising to fight terrorism and simultaneously supporting and sustaining militant groups to serve its geo-strategic designs in the region has backfired. Thereby, posing the most serious challenge to its own security and development.

The multiple attacks carried out by non-State fundamentalist insurgents like the Pakistani Taliban have wreaked havoc and thrown the security Establishment scampering for a way out of the mess, which continues to elude.

In fact, wherever Pakistan’s nuclear warheads are stored and no matter how secure they are, they must be under the supervision and control of the Pakistan military. And, with its military suffering some humiliating security breaches in some of its most secured locations of late, questions are being raised as to how far fundamentalist elements have managed to infiltrate the military and what it portends for Pakistan’s security and for the region’s security, especially for India which remains its prized enemy.

As it stands, Pakistan has been tethering on the verge of becoming a failed State for sometime wherein it needs to look for ways to overcome its internal problems before harbouring ambitions of influencing the strategic situation in the region.

Clearly, Pakistan is at the crossroads struggling to find the basis of its existence as a nation-State. The idea of Pakistan was scripted as an anti-thesis to India, a nation founded on the basis of religious identity. And as the country progressed towards becoming a full-fledged country, hatred for India became its ideology. When the Cold War started, Pakistan got sucked into the Western alliance in return for aid, to help increase its military might which could stand against India.

Consequently, as the army’s influence increased, its Chief became the king-maker. Indeed, history stands testimony that no civilian Government has ever completed its full term and military coups have decided the political fate of the country.

So, what does Pakistan stand for? Is it a theocracy? A democracy? Or a military dictatorship? Do the Islamic fundamentalist elements rule the roost now? Significantly, Pakistan, cannot be categorised easily as it stands at a critical juncture of its history when different forces are jostling to define their own existence. It has just too many cooks, all of them adamant believers of their own recipes. What sort of broth could we expect in Pakistan? Only time will tell. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)