| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-Misc |
| User: |
"PakistanPal" |
| Date: |
06 Feb 2008 03:13:09 AM |
| Object: |
US-Pakistan relations: the four issues |
Ahsan Waheed (http://groups.google.com.pk/group/pakistan-pal)
US-Pakistan relations: the four issues
Four issues relating to Pakistan were presented by Ashley J. Tellis,
Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
before the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia
affairs on January 16. These concerned free and fair elections;
counterterrorism operations; US assistance to Pakistan; and most
importantly securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from falling into the
hands of extremists.
On the matter of free and fair elections in Pakistan, South Asia
Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Boucher, testifying before a
House subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, conceded
the possibility of the vote in Pakistan's general elections set for
February 18 being tampered with. But he stressed that the US would do
all it could to ensure a fair election by having teams in place from
the US embassy to monitor them. President Musharraf, meantime, had
assured the international press in Brussels, Paris, Davos, and London
that not only would the elections be free and fair, but also peaceful,
with the security apparatus positioned primarily to prevent any
untoward incident from happening. The consensus of opinion among the
political parties holding reservations on participating in the
elections all along has been that they would not be entirely averse to
this, provided a new and independent election commission overseas
them, and the security forces placed by the incumbent establishment
did not venture beyond featuring as a security umbrella.
Regarding counterterrorism operations, having launched a major
offensive against the Baitullah Mehsud inspired Al Qaeda-linked
Taliban in Waziristan, subsequent to their recapturing the Japanese
gifted Kohat Tunnel connecting the NWFP's settled areas with the
tribal territories, Pakistan's armed forces continue the fight to
consolidate their positions. This is no easy task given that Baitullah
Mehsud reportedly has 40,000 blooded guerillas at his call and, with
the collateral damage inflicted by aerial strafing along with
artillery shells raining down on the indigenous Pustun populace,
passions are inflamed with more youth joining the Baitullah camp by
the day. Moreover, if the US were to open yet another front in Iran,
as threatened by President Bush in his State of the Union, young Shias
in and around the area may well turn in the direction of joining hands
with the Sunni Taliban in a fight seen as a resistance to the US
occupation of Muslim lands.
On the subject of US assistance to Pakistan, there has been continued
questioning on whether the $10 billion plus (some say $ 20 billion
overtly and covertly) provided to Pakistan since 2001 has been
channeled in the right direction. If the essential aim was and is to
wage war on the Al Qaeda, which is alleged to have made the tribal
territories on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border its home base, it has
not. But to win the hearts and minds of the people who inhabit this
area, the $750 million figure earmarked to achieve the objective may
not be enough. And it rankles when such a paltry sum as the $7 million
for education promised by Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is
presented where combating the madness coming from the madarassas is a
critical factor. Nor does the European Community brushing-off
Pakistan's president effectively empty handed in Davos on the demerits
of his pursuing policy under an authoritarian title, rather than the
democratic dispensation, make much sense.
Finally, on the subject of preventing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from
falling into "the wrong hands", international opinion appears to have
reached a comfort level with Pakistan's military overseen National
Command Authority which overseas Pakistan's nuclear assets, fearing
only the danger of fundamentalism seeping into the armed forces or
into Pakistan's scientific establishment. Focusing on this, the
January 15 issue of the Wall Street Journal featured a repeat call by
four former US strategists, Henry Kissinger, George Schulz, William
Perry and Senator Sam Nunn, for the world to seriously focus on
nuclear disarmament. In brief, the four statesmen recommended a
reduced reliance on nuclear weapons through the extension of the 1991
START treaty, the reductions agreed upon in the 2002 Moscow treaty,
fortifying the means to comply with the Nuclear Non Proliferation
Treaty, and more serious efforts to implement the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty.
If earnestly pursued, this could herald a new beginning, and Pakistan
has shown good intent with President Musharraf reportedly having met
Israel's defence minister Ehud Barak in Paris, purportedly to allay
Israel's fears on Iran's intention to acquire 'the bomb'. But that
singularly constructive gesture could backfire with militants upping
the ante in the urban areas of Pakistan as shown by the presence of
the deadly Jandullah in Karachi, where the city's police recently had
a shootout with ten terrorists in a suburb reportedly killing five and
arresting two, while three are said to have escaped. With these sorts
of incidents on the rise on either side of the border, Afghan
President Hamid Karzai's contention in Berlin recently that bolstering
local security rather than sending in foreign troops is the key to
stabilizing Afghanistan pretty much mirrors Pakistan's view on the
subject.
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
