Pakistan's Fiscal Failure and Forfeited Frontier

One ton of explosives in a truck driven by a suicide bomber, who rams it into Islamabad's Marriott Hotel –targeted at least twice earlier -says it all symbolically, yet again.
 
Pakistan's civilian government has been greeted with a plummeting stock exchange and financial reserve causing soaring inflation with 78 Pakistani Rupees making a US Dollar, and an unprecedented crisis owing to shortage of wheat, which was always sufficiently grown.
 
Its military having to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare more than ever before, is getting hit by both its own nurtured Taliban and Afghanistan-based US coalition forces, which, after years of firing precision guided munitions into Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), finally officially crossed the border on  September 03, 2008 with Afghan troops and repeatedly thereafter  in hot pursuit of Taliban.
 
"We strongly object to the incursion of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops on Pakistani territory," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, Pakistan's chief military spokesman. Owais Ghani, governor of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province, immediately condemned the attack in Musa Nika, saying that several women and children had been killed in the skirmish. Ghani called the cross-border incursion a "direct assault on Pakistan's sovereignty" and demanded a response from Pakistan's military.

Crossing the Afghanistan –Pakistan boundary is a considered decision of the US, which in recent  months had intensified pressure on Pakistan to clamp down on Taliban  and al-Qaeda fighters striking from FATA along the 1,500-mile-long border. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff's secret meeting with Pakistan Army Chief,  General Ashfaq Kayani aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, following several devastating setbacks for Western and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, is but a strong indication of such a major decision being conveyed to the latter.  The Washington Post stated that  U.S. and Pakistani officials released few details about discussions at the high-level meeting, which was also attended by General David D. McKiernan, NATO's top commander in Afghanistan. But a senior Pakistani military official with knowledge of the meeting said that talks between Mullen and Kayani focused in large part on the threat to coalition forces in Afghanistan emanating from insurgents operating inside Pakistan's borders and a possible agreement to allow U.S. Special Forces to begin ground operations in FATA.  Abbas, however, denied reports of any agreement for U.S. troops to operate inside Pakistani territory.

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has categorically stated that he advocates putting more pressure on Pakistan as he fears it is preparing for a war against India by using US military aid given for fighting terrorists. Sify News quoted him:"The US needs to stay focused on Afghanistan and put more pressure on the Pakistanis…..there's no winning the Taliban war unless Pakistan cracks down on the guys that are in Pakistan."

While American led forces have been bombarding targets with artillery and Predator drones, they have launched special forces operations increasingly daring and deeper into Pakistan, not only killing terrorists but also engaging the Frontier Corps and the Pakistan Army. Washington Post in April quoted Captain Chris Hammond saying that a great frustration was not being able to trust the Pakistan military, which "is corrupt and lets people come through." It was also reported that a U.S. soldier speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Pakistan's Frontier Corps, which mans several border checkpoints, is viewed as nearly an enemy force. "The Frontier Corps might as well be Taliban… They are active facilitators of infiltration". When viewed from this perspective it is hard to reach a conclusion other than the fact that America is already fighting an undeclared war with Pakistan on its border with Afghanistan. Washington Post further stated that the Pakistani government has shown an utter lack of leadership, is completely compliant to the US plan and has given the green light to the invasion of Pakistani sovereignty. Of course a major factor is huge funding from Washington, with which it hopes to line pockets for the next ten year, astoundingly complacent about its territorial integrity (www.hizb.org.uk/hizb/resources/issues-explained/the-undeclared-war-on-pakistan.html - 35k - September 5, 2008). 

According to news reports, on September 10, 2008, US drones fired ten guided missiles at a house and madarssah of son of Afghan commander Jalaluddin Haqqani in Danday Darpakhel area near Miranshah, in North Wazirastan. The chief of Al Qaeda's Pakistan unit, Abu Haris, his two wives and four guards were also killed in the attack, which killed totally 26 persons, including women and children. Pakistan Army firing back at US troops is really more for effect of not further antagonizing Taliban, Al Qaeda and other jihadis.

Former US Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill attending a conference on Indo-US relations at New Delhi, stated on September 4, 2008, that terrorists were widening their net in Pakistan, and that the ISI was using the Taliban to continue its hold on "strategic" positions in India. Describing Pakistan's future as bleak over the next five years, he said, "its civilian leadership has little interest in governing the country and is more interested in out-maneuvering each other…..The terrorists are widening their net and Pakistan's ISI was continuing to use the Taliban to hold on to strategic Indian positions as well as Afghanistan," he said. Blackwill recommended talks between India and the United States on how to deal with Pakistan. "There is no single issue which fundamentally affects the two countries as this", he added. Observing that NATO was not winning the war in Iraq, he said, "India should be a major partner of the United States in Afghanistan". Taliban, which earlier controlled 50% of Pakistan's land mass, has of late extended the same to 70%.
 
In India, claims of "Indian Mujahideen" notwithstanding, while ISI's much earlier established country-wide network of "sleeping agents" or outsourced Indian operatives are creating havoc, Pakistan Army resumed violations across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and parts of the International Boundary to support induction of terrorists incrementally since April this year.
 
Since becoming US' ally in the war on terror, Pakistan has maintained double standards of fighting terrorist groups 'biting the hand which fed them', but still nurturing those meant for operations against India, which specializes in remaining in a state of denial.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies)