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By Anirudh Prakash
The Bush administration has expressed its "displeasure" with the Afghan President, Mr. Hamid Karzai, as it has failed to give a corruption free administration to people in that strife-torn country. Mr. Karzai's brother has been accused of amassing wealth by cultivation of opium plants, which are refined in Pakistan and exported to the West. What has really angered Americans is Mr. Karzai's soft approach towards Taliban militants, and holding talks with the representatives of Mullah Omar. Mr. Karzai has also been talking to the newly elected leaders of Pakistan government to be mediators. When the Bush administration is engaged in a "do-and-die battle" in Afghanistan Mr. Karzai's "double speak" is bound to create misgivings in the mind of his American allies.
The fight against what it loves to describe as global terror is a total war to the US administration. National frontiers are irrelevant in the conduct of this war. As in Iraq, the much-touted invasion forces in Afghanistan too have been of little avail. The Taliban were driven out of the main towns, Kabul and Kandahar were 'captured' by American troops, a puppet government was duly installed. None of this has disturbed the underpinning of reality. The Taliban reorganized themselves in no time. They are once more omnipresent, here, there and everywhere, in Afghanistan. The Hamid Karzai regime has only a token presence in Kabul. Even the capital's thoroughfares do not offer safe pasture to either American personnel or US-leaning members of the diplomatic corps though.
Emulating the Americans, the Taliban too have learnt to penetrate formal national borders; they have infiltrated, extensively, into Pakistan. Peshawar, in any case, has remained a free bazaar for AK rifles and similar other accoutrements of warfare for at least a score of years. Besides, the growth of indigenously nurtured anti-American sentiment has been inevitable in the wake of the US administration's grand declaration of the resolve to obliterate Islamic terror. With every emerging story of American military strikes in Iraq or Afghanistan, emotions surge a little further in Pakistan. The entire country is now not far from being a cordial reception centre for eager beaver Taliban zealots. Scratch a Pakistani mind: one half of it leans in the direction of liberal democracy and the lure of material comforts snuggling up to Americans can supply, the other half is ideologically identified with the Taliban and jumps in joy as tidings reach of Americans receiving a bloody nose in any part of the world.
The Americans, for understandable reasons, are not prepared to put up with this kind of situation. As Pakistanis slowly feel their way towards establishing a functional democracy, strategists work overtime in Washington, to take cognizance of the new realities unfolding in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad; Peshawar perhaps has long since been written off as a lost cause.
Why flinch from facing facts - most Pakistanis would like to turn a Nelson's eye on Taliban infiltration into their territory. Some latent sympathy for the Taliban cause apart, they do not quite grasp the rationale of fighting other people's war. The Americans at the other end are not prepared to put up with any defiance of the covenants of the strategic alliance sealed long years ago. They have a number of 'advisory' kind of military and air force installations on the soil of Pakistan. Once convinced that Taliban hordes have crossed the border and are operating from within Pakistan, they cannot be deterred from launching a merciless counter-attack without caring a bit about Islamabad's susceptibilities. Mr. Ten per cent Zardari has recently been installed as the country's president again only after his name was cleared with the US administration. Both civil and military authorities in Pakistan may, for the sake of form, post squeaky protests against American violation of their national sovereignty. They however know their protests are for the birds. The Americans mean business, and they are conversant with the fine print of the strategic alliance. It is again a historical process that has taken over. Give or take another five years, Pakistan would be as indescribably devastated a land as Iraq or Afghanistan is; global terror calls for global annihilation.
As the years roll by, Talibani penetration into Pakistan is bound to be increasingly more overt. Pakistan will become a replica of Afghanistan - a squalid no man's land, but on a vastly larger scale; the Taliban's suicide-bomber squads will compete for superiority with American air and land strikes. Before Indian authorities are even aware of what is happening, advance Taliban units could start operating along chunks of the Pakistan-India border, from the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir down to the Gulf of Kutch. Firmly ensconced in the American camp, New Delhi would not be able to afford not to accept the proposition of global terror being synonymous with Taliban terror and the enemy of the US ipso facto the enemy of India.
Anticipating the sequel is child's play. Since, by virtue of the strategic alliance, the Taliban would be India's declared enemy, they could be relied upon to return the compliment. They would now feel no compunction to infiltrate across the Pakistan-India border and set up clandestine dens. India's official security outfit has been vigorously promoting the thesis of local militants having intimate links with external agents. It would then very nearly be a case of demand creating its own supply; those disgruntled over Kashmir and the "minority bashing" would join ranks with the Taliban.
In these circumstances, there is a possibility of joint operation from Indian soil against the Taliban. Official American eagerness to enter into alliances of this nature has always been based on the hope of increasing the effectiveness of the war against the global enemy. Fifty years ago, the Soviet Union was that enemy, now it is the Taliban. Once the strategic alliance is safely tucked in, India can hardly avoid being turned into an actual theatre of the global war. That is what transition from non-alignment to alignment spells. INAV
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