From the Eyes of Pakistanis
With the heads of state of Afghanistan and Pakistan set to arrive for crucial talks on counter-Taliban strategies in the coming days, it is important to note the driving factors behind Pakistan's delayed, often inexplicable response to the aggression shown by the Taliban in Pakistan.
Some excellent articles and op-eds have come out of late seeking to analyze the minds of Pakistan's Army officers and lay people and their attitudes towards the US, their civilian leadership, Army, and Taliban.
It is important to note the deep and abiding suspicion that permeates through all layers of Pakistani society towards its arch nemesis: India.
Although some of the conspiratorial allegations that have been thrown at India over the last 60 years have been absurd, they remain, none-the-less, an important facet for anyone seeking to seriously forecast Pakistani behavior in our current crisis.
Conversations from rikshas to living rooms to the highest corridors of power are driven by the following framework: Hindu India has always remained hostile, at some times overtly, and recently covertly, to the very existence of Pakistan. In response to our intelligence's involvement in the Khalistan separatist movement in the Punjab province of India, New Dehli has been providing massive sums of money and arms to separatist movements in the guise of MQM and rabble-rousers for a Free Balochistan.
Many Pakistanis are now convinced that the Research and Analysis Wing of India is surreptitiously providing arms and aid to the Taliban in Pakistan. A force that although midwifed by the Pakistanis to, among other things, fight proxy battles in Kashmir, now views itself as having been sold out by the Pakistanis, and are selling their services to the highest willing bidder - which happens to be India. Others are even convinced of the presence of 'uncircumcised' Taliban fighters, a term referring to Hindu special forces and intelligence operatives ensuring ongoing hostility amongst the militants towards Pakistan.
What else could explain the constant source of income and arms that are available to the Sawat militants? Although the belief that is publicly circulated amongst policy institutes in Washington is that the opium trade and local sympathies are fueling the ongoing militant economy of war.
Recently, with the military launching operations into the Taliban occupied Buner district, the MQM in Karachi has threatened to launch its own vigilante militant response to allegations of Taliban-inspired drug dealers and thieves who are supposedly seeking to oust the MQM in favor of the Taliban in Pakistan's largest city and port, Karachi.
From the perspective of the military, there is a concerted, deliberate movement to try and stretch their resources in every possible direction. Up to now the debate was whether to weaken the eastern border with India and draw troops to the Northwest for an assault on the Taliban. Then the on-going military occupation of Balochistan in the South-west was called in to question. Now the local politicians in the Southeast province of Sindh and its largest city, Karachi, are threatening to launch death squads that will most likely seek out innocent ethnic Pashtun migrant workers, and end by inciting ethnic strife in the nerve center of Pakistan.
This psychology of victimization and besiegement may account for what is perceived in the US as a paralysis amongst decision makers in Pakistan and a lack of trust with the Pakistani public. We are demanding that they concentrate their energy and troops in the west, and yet their existential threat has been staged in the east and separatists in the South for the last 60 years. Other conspiracies that limit trust in the US is an insistence that the Americans and Israelis are hell-bent on debilitating the nuclear capacity of the worlds only Muslim nuclear power; an assertion the claims validity any time the President, high ranking diplomats, or American press raise concerns about the safety of the program.
