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A Shifting of Battlefronts? (Sujatha)

606px-Pakistan-Waziristan-Map Something rather strange was evident from the reports of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit last week to Pakistan. The articles suggest that her visit was not met with garlands and roses, but howls of protest and bitterness. What happened to the much-vaunted bonhomie of 'Amerika-Pakistan Bhai- Bhai"?

In a nutshell, reality struck and realpolitik happened. As President Obama mulls over the request for 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to fight what is increasingly turning out to be an unwinnable counter-insurgency and guerrilla war, recent press articles have been highlighting the strain that this has placed on the US-Pak relationship, with  barely any pious lip-service to the usual  'Indo-Pak rivalry' pablum.

Now is the time for plain-speaking. Mrs.Clinton was never one to mince words:

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Pakistan squandered opportunities over the years to kill or capture leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
While U.S. officials have said they believe Osama bin Laden and senior lieutenants have been hiding in the rugged terrain along the border with Afghanistan, Clinton's unusually blunt comments went further as she suggested that Pakistan's government has done too little to act against al-Qaida's top echelon."
…
""With the country reeling from Wednesday's devastating bombing that killed at least 105 people in Peshawar, Clinton also engaged in an intense give-and-take with students at the Government College of Lahore. She insisted that inaction by the government would have ceded ground to terrorists.
"If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice," she said, adding that she believed it would be a bad choice.
Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters that Clinton planned to meet late Thursday with the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to get an update on the offensive that began Oct. 17 against Taliban forces in a portion of the tribal areas near the Afghan border."

The shrinkage of effective control of the Pak-Afghan border has been a problem dating back farther in time than any of the controlling interests in the area care to remember. Nobody rules those zones, no country can claim complete sovereign control over them, just the warring tribal factions that have made their homes there for the last few centuries.

The Pakistani military has been happy to play along with the tribes when it suits, or encourage the decimation of inconvenient leaders and 'collateral damages' indirectly through the numerous drone airstrikes run by the US. It increases the hatred of the US, in that approximately a third of those killed are civilians, per some reports. The Taliban and AlQaeda inflate the numbers of the innnocents, the better to encourage fresh recruits. A fairly detailed analysis of how Pakistan pulls the punches is available here on a post by Manoj Joshi (Ruchira's brother-in-law, and a journalist)

Further credence to just how deep the wound runs in those areas is evident in this interview with reporter David Rohde, who recently managed to escape after being held hostage by one of the tribal warlords of the Haqqani faction. 

So, it's no surprise that Clinton's attempts to charm the Pakistani women fell flat:

“Frankly, it was a waste of my time,” said one assistant professor from the Fatima Jinnah Women’s University (FJWU) in Rawalpindi, who asked not to be named. “[Clinton] wasn’t interested in hearing the about the layman’s problems or the reality of our daily lives.”

That caused many, such as Shazia Marri, the information minister of the Sindh province, to leave the meeting frustrated that their concerns were not heard.

“Emancipated women in Pakistan have a clear point of view that did not come across,” she said."
…
"Many women, including Zainab Azmat, a resident of the South Waziristan tribal agency, currently lecturing at Peshawar’s Institute of Management Sciences (IMS), complained that Clinton’s answers were too “reserved.” Ms. Azmat added that the intention of the meeting was unclear. “Why were we here? What did they want us to ask? What did they want to convey to us?” she asked."

Was it a waste of the women's time? Or a clear message to Pakistani powers-that-be that old equations no longer hold?

The Secretary of State of the United States didn't need to indulge in face time that could have been handled by lesser diplomats. This may very well have been her sole respite from realpolitik, a vestige of holding on to personal relationships built during her days as First Lady, a sort of pre-emptive mea-culpa for what is going to happen to the comfortable world of these women.

"You had one 9/11, we are facing 9/11's everyday", to paraphrase one of the indignant 'townhallers' who came to meet her.

The "war on terror' (pardon the usage of a now-obsolete term) is now expanding in fronts, moving like a not-so-stealthy cancer from the hills of Waziristan into the once-safer cities and urban areas of Pakistan. Who knows where it is headed next?

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9 responses to “A Shifting of Battlefronts? (Sujatha)”

  1. Ruchira

    The Secretary of State of the United States didn’t need to indulge in face time that could have been handled by lesser diplomats. This may very well have been her sole respite from realpolitik, a vestige of holding on to personal relationships built during her days as First Lady, a sort of pre-emptive mea-culpa for what is going to happen to the comfortable world of these women.
    “You had one 9/11, we are facing 9/11’s everyday”, to paraphrase one of the indignant ‘townhallers’ who came to meet her.
    What did those women want to ask / tell Hillary Clinton? Why were they dissatisfied that she had nothing to say to them about their “concerns?” It is not Clinton or Obama’s job to set Pakistani womens’ lives in order. (If they tried, they would be accused of meddling) Their own government is responsible for that. Mrs. Clinton is not in Pakistan this time as the First Lady who may be expected to have a heart to heart, woman to woman chat with the public. Her mission is a political one related to war and peace and her audience this time is the government of Pakistan.
    Perhaps the women townhallers did not know that the 9/11s that are now unfolding in their region is the direct result of the Pakistani government’s own mischief over decades. As long as it was India and the west who were getting their noses bloodied, no one in Pakistan raised an eyebrow. In fact there was considerable support for those incidents. Now the same thugs have come to foul their own nests.
    Kudos to Clinton for talking turkey on her trip to Pakistan. It is refreshing to hear the Chief Diplomat eschewing diplomatic double talk and pablum and describe matters exactly as they are. Apparently gasps were heard in polite circles at her bluntness. I say, “You go girl!”

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  2. Sujatha

    I think that the ‘polite circles’ had become too smug in their estimation of the US policy. Now that it has taken on a more realistic tinge, they claim to be ‘shocked’ at her plainspeaking. I wonder if Hillary has taken a tip or two from the ever-forthright Madeline Albright on how to deal with the ‘honeyed tongue with heart of gall’ approach that has normally characterized the Pak establishment approach to the relationship.

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  3. narayan

    Thank you, Ruchira,

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  4. Ruchira

    You are welcome, Narayan.
    Watch out for another Pakistan post tomorrow – this time, the review of a book which attempts to explain why that nation is in a political and existential turmoil.

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  5. kochuthresiamma p j

    pakistan represents the tragedy inherent in the predicament of an ex colony which could not find a secular, democratic base for its nation building project, which, therefor, is foundationally flawed.the concept of pakistan originated in a negative statement – not to be part of secular India but to built a muslim state.
    pakistan provides the surest proof that secularism and democracy are the most compatible bedmates.
    ‘As long as it was India and the west who were getting their noses bloodied, no one in Pakistan raised an eyebrow.’
    too sweeping a statement, Ruchira. there is an unbelievably huge constituency in pakistan that did not/could not toe isi sponsored policies that encouraged terrorism. Only, in the totalitarian set up, their voice could not be heard.

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  6. Ruchira

    You are right, KPJ. That is an unnecessarily harsh and sweeping statement. There are plenty of progressive Pakistanis who are extremely worried about the state of affairs in Pakistan and want a democratic nation with peaceful, friendly relations with its neighbors. What I really had in mind are the higher echelons of the Pakistani government and military who for decades have blamed all the country’s woes on India in order to deflect attention from their own corruption, callousness and shortcomings.
    Even after 9/11 when the US put pressure, the Pakistani military brass apparently argued that India was a bigger threat than Al Qaida which is why they could not leave the eastern border unguarded and devote resources on the western front! After the Mumbai bombings, for a while, until irrefutable evidence emerged even from the Pakistani govt’s own investigations, many in the ISI and on Pakistani streets claimed that it was the work of Hindu fundamentalists. It is this inablity to look your own home grown menace in the eye that is to blame for Pakistan’s current problems with terrorism within its borders. When you make unholy alliances presumably for “holy” purposes, that decision is going to come back to haunt you sooner or later. As recently as in the latest bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the New York Times reports that there is evidence that the Pakistani ISI was involved. This was just a few days ago, even when bombs are going off nearly every day in Pakistan and killing innocent civilians, including dozens of women and children in the women’s bazaar in Peshawar. This tells me that Pakistan is fighting a war for sure. But it’s military often chooses the wrong battle.

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  7. narayan

    Kochuthresiamma : What is the evidence for the claim of “an unbelievably huge constituency”? With images of the Iranian dissident movement fresh in my mind, I cannot believe that even a huge minority can be suppressed altogether by a totalitarian set up in our times, especially since Pakistan is (arguably) less totalitarian than is Iran. I have always been suspicious of the facile view, often on display in man-in-the-street interviews, that a government can be evil when the people at large are well intentioned. In the case of Pakistan I am willing to accept the maxim that “the public is an ass”.

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  8. kochuthresiamma p j

    narayan, i must admit my statement was based on the man in the street interviews, interviews of artists and human rights activists and the occasional editorials of newspapers and (dont laugh)travel writings. while i cant vouch for the veracity of these, i wont write them off as wholly untrue.
    less totalitarian than iran? well, almost all elected leaders have been incarcerated at some time or other, forced out of the country to seek asylum elsewhere. The most charismatic leader that pkistan had after jinnah was hanged by a military govt. which got away scot free with the heinous act.
    Ruchira, i’d rather agree more with you that there is are a good number of progressive Pakistanis – a number which matters, which revolted against the removal of the judge and got musharaff out.The anti indian position that the pak leaders take is as much out of armtwisting by the ISI as from political compulsion.it is the military that wanted to wreak revenge on india for dismembering Pak. the democratically elected leaders would have been happy holding out the olive branch across the eastern border had they not been restrained by the army & ISI.
    i also believe that pakistan has become a no-solution mess ‘cos of the US intervention in its internal matters.Vietnam, iraq, Afghanistan & now pakistan.God save pakistan! i mean it. that’s so important for india.

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  9. Sujatha

    While the people of Pakistan may be largely well-intentioned, there may nevertheless be a strand of resentment running through even the most moderate minds. In my personal experience, the rivalry over Kashmir has always triggered knee-jerk reactions and bombast in occasional interactions with a ‘friend of a friend’. Maybe, it’s like a deep-rooted fear/jealousy that starts in the childhood years, and not easily eradicated from the minds, much as they might try to reeducate themselves over the years. It can make for childish aberrations even among the intelligentsia, when the fear card is played, much like what we see in the US where the likes of FOX news try to raise up hate and fear 24/7 among the viewing public.
    That being said, similar aberrations also show up in the Indian diplomatic approach to Pakistan, it may take the retirement of another generation of the older echelons who still remember the traumas of Partition and the Indo-Pak wars to try a less belligerent approach to rapprochement.

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