Musharraf knows where bin Laden is, but he cannot catch him because there is a new agreement with the terrorists that the Army won’t chase them. The British and Americans are discovering that the genesis of every terror plot happens in Pakistan. Billions are being poured into plutonium processing plants while science and math are not taught in the madrassas where the next generation Wahhabis are being trained.
Citing all these, Manzoor Ijaz has a scathing op-ed piece in WSJ on Musharraf’s Pakistan.
Neighborly relations are equally dismal despite recent attempts to shore them up. Gen. Musharraf continues to court Tehran’s mullahs, raising Washington’s ire, in hopes of building an Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline that could fund a revival of the Kashmiris’ militant insurgency against India, and keep his restive Inter-Services Intelligence minders happy. His peace overtures to New Delhi, including his recent commitment to restart stalled peace talks at a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Cuba, ring hollow after evidence seems to prove time and again that Pakistani soil — and resources made available from Pakistan — are being used to back terrorist attacks against India.
Pakistan has lost its identity. It is a client state for sale to the highest bidder for the purpose that suits the moment: to the U.S. after 9/11 as the staging grounds for hunting down terrorists; to Saudi Arabia since the Iranian revolution so that Wahhabist Islam could flourish next door to Shiite Iran; and to China as a strategic counterbalance to India’s growing power. While this short-sighted strategy may help ward off complete state failure, it does not provide fertile ground for imaginative plans to realize the country’s potential. Gen. Musharraf must stop being all things to all people, and gather the resolve to tackle what is wrong with Pakistan — or step down from power
Pakistan’s neighbors no longer have cause to want to destabilize it, and, in fact, would prefer a strong and stable country on their borders. India is busy building a world-class economy; making peace with Pakistan over disputed Kashmir is an important priority in that effort. Meetings and dialogue between the leaders of both countries are important, but it’s time to end the talk and walk the walk. Jihadists are not the solution for Kashmir, a fact that Pakistan’s next leader must recognize from the outset. Wresting Kashmir from India by force is not possible, and militarily not prudent. Furthermore, a Pakistan at peace with India would no longer require “strategic depth” by controlling or manipulating affairs in Afghanistan.[Musharrafistan (subscription reqd)]
In all fairness to Musharraf, he’s not the first leader to behave in this manner. Since Pakistan’s independence, each subsequent government has done the exact same thing. It’s more a pathology then anything.
Tactical and strategic analysis apart, not many seem to be interested in the ideological moorings of the State of Pakistan, its foundational motives and its prima-facie justification for existence as a State…..all neatly rolled into one comprehensive idiom known as Islam. An artificial State created to give material shape to an ideology of hate, the very existence of Pakistan is defined by its committment to, and nurturing of, hate directed towards India. Indeed, Pakistan can ever only exist as long as India does, for without a common enemy to bind its disparte, unbonded factions, it would simply disintegrate into nothing more than flotsam.
Musharraf is only doing what every other person in his position has been, and will be doing, for just as the rest he understands certain realities of his own nation…..unlike most of the populace on this side of border.