12:00 AM, March 15, 2010 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, March 15, 2010
The Pakistan case
Photo: AFP
IN Pakistan, terrorism has become an endless cycle. Consecutive suicide bombings in Peshawar, the bomb blast near Indian embassy at Kabul, and the Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on the army GHQ in Rawalpindi, one of the most sensitive places in Pakistan, raise questions on the effectiveness of military operations both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Doubts on the effectiveness of military actions in Swat, Malakand, Waziristan, along with recent terrorist acts in Lahore, is causing serious concern. The Indo-Pak blame game continues unabated. The recently held Foreign Secretary talks between India and Pakistan, reportedly under US pressure, produced differing assessment by both the countries. Albeit, it strengthened India's image of seeking peaceful resolution of disputes with Pakistan.
There is a school of thought in Pakistan which states that the US perception of ISI- militant collaboration is a result of India's "undying hostility to Pakistan as well as the US's intention of converting it (Pakistan) into an anti-China tool." They also believe that ISI's alleged involvement exists to explain Nato's failure to pacify the war-torn Afghanistan.
This claim is weakened by the report of General Stanley McChrystal's initial assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the implied indication that India should scale back its presence in Afghanistan because "increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India."
India's extension of more than one billion dollars to Afghanistan in financial and development assistance, and in training the Afghan police force and bureaucracy, assistance encouraged by France and Britain, is frowned upon by US; proved by McChrystal as a fear of Pakistani "countermeasures."
The audacity shown by the terrorists in mounting the attack on the Pakistan army GHQ led US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to visit London to comment that the attack on GHQ underlined the extremist threat to Islamabad government "and the very important steps that the civilian leadership, along with the military, are taking to root out the extremists and prevent violence and direct assault on the sovereignty of the state."
Bruce Riedel views the attack as reflecting the volatility and fragility of politics in Pakistan. "The Taliban attackers demonstrated," he writes, "that despite loosing the campaign in Swat valley they retain the capacity for terror in the heart of Pakistan striking in effect into the Pentagon of Pakistan."
The Kerry-Lugar bill (KLB) to Pakistan, which generated controversy within, is demonstrative of diarchy between the army and the Pakistan civilian government.
Some Pakistanis are fearful that these are desperate times for the US in Pakistan and desperation breeds dangerous behaviour. Though both Hillary Clinton and David Milliband, the British foreign secretary, expressed confidence that nuclear weapons are secure in civilian and military hands, the West have for long been anxious that these nuclear materials do not fall into the wrong hands.
A report revealed that in the past three years, terrorists staged daring attacks, specifically targeting the Pakistan nuclear facilities. Rolf Mowatt-Larsen, former head of CIA's terrorism efforts (Arms Control Today -- July/August 2009) cites simultaneous growth of extremism, instability and Pakistan nuclear arsenal as "worrying trends" that may compromise the army's ability to retain control of nuclear materials.
President Parvez Musharraf, during his time, dismissed the proposal made by Graham Alison of Harvard that these weapons must be disbursed to avoid the weapons falling into the wrong hands, because Pakistan has a weak command structure. President Musharraf explained that a full secretariat headed by a retired lieutenant general was in charge of the Strategic Planning Division, which was the secretarial arm of the National Command responsible for the development and deployment of the nuclear weapons.
But Bruce Riedel pointed out that polls after polls had shown Pakistanis fearing US more than the Taliban as a bigger threat to their weapons of mass destruction, and additionally, more Pakistanis believe that the US is a threat to Pakistan than India.
South Asian expert Stephen Cohen drew a detail of the rise of Taliban. The defeat of the Taliban at the hands of the Western powers had a blowback effect on Pakistan in the form of sectarian violence, appearance of the drug culture, easy availability of guns and general social breakdown, which came with a big cost to the socio-political structure of the country.
Neo-conservative Robert dismisses the possibility of cataclysmic effect of "the struggle between modernisation and Islamic radicalism" on international affairs because "Islamic resistance to westernisation is not a new phenomenon" and "in the struggle between traditionalism and modernity, tradition cannot win."
Yet countries like Bangladesh, aspiring to be a middle income country and digitalised in the near future, have to take into account Seymour Lipset's "social requisites" of democracy, broadly categorised as economic development and political legitimacy, and cultural factors like religion and political culture, as well as Milton Friedman's economic freedom coupled with governmental critical role, in managing the free market.
Most political scientists and economists (Joseph Stiglitz, Francis Fukuyama, and Arthur Lewis etc.) agree that some amount of economic development must be extant for democracy to develop. The re-emergence of Islamic extremists in Bangladesh is worrying, lest they interfere with our developmental process. Their destruction, a must do task for the government, has to be coordinated by regional and international efforts.
Doubts on the effectiveness of military actions in Swat, Malakand, Waziristan, along with recent terrorist acts in Lahore, is causing serious concern. The Indo-Pak blame game continues unabated. The recently held Foreign Secretary talks between India and Pakistan, reportedly under US pressure, produced differing assessment by both the countries. Albeit, it strengthened India's image of seeking peaceful resolution of disputes with Pakistan.
There is a school of thought in Pakistan which states that the US perception of ISI- militant collaboration is a result of India's "undying hostility to Pakistan as well as the US's intention of converting it (Pakistan) into an anti-China tool." They also believe that ISI's alleged involvement exists to explain Nato's failure to pacify the war-torn Afghanistan.
This claim is weakened by the report of General Stanley McChrystal's initial assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the implied indication that India should scale back its presence in Afghanistan because "increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India."
India's extension of more than one billion dollars to Afghanistan in financial and development assistance, and in training the Afghan police force and bureaucracy, assistance encouraged by France and Britain, is frowned upon by US; proved by McChrystal as a fear of Pakistani "countermeasures."
The audacity shown by the terrorists in mounting the attack on the Pakistan army GHQ led US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to visit London to comment that the attack on GHQ underlined the extremist threat to Islamabad government "and the very important steps that the civilian leadership, along with the military, are taking to root out the extremists and prevent violence and direct assault on the sovereignty of the state."
Bruce Riedel views the attack as reflecting the volatility and fragility of politics in Pakistan. "The Taliban attackers demonstrated," he writes, "that despite loosing the campaign in Swat valley they retain the capacity for terror in the heart of Pakistan striking in effect into the Pentagon of Pakistan."
The Kerry-Lugar bill (KLB) to Pakistan, which generated controversy within, is demonstrative of diarchy between the army and the Pakistan civilian government.
Some Pakistanis are fearful that these are desperate times for the US in Pakistan and desperation breeds dangerous behaviour. Though both Hillary Clinton and David Milliband, the British foreign secretary, expressed confidence that nuclear weapons are secure in civilian and military hands, the West have for long been anxious that these nuclear materials do not fall into the wrong hands.
A report revealed that in the past three years, terrorists staged daring attacks, specifically targeting the Pakistan nuclear facilities. Rolf Mowatt-Larsen, former head of CIA's terrorism efforts (Arms Control Today -- July/August 2009) cites simultaneous growth of extremism, instability and Pakistan nuclear arsenal as "worrying trends" that may compromise the army's ability to retain control of nuclear materials.
President Parvez Musharraf, during his time, dismissed the proposal made by Graham Alison of Harvard that these weapons must be disbursed to avoid the weapons falling into the wrong hands, because Pakistan has a weak command structure. President Musharraf explained that a full secretariat headed by a retired lieutenant general was in charge of the Strategic Planning Division, which was the secretarial arm of the National Command responsible for the development and deployment of the nuclear weapons.
But Bruce Riedel pointed out that polls after polls had shown Pakistanis fearing US more than the Taliban as a bigger threat to their weapons of mass destruction, and additionally, more Pakistanis believe that the US is a threat to Pakistan than India.
South Asian expert Stephen Cohen drew a detail of the rise of Taliban. The defeat of the Taliban at the hands of the Western powers had a blowback effect on Pakistan in the form of sectarian violence, appearance of the drug culture, easy availability of guns and general social breakdown, which came with a big cost to the socio-political structure of the country.
Neo-conservative Robert dismisses the possibility of cataclysmic effect of "the struggle between modernisation and Islamic radicalism" on international affairs because "Islamic resistance to westernisation is not a new phenomenon" and "in the struggle between traditionalism and modernity, tradition cannot win."
Yet countries like Bangladesh, aspiring to be a middle income country and digitalised in the near future, have to take into account Seymour Lipset's "social requisites" of democracy, broadly categorised as economic development and political legitimacy, and cultural factors like religion and political culture, as well as Milton Friedman's economic freedom coupled with governmental critical role, in managing the free market.
Most political scientists and economists (Joseph Stiglitz, Francis Fukuyama, and Arthur Lewis etc.) agree that some amount of economic development must be extant for democracy to develop. The re-emergence of Islamic extremists in Bangladesh is worrying, lest they interfere with our developmental process. Their destruction, a must do task for the government, has to be coordinated by regional and international efforts.
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