May the 2nd dawned with the successful, covert US operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, to eliminate Osama bin Laden. Electronic media in India went into high-drive, reeling in experts from India, Pakistan and the West, to debate, analyse, even quarrel. Bertrand Russell once quipped that no one argues with someone who says two plus two is five.
Wars are fought when both sides are half right.
While the operation was flawless, its contours remain fuzzy. A Pakistani tweeting genius inadvertently gave a fix on the arrival of choppers and five explosions. The crucial question, however, remained debatable: Were the Pakistanis in the loop? If so, then from which stage of the operation? The usually glib masters of half truth at the Inter Services Public Relations were mute. Pakistan was clearly in a conundrum. To concede knowledge would be tantamount to complicity; denial looked like incompetence of the defenders of the realm in protecting the nation’s sovereignty. There was clearly concern over the likely ire of Bin Laden fans ranging from tacit admirers to hard-core adherents to his cause. John Brennan, White House counter-terrorism adviser, in a midnight (Washington time) briefing, maintained that Pakistan was only informed after the extraction was complete. Some media reports quote locals as saying that immediately before the action soldiers in uniform were warning the neighbours to remain indoors.
A day later the following is inferable. Firstly, Pakistan needs to explain how Bin Laden could be in a garrison town, a stone’s throw from an Army training facility, in close proximity to Islamabad and in an ostentatiously large complex and not be sighted. Mr Brennan said that the US too was seeking an answer to that question. Secondly, Bin Laden had support from influential segments in Pakistan. Did those extend to the higher echelons of the Pakistani Army, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)? Thirdly, it is known that the interests of Bin Laden and the Pakistani military diverged post 9/11 as Pakistan wanted the Taliban to hand over the Al Qaeda leadership to satisfy the US and thus avoid an attack on Afghanistan. Mullah Omar spurned the request despite it being made in person by the then ISI director-general and a Saudi prince. Did this change sometime after 2005, when the Abbottabad complex was made? It is possible that Pakistani Army may have cut a deal with Mullah Omar that they would protect Bin Laden provided the canny Mullah allowed the Quetta Shura/Taliban to join the reconciliation process under way in Afghanistan?
As a back-drop to this passion play, there was already a churning in Pakistan’s domestic politics. The ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was approaching the Pakistan Muslim League-Qaid and Muttahida Qaumi Movement to reduce dependence on the Sharif brothers and their Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. Separately, the ISI had reportedly taken Imran Khan, the charismatic cricketing hero, under their wing to position him as a new right of centre pole. He demonstrated his new-found muscle by disrupting the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force’s supply line to Afghanistan by a Peshawar rally against the drone attacks.
Externally, Prime Minister Y.R. Gilani’s Kabul visit, accompanied by Army chief Kayani and ISI chief Lt. Gen. A.S. Pasha, led to speculation that Pakistan was advocating a realignment of forces in a post-US scenario, whereby their brawn and the Chinese economic muscle could be the new consortium to guide Afghanistan in partnership, naturally, with Pakistani allies like the Haqqanis, Hekmatyar and pro-Pakistani elements of the Taliban. Pakistan was concerned perhaps over reports that the US was negotiating an agreement with the Karzai government for the presence of some US forces even beyond 2014, in semi-permanent cantonments, to continue their counter-terrorism activities, having by then handed over counter-insurgency work to Afghan security forces.
The US too had announced personnel changes, moving Gen. Petraeus from the Afghan theatre to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Pakistan’s discomfort with Gen. Petraeus is widely known and thus their gain in bidding him farewell in Afghanistan is neutralised by his future leadership of the CIA which oversees the counter-terror programme globally, with a focus on the Af-Pak region. The Taliban too had already commenced their spring offensive a couple of days earlier by a teenager’s suicide bombing.
Bin Laden’s killing complicates this regional scenario. Retaliatory strikes by Al Qaeda and affiliates are likely; Taliban have already announced so. Pakistan-sponsored terror, which the Indian government wanted to side-step to recommence the bilateral dialogue, is back on the table. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, flying back from Kazakhstan a week ago, opined that he would consider his “job well done” only if Indo-Pak relations are normalised.
US national security adviser McGeorge Bundy, at a US National Security Council meeting on October 6, 1965, following the Indo-Pak war, recounted his advice to US President Lyndon Johnson to desist from peace-making in South Asia as “Kashmir fixers are a plentiful and dangerous commodity”. With Bin Laden’s ghost now haunting the Pakistani Army, the Prime Minister too must hitch his legacy to less risky fare than relations with Pakistan.
The author is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/kcsingh-582
