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The State of Terror Will Reveal Itself
Chitra Iyengar
"In war our main objective is the opponent's heart or soul, our main weapon of offence against this objective is the strength of our own souls, and to launch such an attack, we have to keep terror away from our own hearts... Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent’s heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy (sic); it is the decision we wish to impose upon him".
Brig. S.K. Malik, The Quranic Concept of War (Lahore,
Wajidalis, 1979)
Slowly, but surely, the world is getting more intimately acquainted with the thinking behind the Pakistani Brigadier’s statement. A few countries are already rather familiar with this mindset, having been the targets of Islamist bombers for some years now. Judging by this summer’s suicide bombing season, the wider world better get ready for a crash course.
Still, it seems the targeted countries would rather treat this martyrdom madness as an incurable disease rather than as a virus that can be defeated through aggressive intervention. One reason for the general confusion on how to deal with this scourge is that few countries have been willing, until recently anyway, to name the problem and identify the source of the virus. After the London bombings of July, this reticence is receding. Pakistan is increasingly being named as a major source of the problem of terror in the name of Islam.
Tackling this problem requires a change of mindset and a change of tactics. The leader in the “war on terror”, America, appears to have the greatest difficulty in making this adjustment. Partly it is because of force of cold war habit, but it is also perhaps because of an unwillingness to see, or more likely a structural inability to absorb, the strategic imperative behind the terror emanating from Pakistan.
Washington has always operated under the assumption that the Pakistani military leadership would subsume its interests under the larger American one. The US and other powers that are affected by terrorism today have tended to view Pakistan through an American lens, which is understandable. But the Pakistani military itself has always kept one eye on its own agenda – to lead the Islamic world as a power at least on par with the lesser members of the UN Security Council’s Permanent Five.
Pan-Islamic Ambitions
Pakistan’s aspiration to pan-Islamic leadership is at least as old as its desire to maintain “parity” with India in all fields. As much as the latter, the desire to lead the Islamic world drove it to acquire nuclear capability. It was, after all, the “Islamic Bomb” not the “anti-India bomb”. The same aspiration propelled the Pakistani military leadership to take up the Afghan cause with such alacrity when the opportunity presented itself following the Soviet invasion.
Having acquired a nascent nuclear capability, by the late 1980s the Pakistani military was ready to spread its wings without the backing of a super-power. It invested its strategic ambitions into barely covert programmes of destabilization to its east (the Indian state of Kashmir) and to its west (Afghanistan). In the latter country, the Taliban movement was created in the years following the fiasco of the Jalalabad campaign (when the Pakistani military tried and failed to oust the Najibullah regime in Kabul through a conventional military operation). Islamabad found it difficult to impose its will on the Afghans, especially the non-Pathan population. The same happened in Kashmir where, after the initial confusion in the 1989-1991 period, the Indian government rapidly got a handle on the situation.
Pakistan thus found itself unable to match the scope of its ambition with the reality of its structural weaknesses and power deficiencies. It also realized that, without a superpower backer, its conventional warfare capabilities were severely constrained. With neither the economic momentum not a domestic military industrial complex of note, it had neither the money nor the arms to sustain conventional action.
Terrorism is the Expedient
It is in this context that the Islamist worldview of the Pakistani military establishment gained in relevance and strength. The asymmetry of Islamist action and their ability to disrupt and even disable larger powers, as evidenced during the anti-Soviet Jihad, convinced the military that war could be effectively waged – even if it was not won – at a minimal financial cost to Islamabad. Besides, striking terror in the hearts of unbelievers – without the assumption of responsibility - would be an end in itself until such time that the relative power of Dar ul Islam (realm of Islam) was comparable to that of Dar ul Harb (realm of war) and a conventional war could be fought.
Pakistan’s military, therefore, continued applying the lessons it had learned during its terror campaigns in Afghanistan and Kashmir – and gradually began to implement them on a global template. This was done through an amalgamation of the Wahhabi and Deobandi ideologies espoused by Osama bin Ladin and his followers as well as the numerous groups spawned during the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate's Afghan and Kashmir campaigns since the late 1980s.
Credibility for this global jihad on the pan-Islamic level was achieved by the promotion of Bin Ladin as a fighting guide, a strong parallel - in terms of the myth-making - to the life of Prophet Mohammed. Bin Ladin, being a “pure Arab” from the Arabian Peninsula (the land of Mecca and Medina), was far more acceptable to susceptible Muslims worldwide than any Pakistani Islamist would have been.
Crucially, all this could be done with a high degree of deniability. By creating and deploying the Taliban on Afghan territory, the Pakistani state could shift the blame for global terror on Afghanistan. The financing of terror was attributed largely to wealthy sheikhs and businessmen from the oil rich countries of the Gulf, so the blame for that aspect of terrorism was also dissipated away from Pakistan – although the extent of terror financing through drug trafficking involving the ISI (again via Afghanistan) is an area which has not received the close attention it deserves.
Through all this the upper ranks of the military establishment, i.e. those who interfaced with their Western aid givers, continued to maintain their secular credentials. Indeed, many of them are secular in personal tastes. But they are also products of an historic heritage which legitimizes both jihad and terrorism as we know it, and that comes together with a glorified memory of empire and a transnational outlook for the owners of this history. These secular military officers find nothing fundamentally contradictory about having a thoroughly Western lifestyle while at the same time promoting suicide bombings in Dar ul Harb.
In the process of incubating and radiating terror, Pakistan has also managed subtly to alter the rules of the nuclear game. It has demonstrated that a small state can, under the cover of a nuclear umbrella, effectively threaten and constrain the options of far larger powers by blatantly using terror as an instrument of policy. More dangerously, it has introduced the possibility of nuclear weapons being used by non-state actors into the strategic lexicon.
However, since 9/11, realization has steadily been dawning on the West that Pakistan is deeply involved in terrorism worldwide. It took the attacks of July 7 and July 21 in London for public opinion in the West to truly latch on to the fact that the Taliban were in fact schooled in the madrassas of Pakistan. Virtually all the Taliban leaders had their madrassa schooling in the North West Frontier Province. Hundreds of thousands of impressionable young minds continue to be schooled there. The actions of the ruling Pakistani military establishment indicate it is not willing – although it is able – to shut them down. They are reluctant to give up the option of incubating mindless warriors for a future jihad – the ultimate soldiers, with all the intelligence of human beings but without the instinct for self-preservation. A nuclear weapon or a “dirty nuke” in their hands is now a probability, to be factored into the calculations of the target states.
Shifting Responsibility Becomes More Difficult
The record shows that virtually every act of Islamist terrorism anywhere in the world involves a direct or indirect link to Pakistan – with rarely more than two degrees of separation. In the current climate of scrutiny, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the military establishment to shift the blame away from Pakistan towards other countries or movements.
The world is now aware that Pakistan has become terror central. Al Qaida’s top leadership is said to be hiding in the federally and provincially administered tribal areas, ostensibly without the knowledge of the Pakistani military establishment, but nevertheless with ready access to Al Jazeera. The top leadership of the Taliban now lives openly in Quetta, a provincial capital, in full view and within occasional interview reach of Western journalists.
The people involved in the mentoring of “terrorist international” are invariably retired senior officers of the ISI, the primary intelligence arm of the Pakistani military establishment – including its former Directors General like Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, and Lt. Gen. Javid Nasir, senior ISI officer Brig. Ijaz Shah, etc.
Others, like former Army Chief Lt. Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz, also have critical intellectual inputs into the mentoring and guidance process. Gen. Gul was in Afghanistan in the weeks before 9/11 and has on numerous occasions declared his support for the Islamist cause. Brig. Shah was the man to whom Omar Saeed Shaikh, the alleged killer of Daniel Pearl, turned himself in for safe-haven before his arrest was announced to the general public. All of these military officers are on familiar terms with the leaders of the groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, who continue to remain free despite their obvious roles in inciting and ordering terrorist strikes. It is equally clear that these retired officers have good standing with serving officers of all ranks.
These realities have prompted the Western mass media gradually to collate their clippings in an effort to make sense of the suicide bombers around them. And they are piecing together a picture that the Pakistani establishment does not want the general public in the West to see. Because knowledge would mean calls for action, and that would mean public pressure on Western governments to shift more rapidly away from the traditional cold war reflexes when dealing with Islamabad.
In fact, that is already happening. The Pakistani military establishment, which conceived of the Islamist enterprise as a way to achieve its objectives, is now finding that its room for manoeuvre is becoming further constrained with every new terrorist outrage. While the establishment does not want to abandon the covert Islamist path, it is well aware that declaring its intentions could jeopardize its ability to achieve the ultimate objectives.
The result of stepped up pressure and scrutiny has been a certain degree of confusion within Pakistan, a sort of falling out among thieves. The military government has been sending signals, again, that this time it really means to crackdown on the Islamist groups. The leaders of these groups, uncertain as to the true mind of the military as they have always been pawns in the game, are issuing counter-threats implying that they would reveal the military role behind the terrorism.
In the meantime, the retired officers who are deeply invested in the Islamist cause and are dissatisfied with, or distrust, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf (whose core identity is as an émigré from India), are closing ranks and increasing the stridency of their criticism of the government. Interestingly, even politicians considered allies of Musharraf are distancing themselves, while reports of disagreement within the rank and file of the military establishment are legion.
For his part Musharraf, not a man of much administrative ability or of notable intellectual depth, has merely been shepherding the policies he inherited from previous military regimes. As such he has, since 9/11, simply been continuing the double game which Pakistan has been playing with the West since the early 1980s. In view of his penchant for public relations, he has been quite good at this. It is just that circumstances have come to such a pass that sustaining this double game is becoming more difficult. The reality behind the game is beginning to dawn on Western public opinion. The question, therefore, is what comes next.
Strategic Defiance Imminent?
The Pakistani military establishment, through Musharraf, now faces what may be its final opportunity to come clean, to put an end to its support for terror groups that are instruments of its global vision for Islam. This would mean, in essence, abandoning its pan-Islamic leadership ambitions because, beyond the ability to incubate and spread terror (and in a ham-handed manner at that), Pakistan has little to offer the Islamic World, i.e. little other than its nuclear capability.
The million dollar question is what the Pakistani military establishment will choose to do. Will it
- immediately abandon policies that it has tried and failed to implement?
- adjust its policies so that it can continue with the double game until such time that it can manifest and sustain a proud Islamist front on its own? or
- depart in the near future from the hitherto cautious approach and openly declare its hand in order to don the leadership mantle of the Islamist world?
The prospects for the first option appear limited because it is doubtful as to who the constituency for such a policy would be. Assuming that Musharraf truly wants to be an ‘Atapak’ (Ataturk of Pakistan), at the very least he would need to take actions that will involve large-scale arrests and the incarceration of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Islamist leaders and their more enthusiastic supporters.
Musharraf would also have to abandon the notion that terrorism can be compartmentalized, i.e. that some terrorists can be kept on a leash to be set loose in Kashmir or Afghanistan when required. He would have to close down thousands of madrassas, and bring about a thorough revision of the syllabus in Pakistani government schools. It is highly unlikely he will be able to generate the political backing or the military support for such actions. Yet this is the option that the West and others directly affected by Pakistani-sponsored terrorism want to see applied.
The second option is easier, and the one which is likely to be chosen by Musharraf. This would mean that the double game will continue, albeit with a qualitative upgrade in terms of the action taken against terror groups and their leaders. A few more high-profile leaders will be arrested, and kept in prison as examples for the Western media. Some notable success against Al Qaida may be likely; instead of the regular capture of Al Qaida’s number three, perhaps the killing of its number two may occur in the not too distant future. More likely is the capture and imprisonment or extradition to the US of some carefully selected high-ranking Taliban leader, chosen not to give too much heartburn to the Islamist constituency.
In the meantime, the government will try to improve the overall economic situation – at best with modest success based on external aid. Whether the second option will wash with the Western and non-Western states that are the victims of terrorism remains to be seen. The capacity for self-delusion on the part of these countries is not to be underestimated; on the other hand, the latest season of suicide bombings and failed attempts appears to have sparked off a sense of all-round lateral thinking rarely seen in the past. So the double game may not quite fly, as Musharraf will be pushed continually to move towards option one.
The third option is, of course, the most dangerous one for Pakistan. It will mean that the military leadership will have to abandon all pretences of being pro-Western. It will have to demonstrate, through word and action, that it is committed to an Islamist worldview and that it will pursue the related objectives under the cover of a nuclear umbrella. Although it can be credibly argued that the US has corralled most of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons under a control system, no one can be certain that the military has disclosed all its assets. No one can certify that a rudimentary nuclear capability has not been transferred to the jihadi groups.
It is unlikely that the military leadership will choose the third option unless forced into a corner by pressure from the US and its allies. But given the nature of the threat, Washington and its partners cannot afford to allow Musharraf to continue playing the double game. Effectively, this leaves the military leadership with options one and three.
One could argue that an instinct for self-preservation may force the military establishment to choose option one. However, that argument presumes that ruling clique in Pakistan is able to assess the country’s strengths and weaknesses with a high degree of accuracy. Such a presumption would be reckless, given the reality that the military has several times in the past wrongly assessed its capabilities. Pakistan has neither the independent intellectual infrastructure nor the democratic political institutions required to make dependable assessments of this nature.
Interestingly, as British anger focused on Pakistan after the London suicide bombings, Musharraf went on the offensive and blamed Britain for harbouring terrorists. He has also recently warned the US to stop hot-pursuit into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan. Both are statements that suggest that a hardening of the military mind in Pakistan, and perhaps a subtle shift towards option three – or at least a signalling of that possibility.
If that is the case, it would mean Pakistan is heading towards a serious confrontation with its traditionally ally, the US. What shape and form such a confrontation would take is as yet unclear, but chances are that it will involve dramatic changes in the political landscape in Pakistan. The rule of Gen. Musharraf appears to be coming to an end, and the real Pakistan may be about to stand up. The state of terror will then reveal its true face.
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