Pakistani Army backed Taliban for ‘strategic depth’

That worked out well..

Army backed Taliban for ‘strategic depth’

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The Pakistani military believed that the Taliban were the “best means” of achieving “strategic depth” for the country, according to a memo by former senior White House official Richard Clarke, whose full text was recently declassified. The memo dates back to the pre-9/11 period and, as has since become public knowledge, Clarke’s warnings about Al Qaeda and the possibility of an attack on the United States were ignored.

In the section devoted to Pakistan, Clarke wrote that Pakistan’s approach to the Taliban and to terrorism flows from concerns with “seizing Kashmir and redressing its defeat by India in three wars”. He pointed out that “support for the Taliban has run through three Pakistani governments – Bhutto, Sharif and now Musharraf – and is predicated on the concept of ‘strategic depth’, i.e., ensuring a friendly government in Kabul that will not pose a threat in the event of war with India. The Pakistani military has consistently believed the Taliban was the best means of achieving that goal. Russian and Indian support for the Taliban’s only remaining military opponent reinforces Pakistan’s tendency to view Afghanistan through an Indo-Pakistani lens. Pakistan’s acquiescence in the Taliban’s hosting of terrorist camps and Bin Laden is a product of the nexus between Afghanistan and Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir.”

Clark wrote that support for Bin Laden also “comes also from a small but dedicated cadre of Islamist leaders whose electoral influence in Pakistan is minimal but whose street power has intimidated successive governments into fostering Islamic causes ... As we seek Pakistani cooperation, we need to keep in mind that Pakistan has been most willing to cooperate with us on terrorism when its role is invisible or at least plausibly deniable to the powerful Islamist right wing … Only Pakistani support for US action against Bin Laden, who is a hero especially in the Pushtun-ethnic border areas near Afghanistan, would be so unpopular as to threaten Musharraf’s government.”

Clark wrote that “we do have levers with the Pakistanis, despite the deleterious effect of overlapping sanctions that we impose beginning in 1990”. He listed the “levers” as: “the blunt instrument of UNSC sanctions”, “increasing domestic opposition to clandestine campaigns” and economic support. He noted that as Gen Musharraf implements his economic policies that he hopes would take Pakistan out of its “steep decline,” he “needs our moral and practical support in the IMF for a medium-term economic support package”. He said the US was already pursuing policies in support of the outlined objectives but felt that it would take a long time before Pakistan was encouraged to develop a “distaste” for its “Taliban adventure”. He recommended lending support for a “fair but non-violent settlement of Kashmir”, “demonstrating that there are alternatives to the Taliban that serve Pakistan’s national interest” and “helping to build up a secular educational system that ends rural Pakistan’s exclusive reliance on the fundamentalist madrassas”.

He also noted that “Chief Executive Musharraf has been clear in his discussions with American officials that: he opposes terrorism and Al Qaeda and believes that the spread of such fundamentalism threatens Pakistani internal stability; Pakistan requires a Pashtun majority in Afghanistan and the repatriation of refugees, which can best be achieved through support to the Taliban; but there are influential radical elements in Pakistan that would oppose significant Pakistani measures against Al Qaeda or the Taliban; Pakistan has been unable to persuade the Taliban to yield up Bin Laden and close the sanctuary and is unwilling to do more to persuade them.” He added that in the wake of the attack on USS Cole, Pakistan had called upon the United States not to violate Pakistani air apace “again” to launch punitive strikes in Afghanistan.