Zahid U Kramet Not many had envied Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani the job of spelling out to the US administration the several and sundry complexities that exist in Pakistan today. But once the formalities were over, what Gillani was clearly confronted by during his American trip were repeated questions relating to the Pakistan government's plans to prevent Taliban extremists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) from continuing to launch attacks on the NATO- ISAF forces stationed across the porous Afghan-Pakistan. This is corroborated by Pakistan's prime Minister saying in an interview with CNN "Americans are a little impatient" on the issue.
The Bush administration had already taken up the "do more" refrain with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, addressing a press conference in Perth, Australia alongside the Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith reportedly said, "What we need to do is to look hard at how the Taliban is regrouping (and) why the Taliban is fighting in the way that they are now". Mr. Smith, in his turn, was almost equally stern saying, "There is no doubt that the current international hotbed of terrorism is in the Pakistan-Afghan border area" even as he emphasized that the issue had "regional and international community consequences." What Gilani may have found fairly galling and hard to explain is why people, particularly of the Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) seem to empathize so much with the Taliban, which today openly challenge the writ of the Pakistan state, and why the democratically elected government shows such reluctance in confronting the extremists even when `dialogue' falls short of producing the desired result. In short, why, when anarchy threatens, does the government not pull out all the stops to address this make-or-break situation? The answer is one that would not have carried much brief with the American administration, for there are wheels within wheels. To begin with, there is awareness that `Oil after all lies behind the lies', so noted by eminent journalist Eric S. Margolis in his Khaleej Times column on June 22. He reminded that in 1998 Afghanistan had signed an agreement to launch a 1680 km long pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI), which was to export gas and, later, oil from the Caspian Basin to Pakistan's coast bound for the West. The Caspian Basin, he pointed out, is located under the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and said to hold some 300 trillion cubic feet of gas and 100-200 barrels of oil. The Afghan anti-communist Taliban had struck a deal with a Western oil consortium led by the US firm Unocal for the pipeline to pass through Afghanistan, Margolis added. Osama bin Laden advised them to accept a better offer from an Argentine consortium, Bridas. Washington, claimed Margolis, was furious. The 9/11 attacks supplied the pretext to invade Afghanistan and the US stayed on to build bases, "which just happened to adjacent to the planned pipeline route". But, diplomatic protocol would have prevented Gillani from making mention of this. Margolis then honed in on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline writing, "the TAPI deal has the added benefit of scuttling another proposed pipeline project that would have delivered gas and oil to Pakistan and India" with Iran in the dog-house over its nuclear ambitions. Hannes Artens, in an article titled `Iran isolation attempts backfire' published in Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIP) published a month later on July 23, articulated on the recent change in the US attitude over Iran. The recent thaw between Iran and the US, he wrote, witnessed a "sea change" indicating that realists around Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had "gained the upper hand over the faction around Vice President Dick Cheney". This, in Artens' view, might now facilitate the hitherto held up 1,700 mile long $7.5 Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. But, the author warned, with China keen to join the project, that might lead to "a new geo-strategic axis - Tehran Islamabad - New Dehli - Beijing (to), radically reshuffle the power structure in Asia and, with it, the global balance of power." Especially as China "already ranks as the number one foreign investor in Iran", while Malaysia's Petronas and LG Korea had been favoured over France's Total, Anglo- Dutch Shell and, Spain's Respol for the exploitation of Iran's South Pars field, which is reputed to be the largest gas reservoir in the world. Artens' reckoning that, "Islamabad and Tehran can have it both ways. if the World Bank financing is off the table, China can step in to foot the bill", might have been where Pakistan's Prime Minister may have found the courage to stake first claim to Pakistan's role as an energy hub. Naturally, under American tutelage, notwithstanding President Bush's conciliatory press address in regard to "respecting Pakistan's sovereignty" pursuant to his and Gillani's 45 minute meeting a fact supported by Senators Bidden and Hagel's 10 year $15 billion bill finding passage through the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. But Pakistan's Prime Minister who represents the Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP), the lead party of the coalition government in Pakistan, still has his work cut out for him with inflation hitting the roof and partner Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) -- which holds sway over the country's largest province, Punjab -- standing apart on the issue of judicial independence. And, with associate Awami National Party (ANP) in the NWFP failing to impact in the troubled Tribal Areas while Balochistan remains largely resistant to the imposition of writ of the Pakistani state, Gillani is left with little room to maneuver. However, Pakistan's security apparatus, now that the fiasco of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) being brought under Interior Ministry surveillance has been resolved, seems to have found a new comfort level with the incumbent premier. Moreover, the armed forces' unity of command structure appears to have prevailed as the army pursues action against militants in the Swat Valley with renewed vigour. There are reports, too, of a serious army push into the Tribal Areas with a regular army unit placed in support of the paramilitary fighting militancy in the area. But the polarization of society persists on the twin issues of the restoration of dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and a strong, independent judiciary. Until these matters are resolved, the single-minded pursuit of any given mission is unlikely to transpire. In the existing circumstances, the idea of a `national' or, `all-party' government presenting a united front, as mooted by the Pakistan Muslim League - Quaid (PML-Q), the principal opposition party in the national chamber, makes eminent sense. Failing this, there is little chance of Pakistan being taken seriously by any one of the world's great powers, despite the country's strategic location and its nuclear status. At the same time, the consensus of public opinion is that for such a `national government' to chart a true renaissance it would require two personal sacrifices: the one, resignation by President Musharraf, and the other, simultaneously, the forgoing of his claim to the stewardship of the judiciary on the part of the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. In such acts lie greatness -- and commitment to the national cause. Would that either, or their guiding lights, were able see it! Courtesy Spearhead Research http://www.spearheadresearch.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=679
