Although irresponsible statements of some responsible people in present Obama administration reflect a real bad taste like making the Pakistanis realize that China and Islamic block has not done as much as USA was doing, the American aid is substantial and if the USA is on your side then aid from other sources is not an issue any more. It is also important to note that this aid may not alter the perception that Pakistanis have about the USA. These perceptions may not be 100% true like any other perception, but these have a effective role about inter-state relationship. Let us discuss these perceptions; Pakistanis like other Muslims have reasons to think that Americans patronize their enemies like India and Israel in violations of all norms and ethical values. They also think that Americans have always used Pakistan and then discarded it, in fact thrown it into garbage bin, and in spite of Pakistan’s sacrifices, has always been bullying and brow-beating Pakistan. They will again abandon Pakistan after withdrawing from Afghanistan like they did when Afghan Jehad came to a desired conclusion. American humanitarian aid a great thing, but this is not valentine gift to instantly melt the hearts. Read more at: http://fmeducation.blogspot.com/2010/08/humanitarian-aid-is-not-valentine-gift.html

Jishnu you are spot on. Sympathy and material aid does change perceptions. Pakistanis are kind, generous and hospitable themselves. As one who was in the Earthquake zone on the second day, I saw thousands of philanthropists in to help before any organized efforts,which followed days later. Those helped were thankful. However, FATA, N&S Waziristan,Swat are different. People want the war to end, to be left alone, for foreign powers to go home. Hostile sentiments soon take over after the initial thanks. Its the core problem that we must sort out. The Taliban etc were never fractious before the Afghan invasion and will not be if everyone goes home. Minor lawlessness a characteristic trait of the tribes notwithstanding.
By the way, pledges remained pledges after the quake and even now. No one really wants to help in a big way. Is this donor fatigue, bias, Islamophobia or what?

$5 billion to secure the partial support (less than 50% average?) of 28,000 earthquake effected people.

So for a mere $30.5 trillion the USA could have the partial support of the Pakistan population! What a bargain. I might add that the question 'do you trust foreigners' is different from 'is the USA an enemy of Pakistan?' for example, and I suspect would have a very different response.

When Did Pakistan ask for these dollars? Certainly not when USA needed to defeat USSR.
Did Pakistan ask for these dollars when USA wanted to punish Al-Qaida in Afghanistan? Certainly not but agreed only when INDIA had offered use of her land and air infrastructure to USA to do the job. And in so doing India desired to brush aside Pakistan employing USA resources. A cleaver game plan indeed!!
Can anyone pay for the damages Pakistan has suffered in the three decade war of USA, USSR and Al-Qaida ?
India had a very comfortable life when USA and Pakistan were fighting out USSR. She joined in to reap the harvest when USA attacked Afghanistan. She has done a great job in the process and has taken revenge of Russian defeat while damaging USA and Pakistan a lot.
Keep it up India and do not bother to read the game plan Americans!!!!

While US aid may be justified when poor Pakistani people are helped by billions of dollars in US aid but when the same aid allows Pakistani ISI to finance Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan that kills US/NATO troops daily, Pakistan becomes what Obama called ‘cancer’ and CIA once called ‘terror center of the world’.

According to Afghan Taliban commanders’ interviews with Matt Waldman, a Harvard Professor, the Pakistani ISI orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the Taliban insurgency movement. The Afghan Taliban commanders also say that ISI gives sanctuary to both Taliban and Haqqani groups, and provides huge support in terms of training, funding, munitions, and supplies. In the words of these Afghan Taliban commanders, this is ‘as clear as the sun in the sky’.

The ISI is said to compensate families of suicide bombers to the tune of 200,000 Pakistani rupees, claims the report. Thus US aid to bankrupt Pakistan goes directly to finance the Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

US needs to look at how Pakistani ISI is financed when US has been pouring billions of dollars year in and year out to poor hapless Pakistan and when US is leading the efforts to raise funds worldwide to help poor Pakistani flood victims.

you can still be skeptical, about the way that it's delivered. NGOs generally have much better delivery systems in place than national governments. And national governments -- particularly the USA -- have notoriously topheavy administrative structures that pay large sums of money to so-called development specialists who have only a limited understanding of actual conditions on the ground of any Third World country.

And another problem of any type of aid to Pakistan is the endemic corruption. In retail terminology this is called shrinkage, and in Pakistan there are a lot of opportunities for baksheesh to be applied that diminish the effectiveness of your aid money.

President Zardari and Pakistan’s main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif own luxury properties in Britain and France besides Swiss bank accounts. It was Britain and the United States who brokered the deal in 2007 with the military as a result of which all corruption cases against Zardari were dropped. The MQM’s Altaf Hussain has long been beholden to the British for providing him a sanctuary when he escaped from Pakistan in the early 1990s. It is therefore questionable how such leaders can ever articulate, promote, or defend Pakistan’s interests when it comes to dealing with the U.S. or Britain.

But the army leadership’s record is hardly any different when it comes to coziness with the west and serving its interests. Former military dictators Zia and Musharraf were propped up by the Americans. Zia and his I.S.I. Chief allegedly left fortunes for their families. Musharraf, who used to mock Benazir and Nawaz for living luxurious lives abroad, has been leading a comfortable life in London.

Corrupt and Incompetent Politicians

One of Pakistan’s main causes of failure to evolve as a stable country is similar to those experienced by many developing countries in the past; the nexus between corrupt local leaders (e.g. Marcos, Soharto, Mubarak, Mobutu, Noriega, Cordova, etc.) and the west to serve their mutual interests at the cost of the poor and impoverished masses and their future. Pakistanis will have to break this nexus between the corrupt elites and the west if they want their country to be a self respecting sovereign state that works to promote the interests of its people and not of its army or its corrupt and selfish elites.

There are two Pakistans; the real one is of the people which has been highjacked by imposters and the elites. The two Pakistans have become highly polarized due to rising income inequality, persistently high double digit food inflation, absence of social justice, and lack of opportunities for the poor and middle classes. The acuteness of vertical (class) polarization has been complicated by horizontal polarization on provincial and ethnic lines. The consequence is a fragmented and fractured society and a very difficult-to-govern country.

Another reason of failure has been the inability of the so-called mainstream parties to provide competent and credible leadership. In many other countries, for example, in Latin America, the anti-democracy alliances between the local military, rightwing forces and Americans undermined freedom and welfare of the people but the nationalist and democratic forces eventually triumphed in many countries because they had capable leadership.

The prolonged involvement of the army in politics, its manipulation of elections and political governments through corrupt means and unscrupulous politicians has led to the demonization of politics to a degree that that save for incompetent and corrupt individuals like Asif Zardari or Nawaz Sharif, or creations of the establishment like the MQM’s neo-fascist Altaf Hussain or Maulana Fazlur Rehman (infamous for his double dealings), few wish to navigate the treacherous and murderous waters of stormy Pakistani politics.

Most Pakistanis are religiously conservative but not of the Saudi or Afghan bent. Culturally, in terms of language, music, racial or ethnic mix, food, customs, etc. they have more in common with Indians than with Arabs. It is a mockery of truth to present a country of 170 million as ripe for extremists’ takeover; a country which thrice voted a modern woman like Benazir Bhutto – twice during her life and third time as a martyr – into office.

Throughout its 60-year history, Pakistan has consistently favored secular parties, despite the nation’s origins as a separate homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent which has a long history of democratic movements. The politically mature, patient, and forgiving people of Pakistan have voted mainstream parties into power in every election in the last forty years despite huge disappointments and rejected the religious or extremist groups. The high-water mark for the religious or Islamic parties, 2002, yielded just 12 % of the national vote; that too due to manipulation by Musharraf to prevent the Pakistan People’s Party from gaining a majority.

Yet the U.S. and its cronies in Pakistani establishment, and establishment dominated media would have the rest of the world believe Pakistan could be taken over by the Islamic radicals anytime soon. Nothing could be farther from the reality. Pakistan has been and continues to be an Army with a country as post-independence Pakistan’s most liberal and popular leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto wrote from his death cell in 1978.

Armed Gangs and Militants with roots in the Establishment

Most of the so-called ‘jihadi’ groups owed their creation and sustenance to the former military dictator General Ziaul Haq - a right-wing fascist and a demented hypocrite – who compromised Pakistan’s national interests to save his shaky government in 1980 by extending support for the covert C.I.A. operations – the biggest ever till then - in exchange for $3.2 billion in American aid and support for his dictatorship.

Zia’s successors continued his policies. The power of the extremists (e.g. Mullah Radio of Swat, Rashid Ghazi of Lal Masjid, or late Azam Tariq of Sepah-e-Sahiba) to openly advocate violence and conduct terrorist attacks would not and could not have grown without the support of some well-known and not-so-frequently mentioned forces inside Pakistani establishment including Musharraf and his intelligence chiefs who released Azam Tariq from jail in November 2002 to enable him to vote in the National Assembly and provide the crucial one-seat majority to form the government with Zafarullah Khan Jamali as prime minister.

In Pakistan, the so-called radical Islam does not have a popular program or credible leadership around which the masses could or would rally. The people would never want to see a Taliban type of regime in Islamabad. The record of the so-called Islamist parties is tainted with corruption as well as cooperation with successive military dictators and they suffered humiliating defeat in 2008 elections. Even for a national cricket icon like Imran Khan, with a reputation for honesty and record of charity work, it is a politically liability that he is described or perceived as a Taliban sympathizer.

The number of the militants all groups, including the foreigners and the so-called “good militants” does not exceed a few hundred thousand in Pakistan at the most, concentrated in the tribal areas in the northwest, even if the estimates are stretched. According to the estimates of even conservative U.S. think-tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pakistani Taliban collectively have around 30,000 to 35,000 members.

These armed terrorists do pose a serious security challenge to a politically unstable and poorly governed Pakistan but parallels with Iran of 1979 are simply wrong. Their objective is clearly to spread terror but that the bombings – suicide or through improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - can help a tiny minority of ragtag militias and semi-literate terrorist gangs to capture power in the sixth most populous country in the world with the seventh largest standing army is a laughable and ridiculous proposition.

Moreover, there is little evidence that the growth of the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has translated into more political support for the Islamist parties as the results of the recent bye-elections (mostly won by the two largest parties) and that of 2008 elections for national and provincial legislatures clearly indicate. However, resentment and anger runs deep among the masses against the U.S. polices especially because America is identified with the policies of military dictators like Zia and Musharraf or corrupt and unpopular politicians like Zardari.

‘War on Terror’ – a Misnomer and a Disaster

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as National Security Adviser in the Carter Administration, called the so-called “War on Terror” a historical myth created and perpetuated by the U.S. government in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007. It is ironic that it was Brzezinski who came to Pakistan in 1979 and encouraged General Zia to fight against the soviets in Afghanistan. It is the same Brzezinski who made startling disclosures in his interview to Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, confessing that the CIA?s military-intelligence operation in Afghanistan, which consisted in creating the “Islamic brigades”, was launched prior rather than in response to the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan with intent to deliberately trigger a civil war. Perhaps Brzezinski now regrets his past role. He told the U.S. Senate committee on February 1, 2007:

“A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time… and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.”

The most critical mistake committed by Pakistani establishment (which includes some big media groups) and its “moderately educated and enlightened” English-speaking chattering classes has been their refusal to recognize the military aggression by the U.S. as the principal cause of the adverse public opinion in the Muslim countries, destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the destabilization – by intention or inadvertently - of Pakistan. Anyone who points that out is labeled as a Taliban sympathizer or encountered with thoughtless and shallow refrains such as “this is our war.” This has proven to be a myopic, unrealistic, self-serving, shallow but ultimately self-defeating mantra. Hence, there is very little informed discussion and/or investigative reporting in the media about the militants, their roots, connections, and antecedents.

What compounded the blunders and short-sightedness of Pakistan’s security establishment were the pig-headed and misguided policies of Bush administration and more recently the dramatic escalation in the drone attacks conducted by the C.I.A. under Obama’s watch. According to independent accounts outside the U.S., the number of civilian deaths including women and children has far outnumbered those of the alleged terrorists. The authenticity of claims made by the C.I.A. or the U.S. officials regarding the deaths of militants and civilian casualties has been questioned by the United Nations. The claims are not transparent, have not been independently verified, and can’t be taken at their face value despite being dutifully and faithfully reported by the mainstream media.

More significantly, the drone attacks have antagonized the public opinion in Pakistan, which does not seem to matter much for the U.S. policy makers as long as they can keep Pakistan army generals on board. This is an unwise, arrogant, and short-sighted approach particularly when the capacity of the militants to conduct operation in the U.S. itself is seriously questionable and is not supported by any evidence. A U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) report had concluded in August 2005, “There is no consensus among experts in and outside the U.S. government about the magnitude of the threat to U.S. national interests posed by the Al Qaeda organization.”

It is open to question if the objective of the drone attacks was to target a few hundred militants. If it was so, why did the U.S. wait for two and half years to conduct the first drone attack on June 18, 2004 in Wana? The Americans knew quite well that hundreds and according to some accounts as many as five thousand Al Qaeda, Central Asian, and Taliban militants were in Waziristan since November 23, 2001. They were evacuated through special flights made from Kunduz, Afghanistan to Pakistan’s northwestern airports in Gilgit and Chitral. The evacuation was a special operation (dubbed as “Airlift of Evil” by MSNBC), conducted with the approval of Dick Cheney in response to a request made by Musharraf apparently on the ground that many Pakistani officers and agents were also trapped in Kunduz along with the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Thereafter, the C.I.A. conducted only two drone attacks in 2005, just one in 2006, and four in 2007. Why did the U.S. forces and the intelligence agencies wake up after several years and particularly in 2008 – seven years after 9/11- and realized that the drone attacks were the right way to get a few hundred Al Qaeda members, every third of whom killed was described as a third-in-command of Al Qaeda.

We may not have the answers but what is beyond any dispute is that the number of casualties in bomb attacks and the level of violence inside Pakistan started to rise significantly only during 2007 (almost six years after 9/11 and American attack on Afghanistan) and has increased more than ten times since. Leaving aside the issue of controversial drone attacks, the fundamental justification and raison d’etre for the attacks –a few hundred Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan were a serious threat to the United States – is something Bush and his top officials themselves did not take seriously as has been corroborated by the accounts of key insiders such as Bush’s own former chief adviser for anti-terrorism Richard Clarke.

This theme is now being echoed by a growing number of commentators on both sides of the Atlantic. A Newsweek Sept. 4, 2010 article asked a frank question:

“Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? “In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength.” it admitted pointing out, “The amount of money spent on intelligence has risen by 250%, to $75 billion (and that’s the public number, which is a gross underestimate). That’s more than the rest of the world spends put together.”

According to a September 2010 study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading U.K. security think-tank, the threat posed by al-Qaida and the Taliban is exaggerated and the western-led counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan risks becoming a “long, drawn-out disaster”. The Institute reckons that the west’s counter-insurgency strategy has “ballooned” out of proportion to the original aim of preventing al-Qaida from mounting terrorist attacks there, and must be replaced by a less ambitious but more sensible policy of “containment and deterrence”.

President Obama addressed the American people Aug. 31 and admitted, “One of the lessons of our effort in Iraq is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone.” One would think the U.S. would have learnt that lesson in Lebanon. Obama acknowledged in a humble tone, “We cannot do for Afghans what they must ultimately do for themselves”, and announced his intention to start the withdrawal of the U.S. troops next July. He may face serious obstacles including from the Pentagon and the C.I.A.

Even Selig Harrison, known for his negative views about Pakistan Army, concedes: “The biggest obstacle to the [peace] accord is not likely to come from Pakistan, but from a Pentagon mindset in which the projection of U.S. power is viewed as a desirable end in of itself.”The United States forces have 74 bases in Afghanistan, including airfields, but only some are designed solely for counterinsurgency operations.

According to the Foreign Policy magazine, the mammoth airfields at Bagram and Kandahar are projected to grow in the years ahead — ambitious new construction projects continue at both bases, despite Obama’s pledge to begin withdrawing troops from the country in the summer of 2011. Furthermore, Congress is considering funding requests, totaling $300 million, to establish new bases at Camp Dwyer and Shindand, close to the Iranian border, and Mazar-e-Sharif, near Central Asia and Russia.

This military misadventure must end. There is no alternative to a political solution. Non-violent political solution requires not only Pak Army should not use militants – in Afghanistan or Kashmir - as a policy tool but also the U.S. (and its junior partner Britain) stop playing the “Great Game” in Afghanistan simply because it can no longer afford to, as it belatedly seems to be realizing. The Great Game is a term that was used for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia in the nineteenth century. The game has been played since then and the west, Russia, and China all have strategic interests in the natural resources and trade routes of the region.

The Great Game

This brings us to the heart of the matter. The U.S. policy and Pak Army’s “wonderland” view of the strategic depth have constituted the core of the problem and not terrorism or extremism per se, which is a serious but still a consequence or a by­product of the core problem. Both the U.S. and Pakistani establishments have been in this game together since the 1980s. This has been and continues to be the root cause of the problem. Sermonizing against extremism in speeches and on TV talk shows without addressing the fundamental reasons and making major policy changes will not solve the problem. Even when the American covert operations ended around 1989-1990, U.S. energy firms like Enron and Unocal continued to woo and allegedly bribe the Talibans to secure their commercial interests while some Pakistani generals adopted the use of religious extremists and militants as a permanent feature of foreign policy and as a means to influence domestic politics.

The concept of strategic depth, principally through proxy militant groups, is an extension of Pakistanis establishment’s nationalism of the imperial variety which is the core of the mindset of the militaries of the subcontinent. It is not only flawed but has proved to be disastrous. Pakistan’s defense does not lie in having Taliban control Afghanistan. Besides, the proud and fiercely independent Afghans will not accept the domination of any outside force for long.

I.S.I. – virtually under the command of the Army chief – has acted as an extension of the C.I.A. in the “Great Game” at a geo-strategic level, notwithstanding occasional rows, disagreements and turf battles. In view of the long history of close ties and cooperation between the Pentagon and Pakistan Army since 1980, and even after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but particularly after September 2001, the I.S.I.-C.I.A. conflict appears to be a case of shadow boxing to justify the expanded military presence in the region. Otherwise why would the U.S spend nearly a billion dollars for “new and larger” U.S. Embassy facilities in Islamabad and build 74 bases in Afghanistan. However, due to the severe economic crisis in the last two years, more and more Americans are now questioning the logic and value of the heavy military engagement in Afghanistan.

Does any serious student of international relations can honestly or seriously believe that a weak country like Pakistan, that is so heavily dependent on the U.S. Aid and the IMF, could have carried on this double game - apparently in direct conflict with U.S. interests in the region - for nearly a decade until and unless it was also part of the bigger game of the Americans? Is this a realistic assumption to make in realpolitik? If General Musharraf and his fellow generals were so petrified of Bush and his threats, could they have carried on this double game as it is argued by many analysts who show little appreciation of the serious contradiction inherent in the two positions they take?

Benazir Bhutto while visiting Peshawar on December 3, 2007 had made serious allegations and questioned the motives of the security establishment pointing out that although the government claimed that the extremist groups had been banned, they were openly operating in Fata and other parts of the country and they were being funded to carry out their anti-people agenda. The extremists were paying Rs.70,000 rent for a one-room accommodation in Fata, and running FM radio channels, she had charged.

A New York Times report (July 22, 2008) commented: “There have been bitter fights between the C.I.A. station chiefs in Kabul and Islamabad, particularly about the significance of the militant threat in the tribal areas. At times, the view from Kabul has been not only that the I.S.I. is actively aiding the militants, but that C.I.A. officers in Pakistan refuse to confront the I.S.I. over the issue.”

The U.S. officials were saying not too long ago that there was no difference between al Qaeda and the Taliban. Now they seem to be eager to reach out to the Taliban for a political settlement. If that was the objective, what was the fuss about al Qaeda being the biggest threat to the global security? Or was it not really but an excuse to build a military presence in Central Asia and Pakistan or simply a case of empire building by the U.S. military and intelligence establishment?

The Axis of Trouble: United States, Generals, and Taliban

Many U.S. and Pakistani officials have claimed that Baitullah Mahsud, late leader of Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was guided by Mullah Omar as there was no difference between Afghan and Pakistani Talibans. But was it ever a secret that Omar was part of the Quetta Shura protected by Pakistan? Taliban leadership has operated from its base in Quetta city in southwest Pakistan for many years. Who has been trying to fool whom?

In his latest book, “Obama’s War”, legendary American journalist Bob Woodward, writes an account of a meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari and U.S. diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, and describes Zardari’s passionate elaboration of why he is convinced that the TTP — often called the Pakistani Taliban — are being financed and directed by the United States to weaken Pakistan so that Washington can grab Islamabad’s nukes. Not a single mainstream Pakistani newspaper reported this explosive revelation. Many Pakistani and Western analysts - often fed disinformation by the officials - can’t seem to think straight and see through the huge contradictions in the official positions of both the U.S. and Pakistani defense and intelligence establishments.

How come Gen. Pervez Kayani who was the I.S.I. chief from 2004 to 2007 and presided over the resurgence of the Talibans on both sides of the Durand line during this period and the worst period of violence since 2001 during his tenure (2008 - 2010) as the army chief, for whatever reason, is so close to and favored by the Pentagon and not just that; the top U.S. officials also supported the extension in his tenure as Army chief for an unprecedented three more years. Kayani has been favored by the U.S. for a long time. This is nothing new or a conspiracy theory.

The Stratfor, a U.S. global intelligence company, reported October 2, 2007 that “with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf due to step down as army chief by Nov. 15, Kayani will emerge as his successor, and given Kayani’s strong leadership credentials, Musharraf as a civilian president will be forced to share power with him.”

The New York Times ran a story “U.S. is Looking past Musharraf in Case He Falls” November 15, 2007 concluding that “at the top of that cadre is Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, General Musharraf’s designated successor as army chief. General Kayani is a moderate, pro-American infantry commander who is widely seen as commanding respect within the army and, within Western circles, as a potential alternative to General Musharraf.”

Sir Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian Jan. 9, 2008: “Backing Musharraf has always seemed “a good idea at the time”. The next person to be cursed with Washington’s favor appears to be Musharraf’s successor as army chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani. However, by opting for the realpolitik of dictatorship the west has not just repressed democracy but aided insurgency and terror.”

Given that Kayani’s rise had been actively encouraged and well anticipated and he was the I.S.I. Chief and Vice Chief of Army Staff during 2004-2007, it is incredible to believe that he had no hand in Mr. Zardari’s rise to power. Kayani must therefore share part if not the whole blame for the policies pursued during 2004-2010 and for thrusting upon Pakistan someone like Mr. Zardari who is nothing but an embarrassment to Pakistan. If he did it under American pressure, that is even worse.

Price of Conflicts – A Dependent, Debilitated, and Dysfunctional State

“It is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal,” Henry Kissinger used to say during the final years of Vietnam War. In October 2007, I wrote , “Would the so-called War on Terror prove to be fatal for Pakistan?”

The crux of the matter is that Pakistanis must disengage themselves from fighting America’s proxy wars and battles in the region, which, since 1980, have cost them more than the all the aid that they received. Pakistan suffered huge losses to the extent of over U.S. $ 43 billion ($10 billion in direct and $33 billion in indirect costs) between 2005 and 2010 according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2010, published by the ministry of finance. In sharp contrast, the net financial assistance from the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), was just $4.9 billion during 2005-10, excluding $7.9 billion paid as reimbursements of war-related expenses incurred by Pakistan.

But Pakistan has paid a much greater cost than can be estimated in money terms. Pakistan’s support to the so-called Afghan jihad was the starting point when the seeds of its own destruction were sown. In the first phase (1980-1989), ‘Kalashnikov and drugs culture’ spread in Pakistan and contributed to a gradual break down of the law and order and criminalization of society and politics at large. In the second phase (1989-2001), once the Afghan war ended and the Americans left, the militants - under the patronage of the state of Pakistan and its intelligence agencies - organized themselves and formed what came to be known as the Talibans. We have seen the rise of the Talibans since then and the havoc it has wrought.

The sharpest rise in the number and frequency of bomb attacks took place after July 2007 following the bloody siege of the Red Mosque, once a recruiting ground for the Afghan mujahedeens in the 1980s, in Islamabad in which hundreds of people, including militants, seminary students, security personnel, and others died in gun battles between the security forces and the students. Red Mosque was controlled by clerics with old and close ties to the intelligence agencies and pro-establishment politicians. But its top clerics turned their guns on Musharraf when he joined the “war on terror” after 9/11. Yet a policy of appeasement was continued through some his cabinet members.

Over 3,400 Pakistanis were killed in more than 200 bloody incidents of suicide attacks carried out in the three years alone between July 2007 and July 2010. Official figures show that 16 people were killed on average in 215 incidents of suicide bombings across Pakistan during the above period. A record number of 1,217 Pakistanis were killed by human bombs in 80 suicide attacks carried out during 2009. On average, 15 Pakistanis lost their lives in six suicide attacks every month in 2009. There were only three suicide attacks in Pakistan during 2005 and nine in 2006. It should be noted that it has been disputed that all of the attacks were “suicide bomb attacks” as claimed by the authorities.

Benazir Bhutto had alleged just 25 days before her assassination on Dec. 27, 2007 that about 90 percent of blasts in the country were simple cases of bombing but the authorities had dubbed them suicide attacks. Kamran Shafi, a well known columnist, recently questioned why it was that not a single suicide-jacket maker had been apprehended and prosecuted and why not even one explosives supplier has been caught and brought before a court of law. “We must ask why not one, just one, motivator has been exposed,” he wrote.

Pakistan’s foreign and domestic policies have been inextricably linked and are intertwined but the foreign and defense policies have dominated the domestic policies with economic development taking the back seat, unlike most other Asian countries. Fighting proxy wars for some aid seemed liked a good deal to Pakistan’s ruling elites. That ‘good deal’ has become a nightmare and the threat of the implosion of Pakistani state, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, is now a global security concern. But do Pakistan’s ruling elites, particularly the top army generals, care or understand this and that the way out of this quagmire would require a change in both foreign and domestic policies?

A Pro-Western Legacy

Although it is common to blame the Pakistani military establishment, Pakistan’s pro-Western policies date back to even before its birth in 1947. Various declassified papers of the British government (e.g. Transfer of Power in India, 1942-47 by Nicholas Mansergh), indicate that the British strategists distrusted Gandhi and were concerned that India, led by the “leftist” Nehru, might fall under Soviet influence. The British found the idea of Pakistan as an independent, pro-Western state quite attractive.

Pakistan’s founders sought special relationship with the West, particularly the United States. Pakistan’s every ruler, save Z.A. Bhutto, followed a completely pro-Western agenda hoping that it would serve as a counter weight to India’s threat. However, the world has changed since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1989, and the emergence of China and India as global economic powers in the last two decades, particularly since 2001.

Pakistan has continued to follow the old set of policies overlooking the fact in its quest for containing Chinese influence in Asia and Central Asia; the West’s long term favorite will now be India. Pakistan’s military is strategically useful and relevant to the U.S. and NATO as long as it can serve their objectives in central and west Asia because they (for that matter even Iran or Saudi Arabia) do not share Pakistan’s view of India as a threat to the regional security and peace.

On the other hand, since one of the main strategic objectives of the U.S. is the containment of Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influence in the region, a strategic and military alliance with the U.S. puts Pakistan in a natural conflict with the interests of China, Russia, and Iran. The continuance of the present set of policies implies that Pakistan may be in a perpetual state of military and strategic tension on both its eastern and western borders. This is an untenable and unsustainable position from all angles; economic, geo-strategic, or political. This fundamental contradiction must be resolved if Pakistan wants to transform itself from a dysfunctional national security state to an Asian country with a promise and start a new era of foreign policy that looks toward East.

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