PAKISTAN - THE TERROR CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Indo-Pak relations have hit a new low after the Mumbai terror attacks. India, along with the US, has launched a diplomatic war to pressurize Pakistan dismantle its terror infrastructure. Two questions come to my mind when I think of this diplomatic tactic – first, will diplomatic tactics yield results? And second, today, is Pakistan in a position to dismantle its terror organizations?
Before answering both the questions, it is important to understand – how did Pakistan end up being the breeding ground to some of the most dangerous terror organizations of the world? After all it did not part ways with India in 1947 just to wage a proxy war!

I believe it all began in 1971 when Pakistan faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of India. Pakistan realized that it could not defeat India in a direct war. With the humiliation of losing Bangladesh, perhaps (and I am guessing here) it wanted to get back by doing something similar. Kashmir became the obvious choice – a state with Muslim majority, grieved local population and a disputed border with Pakistan. It supported organizations that trained terrorists to wage a proxy war in Kashmir. Also, during the same time, US was fighting a war against Russia (erstwhile USSR) in Afghanistan. US too by this time had learnt its lessons from Vietnam fiasco where it had suffered huge losses in a decade long direct war. It too wanted to train and arm local groups who would wage the war on its behalf. So Pakistan, a nation that shared border with Afghanistan and an old ally, became the natural choice where such terror groups mushroomed and trained people to wage war in Afghanistan and India.

All this went well till the cold war. After cold war, US lost interest in the proxy war and backed off support to these groups. During the same time, Al Qaeda under Osama Bin Laden that had worked with US in Afghanistan now turned against it. Al Qaeda became US’s enemy number one for its policies of supporting Israel and war against Iraq. Al Qaeda transformed itself into a global terrorist organization with the aid of Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia. It operated from the difficult mountainous terrain bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan. The terrain has always been under the control of local war lords where these Al Qaeda and other terrorist organization have taken safe refuge.

US is now fighting the monster it had created. Pakistan on the other hand is divided on the issue of supporting these terrorist outfits. The army and its intelligence agencies still see supporting terror outfits as a source of power, while the politicians see it as a dangerous path that is economically unviable. The intelligence agencies are so closely knit with these outfits; it is hard for them to just disengage with them. And with the army having an upper hand in Pakistan, the path to remove the terror infrastructure is fraught with peril to democracy. Also, the terrorist outfits are not under the control of Pakistan government. They are independent groups with stable source of income from other Islamic nations. To that extent, even if the army wants, it will not be able to remove the terror infrastructure so easily.

Pakistan has now become a big threat to the world. It is a nuclear nation, which is home to world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations. Further, Pakistan has economically not done as well as India. A military solution, especially from India, can frustrate a nation that will not be able to digest another defeat. It can lead to a nuclear war, or even worse, passing of nuclear technology to Al Qaeda. Either way, repercussion will be disastrous. Under such circumstances, I am not in favor of a nuclear war. I support the diplomatic path – whatever it offers.