Managing Pakistan's failure

[Nihat]

N.V. Subramanian writes:
Zardari vs Army
Looks like some kind of soft coup is underway.

For a coup to take place, either the Army must be mighty unhappy with its share of the booty and influence, or USA must be mighty pissed off with the current regime.

I am not sure if the Army is really that pissed off. More or less they are getting whatever they want.
!

True that, the current position is the best one for Kiyani. He enjoys a status and position that even Spiderman did not i.e. all power without much responsibility. The nutty president @ the top gets all the blame for the militancy, economy, etc and Kiyani appears as the mighty guardian of TSP's border against India as well as the upholder of the Puki constitution who refuses to lead a coup.

Kiyani controlls all foreign policy from behind closed doors but the GoP takes all the blame. Absolutly perfect for Kiyani, why bother changing it.

Even for India's sake I hope this remains the case. If a useful leader comes in then he could well improve tax collection, abolish feudalism, control militancy and make peace with India. TSP might actually change it's ways and I would hate to see that happen as an 18 yrs. old dream of mine to see TSP roll in it's own poop till it dies will remain unfulfilled. TSP must pay for crimes in India, it can't get away just by mending its ways now.

[RajeshG]

TFTA Pakistanis will probably interpret this as "We havent been Islamic enough".

I can see your point, but so what? Who cares what the TFTA think or don't think?
What do you suggest India or the world do with Pakistan?

The minimum that needs to be done is to recognize that its the TFTA ideology, the Islamic Pakistaniyat that is the problem and not GDP/infant-mortality/governance/army/feudal etc issues. Only then the issues will be seen in the correct order by us and by the world. Kashmir then (for eg) stops being a territorial dispute to India and the World.

[ramana]

Politicsparty thinks that chief chef visited India to inform of impending regime change in TSP and other things.

[RajeshG]

Whatever yardstick one uses, Pakistanis have failed as a nation.

I apologize for being repetitious. But i feel that until the day Pakistanis come out and unequivocally say that "Yes we were wrong all along, Iqbal was wrong, Jinnah was wrong, Pakistan was wrong" we havent had a failure that should be considered a true failure.

A perhaps unrelated point but I am reminded of what Prof Balagangadhara said once about colonialism.

colonialism is not merely a process of occupying lands and extracting revenues. It is not a question of encouraging us to ape the western countries in trying to be like them. It is not even about colonising the imaginations of a people by making them dream that they too will become 'modern', developed and sophisticated. It goes deeper than any of these. It is about denying the colonised peoples and cultures their own experiences; of making them aliens to themselves; of actively preventing any description of their own experiences except in terms defined by the colonisers.

The context was totally different. I dont even know if the good prof would even approve of such usage of his ideas. But at the end of the day perhaps thats what is required. A truly colonised Pakistan - without occupying their land/revenues/etc. How that can be measured by indicators as we engineers like to do, how it can be pulled off, whether its ethical/unethical - I honestly have no clue. But at a minimum I would like Pakistanis to honestly believe that the whole idea of Pakistan was wrong.

Thats perhaps the best i can articulate.

[Pratyush]

Ramana Chief Chef who??

My bird brain is unable to understand the coded talk.

Any am not very clear bout regieme change. TSPA is getting all they want. Kill any got an extention for 3 years. Why will the TSPA want to conduct a regiem change. Soft or otherwise.

What am trying to ask is, they have all the fingers in ghee and head in the pan. So why are they dissatisfied with the current arrangement.

Added later:

Manish Its clear now

[Manishw]

^ Panetta

[RajeshA]

Whatever yardstick one uses, Pakistanis have failed as a nation.

I apologize for being repetitious. But i feel that until the day Pakistanis come out and unequivocally say that "Yes we were wrong all along, Iqbal was wrong, Jinnah was wrong, Pakistan was wrong" we havent had a failure that should be considered a true failure.

Everybody expresses their failure in words which best suit their culture (or lack of it) and upbringing.

Except for the 'liberal' fringe in Pakistan, nobody really cares about Iqbal and Jinnah, other than may be as some useless symbols and photos in the background. Iqbal's grandfather was a Kashmiri Pundit, Sahaj Ram Sapru, who converted to Islam. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajputs from Gujarat, who converted to Shi'ism. They were all converts. The Pakistanis would like to boast how they all descended from the hooves of Arab horses. For Iqbal and Jinnah, their fan clubs have shrunk a lot. So if you have Pakistanis cursing Jinnah for his love for pork, whiskey and dogs, then it is better than saying he was wrong.

If you have Zaid Hamids talking about Ghazwa-e-Hind from early morning to early morning, and about how he would fly the Pakistani Flag on Lal Qila soon, then it is his way of saying that Pakistan is wrong, because had Pakistan not been created, the chances would have been greater for some shitt like him to come close to the Lal Qila. That is his way of saying Pakistan was wrong.

If the Islamists in Pakistan keep on saying 'The dismal situation in Pakistan has to do with too little Islam. Pakistan needs more Islam', then it is their way of recognizing Pakistan's failure.

So they all talk about Pakistan's failure and how it is wrong. It is just that they use a different language.

[RajeshA]

X-Posting from TSP Thread

With the current situation deteriorating do we assume that there will be a full blown war between unkil and TSP ?

What will be the implications vis a vis India ?
In such a case should India take what is rightfully her's ? (ie. POK) (should India create circumstances which allow it to follow this agenda?)
How will china play out in this scenario ?!

What we need is a different power center in Pakistani Areas - some group that is less anti-India, and not beholden to PRC.

We need a regime change in Pakistan. Pakjab has to be forced to become our whore, available at our beck and call.

It doesn't matter how we do it - through carrots or by squashing its head to pulp. Psychology of whores however says that some degree of violence on them is required to keep them on the leash. (My apologies to the profession of prostitutes on this).

Indians have to imagine themselves being the masters of the Islamist attack dogs. If we want we should be able to send them to Xinjiang or for that matter anywhere else.

One way to do it, is to kick the Indian Ulema in their backsides and tell them to grow themselves some spine and do some patriotic work. Through them, we should work on the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, who actually control the moods and religious fervor in the badlands of Pakistan.

On the one hand we should push back the Wahhabi influence in India and on the other hand get a grip over the movement through the Wahhabis.

[ramana]

X-post...

Fine assessment from the Guardian on the failing state.Read the full article apartf rom xcpts..

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 00865.html

Is Pakistan falling apart?

It has suffered disaster after disaster. Its people have lived through crisis upon crisis. Its leaders are unwilling or unable to act. But is it really the failed state that many believe?

By Patrick Cockburn
Friday, 8 October 2010

Xcpts:

AP
In a bad state: American military supplies being transported through the Khyber Pass
Is Pakistan disintegrating? Are the state and society coming apart under the impact of successive political and natural disasters? The country swirls with rumours about the fall of the civilian government or even a military coup. The great Indus flood has disappeared from the headlines at home and abroad, though millions of farmers are squatting in the ruins of their villages. The US is launching its heaviest-ever drone attacks on targets in the west of the country, and Pakistan closed the main US and Nato supply route through the Khyber Pass after US helicopters crossed the border and killed Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistan is undoubtedly in a bad way, but it is also a country with more than 170 million people, a population greater than Russia's, and is capable of absorbing a lot of punishment. It is a place of lop-sided development. It possesses nuclear weapons but children were suffering from malnutrition even before the floods. Electricity supply is intermittent so industrialists owning textile mills in Punjab complain that they have to use their own generators to stay in business. Highways linking cities are impressive, but the driver who turns off the road may soon find himself bumping along a farmer's track. The 617,000-strong army is one of the strongest in the world, but the government has failed to eliminate polio or malaria. Everybody agrees that higher education must be improved if Pakistan is to compete in the modern world, but the universities have been on strike because their budgets had been cut and they could not pay their staff.

The problem for Pakistan is not that the country is going to implode or sink into anarchy, but that successive crises do not produce revolutionary or radical change. A dysfunctional and corrupt state, part-controlled by the army, staggers on and continues to misgovern the country. The merry-go-round of open or veiled military rule alternates with feeble civilian governments. But power stays in the hands of an English-speaking élite that inherited from the British rulers of the Raj a sense of superiority over the rest of the population.....

The military have ruled Pakistan for more than half the time since independence in 1947, but their control has never been quite absolute. The soldiers have never managed to put the politicians and the political parties permanently out of business, so the balance between military and non-military still counts. But there is no doubt about which way the struggle is going. A decisive moment came on 24 July this year when General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief of staff, was reappointed for another three-year term. The US embassy in Islamabad is said by foreign diplomats and Pakistani officials to have protested vigorously but unavailingly to Washington. It said that keeping General Kayani in place would inflict a fatal wound on democracy and demonstrate that the civilian government could not get rid of its own army commander. In the event, Washington, always a crucial influence in Islamabad, decided that it would prefer to deal with a single powerful figure able to deliver in negotiations over Afghanistan. This was in keeping with US policy towards Pakistan since the 1950s. "We were put under intense pressure to keep Kayani," said an aide of President Zardari's. "We were left with no choice."

In one sense, the army never really left power after the fall of General Pervez Musharraf in 2008. It has continued to allocate to itself an extraordinarily high proportion of Pakistan's limited resources. Military bases all over the country look spruce and well cared-for, while just outside their razor-wire defences are broken roads and slum housing. At the entrance of a base just west of Islamabad last week was an elderly but effective-looking tank as a monument, the ground around it parade-ground clean. A few hundred yards away, a yellow bulldozer was driving through thick mud to make a flood-damaged road passable two months after the deluge, while a side street nearby was closed by a pool of stagnant grey-coloured water. At the other end of the country in northern Sindh, a local leader, who like many critics of the Pakistani military did not want his name published, pointed to a wide canal. He said: "This canal is not meant to be taking water from the Indus, but it is allowed to operate because it irrigates land owned by army officers."

The army projects a messianic image of itself in which it selflessly takes power to save the nation. It likes to contrast its soldierly virtues of incorruptibility and efficiency with the crookedness and ineptitude of civilians. "The army is very good at claiming to be the solution to problems which it has itself created," complained a local politician in Punjab. "It is also good at ascribing all failures to civilian governments, which cannot act because the army monopolises resources." He added caustically that in his area, the floods had arrived on 6 August and the first army assistance on 26 August.

Politicians and journalists criticising the army often employ code words where more is implied than stated. But last month, a government minister made a pungent attack on the army that astonished listening journalists. The minister for defence production, Abdul Qayyum Jatoi, directly accused the army of being behind the killing of the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007, and the revered Baluchi leader Nawab Bugti, a year earlier.

"We did not provide the army with uniforms and boots to kill their own countrymen," Mr Jatoi said bluntly, suggesting that the army leaders do their duty by going to defend Pakistan's frontiers and end rumours of a coup. He added: "Not only politicians should be blamed for corruption, rather [army] generals and judges should be held responsible."

PS:After reading this article,the saying is accurate that "while states have an army,Pakistan is an army with a state"!

Plus,it is also clear that since Washington "sanctioned" Gen,Kill-Any,the Vulture's continuation,it is the puppeteer that ultimately pulls the strings in Pak and can do so more forcefully.It is also responsible by default for Pak's terrorist actions as it supports to the hilt the Paki military and its bloodstained generalissimo.

[shiv]

Cross post

One suspects that if India inherited Curzon's burden, then the Chinese believe that undoing
the 'New British Indian' Empire is to their advantage. This mean, there is alignment on
Pakistan with the west. There is a need to recreate the 'Silk Road' and there is a need to
be a dominant power in the Indian Ocean. A whole lot of Chinese actions in Asia makes sense
when seen from this point of view.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the key, but India is not an insignificant player.

The US wants to get out of Afghanistan (or so they say). But the US is also promising to stay engaged with Pakistan unlike the past (or so they say). That means the US IMO will sit in Pakistan for years. And the US will control all pipelines and the Silk route. Hence China's desperation to send ships via the Arctic and all.

What if the US went? Along with the US, support to the Pakistani army is likely to go. The Pakistan army will then sell itself wholly and completely to the CPC. Ultimately this will not be in our interest. On the other hand, US support to the Pakistan army too is not wholly in our interest. That is why I believe that despite the pain caused we have to economically incorporate the largely agrarian, largely Indic population of Pakistan with India - initially by an economic integration.

When I think about the pattern of terrorism in India I am convinced that the anti-india terrorists are almost wholly under Pakistani control. It is only the anti-Pakistan terrorists who are partly out of Pakistan army control. That makes them our allies, but both the US and China will oppose them since they threaten the whore - the Pakistan army. The anti India terrorists would be allies of the Chinese - but they are now gradually becoming foes of the US. The situation is actually very fluid.

I am certain that the US or China can support the Paki army forever. But the US has clearly expressed its inability to support 170 million Paki forever. China too cannot do that despite their great generosity to clap ridden whores. The population of Pakistan's poor will double the number of poor whom China has to "uplift" and I don;t see China sustaining Paki mango Abduls. IMO the Mango Abduls only hope is history and geography - i.e trade links with India.

Only the Paki army stands in the way..

[ramana]

Jupiter, A remark by Acharya in response to one of your posts that TSP will become a nationless state led me to saerch for analogues. I came upon a US military 50 page paper

Arabism and Islam: Stateless Nations and Nationless States

A relevant excerpt is :

During the 1980s, Islamic activists in the Arab Middle East have challenged the definition of "legitimate authority" and provided the means and rationale for revolutionary change, hoping to pressure established governments to alter domestic and foreign policies. No nation-state has been immune. Fearful Arab nationalist leaders, unwilling or unable to abandon decades of ideological baggage, have begun a gradual, if erratic, process of melding the spirit and letter of Islamic precepts into existing national laws and political rhetoric. Whether it is adequate to the challenge, the state nevertheless bears the onus of accommodation, because Islam and Arabism will not soon disappear. They will assume new form and substance in the changing realities of the region. Dilemmas inherent to this century and the gauntlet delivered to hitherto unquestioned political caveats will continue to exacerbate the competition between Islam and Arabism, their quest for political platforms and supporters, and the credibility of all other claimants, including the state. Visions of the future, especially when they are sacred and apocalyptic, can never be entirely freed of historical, emotive baggage. Even if Islamic political activism and pan-Arabism diminish in their intensity, they will endure as subtle, formative forces in all aspects of life. Indigenous inhabitants are fully aware that these influences have profound resonance in their lives. At the same time, these forces act like invisible sentinels in the mind, standing ready to cast a long shadow as unconscious motivators of political behavior.

Please read and comment wrt to TSP and its own nationless state transformation.

Note above paper was written 20 years ago in 1990!

In case of TSP it was the govt (army/state) branches that Islamised the state and thus they are themselves questioning state authority in a dyslexic fashion leading to this current situation. They were the activists themsleves. If that is the case they are already at the nightmare scenario that US wants to avoid!

To me looks like TSP went full speed ahead in this transformation from nation state to nationless state despite having a large Pakjabi nation majority while the expected Arab states endured. Recall Anatole Lieven and his masala about Pakjabification of TSP.

Is the problem that Pakjabis not a true nation as it is a part of the greater Punjabi mileu?

[A_Gupta]

^^^ That paper is worth reading in full.

Some thoughts - Pakistan cannot fail in a velvet or orange or such quiet revolution. The end will be violent. Because as Pakistan fails, the very ideology explains the failure as resulting from some impurities caused by some members of the society (from the paper above: "most virulent disputes in Islam have been waged by Muslims against other Muslims who are accused of subverting the purity of the aggregate.").

To deviate from orthodoxy is not just an individual sin affecting the individual; it causes the society itself to lapse into chaos. The deviators are not seen as having their individual rights; rather they are seen as violating the rights of the collective.

E.g., suppose we were all on a boat out at sea. There is no individual right to bore holes in the bottom of the boat. Whoever does so dooms the boat, and is subject to extreme sanction. The problem with the ideology is that there is no agreement about what it is to drill holes in the boat. What is acceptable to one is not to the other. The only agreement is in that if I see you damaging our common boat, I have the right to throw you off the boat. As the boat founders, the intensity of find the culprits and getting rid of them only increases.

[svinayak]

Foreign Presence and Independence in the Arab Middle East*
Country Foreign Presence Independence Present Government
Iraq Britain 1932 Republic
Egypt** Britain 1936 Republic
Lebanon France 1943 Republic
Syria France 1946 Republic
Jordan Britain 1946 Monarchy
Libya Italy 1951 Republic
Sudan Britain 1956 Republic
Morocco France/Spain 1956 Monarchy
Tunisia France 1956 Republic
Somalia Britain/Italy 1960 Republic
Mauritania France 1960 Republic
Kuwait Britain 1961 Emirate
Algeria France 1962 Republic
Yemen Britain 1967 Republic
(South)
Bahrain Britain 1971 Emirate
Qatar Britain 1971 Emirate
United Arab Britain 1971 Federated
Emirates Emirates
Djibouti France 1977 Republic

*Exceptions:
North Yemen, a republic, has had extensive historical ties with South Yemen.
Nevertheless, it was the South Yemeni port of Aden that was the objective
of foreign powers; and the region recognized as modern North Yemen
remained essentially isolated. Notably, North and South Yemen united
in 1990.
Oman, ruled as a Sultanate, has essentially been independent since 1650.
Attempts to establish control by the Portuguese and Persians were
sporadic and limited to the littoral.
Saudi Arabia, formerly autonomous amirates and badu tribes, was unified
in 1932 by the AI Sa'ud family who established a monarchy. It too remained
isolated from foreign influence.
**Britain

[brihaspati]

Jupiter, A remark by Acharya in response to one of your posts that TSP will become a nationless state led me to saerch for analogues. I came upon a US military 50 page paper
[...]
During the 1980s, Islamic activists in the Arab Middle East have challenged the definition of "legitimate authority" and provided the means and rationale for revolutionary change, hoping to pressure established governments to alter domestic and foreign policies. No nation-state has been immune. Fearful Arab nationalist leaders, unwilling or unable to abandon decades of ideological baggage, have begun a gradual, if erratic, process of melding the spirit and letter of Islamic precepts into existing national laws and political rhetoric. Whether it is adequate to the challenge, the state nevertheless bears the onus of accommodation, because Islam and Arabism will not soon disappear. They will assume new form and substance in the changing realities of the region. Dilemmas inherent to this century and the gauntlet delivered to hitherto unquestioned political caveats will continue to exacerbate the competition between Islam and Arabism, their quest for political platforms and supporters, and the credibility of all other claimants, including the state. Visions of the future, especially when they are sacred and apocalyptic, can never be entirely freed of historical, emotive baggage. Even if Islamic political activism and pan-Arabism diminish in their intensity, they will endure as subtle, formative forces in all aspects of life. Indigenous inhabitants are fully aware that these influences have profound resonance in their lives. At the same time, these forces act like invisible sentinels in the mind, standing ready to cast a long shadow as unconscious motivators of political behavior.
[...]
In case of TSP it was the govt (army/state) branches that Islamised the state and thus they are themselves questioning state authority in a dyslexic fashion leading to this current situation. They were the activists themsleves. If that is the case they are already at the nightmare scenario that US wants to avoid!

To me looks like TSP went full speed ahead in this transformation from nation state to nationless state despite having a large Pakjabi nation majority while the expected Arab states endured. Recall Anatole Lieven and his masala about Pakjabification of TSP.

Is the problem that Pakjabis not a true nation as it is a part of the greater Punjabi mileu?

ramanaji,
definitely your pointer is a valid one about Pakjabis and I think both of us once had a discussion on this. My current updates understanding of the "Islamist process" as applicable to understanding the Paki transformation is briefly as follows:

(1) Islamism is best understood as an "infantile disorder" of sociopoiltical manifestation. Its roots and vision lie in an extension of primitive nomadic tribes surviving in marginal resource environs, and therefore without much civilizational complexity both in technology as well as ideology. It is therefore attractive and will remain so to any human group that has been left behind and continues to be left behind in historical march of increasing civilizational complexity. Somewhat like a baby who struggles to cope with the adult world and kicks and bites and cries when it does not get what it biologically desires. It will obviously have neither the capacity nor the inclination to understand the real processes by which satisfaction needs to be worked for and has no sense of requirement to contribute. Extend this to an individual whose intellectual development has been arrested at the child stage for his entire life.

(2) what happens when that "infant" becomes biologically adolescent? This is the time point at which the theology took its first shape in the 600's. it now has a body that desires to reproduce and gain strength to implement that desire. It is significant to note that it was born on the cross roads of trade flow between the two major productive and innovative centres of humanity - the east and the west of Euro-Asia [ or Mediterranean and IOR from another angle]. The area of birth was traditionally an arid, unproductive zone that saw the consumption goodies being passed around but had neither the intelligence nor the drive to be creative enough to produce them on their own. To be creative meant facing up to complexity - somewhat analogous to the adolescent, learning skills and knowledge tit-bits of the adult world - if he was normal. But the "infantile disorder" system means such a "growing up" did not take place.

(3) Therefore for the adolescent with "infantile disorder" - the best method is to become a teenage hooligan who simply loots and snatches what he desires from others who have the creativity to produce them. But at the same time, the "challenged" teen also hates the "complex" other-world, seeks to destroy it, while desiring the fruits of that complex "other". This was what happened in the early phases after foundation. The adolescent could not tolerate the complexity represented by the various evolutions of human endeavour and tried to create a world in its own "infantile" image. Even now, "challenged" individuals in many cases function best within well-defined and rule based regulated daily life, with an authority figure or father figure hovering around - all of which appear in the way the theology was presented.

(4) The first teenager with that "infantile disorder" soon found himself with similar "teenagers" from the neighbourhood who had similar grievances with their respective birth societies and could manage to destroy and overcome the "adults" who were either struggling in a difficult time, or were too casual about the risks posed by "children" - who however could manage sufficient intelligence to fein weakness/childish pranks when caught but deceptively come up one night to set fire to the room where the adults slept. This is the expansion stage into borderland of Byzantines in Palestine and Syria and Persia itself. At this point Islamism's "infantile disorder" gets a twist - because some of the teenagers possessed more intelligence than the original one and saw "benfits" in pretending the "infantile disorder" as a tactical tool. This is how from "pure infantile disorder" it transformed into "pretended infantile disorder of the mediocre".

(5) the mediocre "pretenders" of infantile disorder were bound to displace the original pure "infantile disorder" child. The mediocres would pretend the "infantile disorder" in order to swell the numbers from other areas to increase looting strength but retain sufficient sub-identity to claim the "leader's share" of booty. Thus each corner of the Islamist world could neither reject Islam nor would they readily give up their subregional identities so that they could try and claim the largest share of dominion, control and booty.

(6) Pakjabis represent one such subregional claim with the unique problem that they have not been able to erase their previous ancestral heritage from the entire subregion. Which means they cannot assume this regional identity as both Islamic and unique - something that the Persians could do. This means to use Islam to extract "profits" from the surrounding using the force of other "mediocre" pretenders of infantile disorder - they have to look for those aspects of the original disorder that did not require "regional uniqueness", and one such way is to adopt the "conquest/loot" method of the original. This would set apart the Pakjabis as reviving the "imperialist" spirit of the original 'disorder" and the promise of booty and expansion and land grab that initially fueled the movement and led it to spectacular success - at a time when no other Islamist claimant is apparently ready to take this "pioneering" mantle. this would be then the Pakjabis unique claim to distinction within the Ummah and hopefully their support. Nations or nationality mean nothing in that scheme - its a fluid identity defined only by the success of loot and booty.

[Prem]

Cut through all the complexities and complexes with easy solution of mental and material liquidation. Reformation has no chance of succeding in Islamist societies ,proof is in the fasad of last 1400 years: Nothing constructive can be achieved by destructive dogma. Islamist methods will achieve instant results in innoculating Islamist insanity. Like 1971, we will soon get another chance and ought not be wasted.
One thing to keep in mind is that Islamist have never been able to come together. Poakiranian might try but chances are minimum they will trust each other enough to watch their back just like Jordanian , Syrian and Egypian egging and stabbing each others to go to war with Israel.

[Pulikeshi]

Quick question to all gurus:

What has all this poking and probing on Islamism and Islamists provided in terms of
tools or options to seek end goals in the rat's next (TSP)?

[brihaspati]

Quick question, but so many answers,

(1) Trade sustains Islamism. Pure trade allows avoiding being creative and innovation and facing up to complexity of knowledge and processing it. So if a virtual economic blockade can "gently" be applied Pakjab will fall. No amount of external aid can sustain a whole population indefinitely - especially the "fast breeder reactor" type like Pak. Well includes factors like taking care of consumer demand in certain global quarters for exotic items like opium and 72 seeking exploders.

(2) External conditions as in (1) as well as other internal provocations that can be used to force the Pakis to face "Dandi March" style dilemmas. Force them to face the question of land ownership and land reforms for example - doodh ka doodh, pani ka pani. Islamism will invoke Islam to protect "right to property".

(3) Balochistan. Promise support to hawks across the pond if they use Balochistan as base to target the Imamate. In return they give joint management of the coasts of the Gulf.

(4) Provoke the hotheads in Pakjab and taunt them to come and taste. Naach le. Prepare plans from before to swallow.

(5) Offer the AFTaleb a partition of Pakjab and all help to them to let Habia Dozakh let loose to the "west". Kind of Polish Partition before WWII.

[ramana]

Bji, Its interesting that the scholar concentrates in 1990 on Islamism in Arab areas that is the Middle East while, it was going on full blast in TSP and Afghanistan aka Af-Pak. What the two decades after the report saw was the transfer of Islamism from the core of Middle East to the periphery of Af-Pak! So by permitting this transfer they managed to keep the core relatively ideologically free.

* Theory of core vs periphery.

Unfortunately that is also India's periphery.

[SSridhar]

Khaled Ahmed's predictions in TFT: 'A State that Excludes'

Chances are that the state may find its own identity pushed to the extreme right under the ideology of jahiliya propagated by Al Qaeda whose following in Pakistan comes from the clergy and their madrassa network, the jihadi organisations fielded by the state to fight its wars of ‘destiny’, and the common man alienated from the ‘weak state’ of Pakistan. The concept of jahiliya is inward-looking and focuses on the defects of homo islamicus ; and therefore initially it is the Sunni Muslim who will bear the brunt of this new identity-formation. After that, while becoming somewhat like Iran, Pakistan will fight an ‘intermediate’ sectarian war with Iran under an Al Qaeda banner before taking on the West. (Al Qaeda is fighting Iran in Iraq and its subordinate militia, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is fighting the ‘excludable’ Shia in Pakistan.)

In pre-modern times, Pakistan as a state would have disappeared because of its rapidly declining will to live. Today, it can become like Afghanistan and Yemen and Sudan – despite its nuclear assets – but the prevailing international order will prevent it from disappearing. Because of its extreme economic dependency on the outside world, Pakistan may even take some pragmatic steps to water down its medieval ideology and identity-coercion. It is quite clear now that it simply does not have the ideological conviction to fight the ‘superior’ puritanism of Al Qaeda. But it can be helped by a world community scared of Al Qaeda’s destructive outreach and, in return for this help, Pakistan may make an effort to strip itself of its coercive identity without even risking an intellectual discussion of it.

[ramana]

He is talking BRF speak. He is saying the same thing with out using the right terminology. He is describing a nationless state which is propped up by the 'prevailing international order".

The bigger picture is Westphalian state system works in modern nations and not in pre-modern nations. The UN system has too many states that are not capable iof surviving as states.

[RajeshA]

X-Posting from TSP Thread

If paquis are not around 10 years from now. What will happen to plebicite? would valley Roper would merge with pakjabi or taller than
mountain breather sitting in balwaristan?

When Bangladesh split they had more people there than the Pakis, then how come they dont have say in Kashmir?

Yup any plebiscite would have 3 options: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

No. Only India or Bangladesh.

No. Only India or Bangladesh.

You're right saip ji.

Actually Sheikh Mujibar Rehman won the Pakistani elections in 1970. He won 160 from 300 seats in the National Assembly.

So in fact Bangladesh is the true inheritor of pre-1971 Pakistani State. That means any Plebiscite in J&K can have only India and Bangladesh as the two choices.

When are we having the plebiscite by the way?

As has been established earlier, the question of UN Resolutions (e.g. U.N. Resolution 47) on J&K plebiscite is an issue between India and Bangladesh.

Pakistan is simply an illegitimate organization occupying land in J&K, which needs to be kicked out. They have absolutely no locus standi on Kashmir. The UN Resolutions talk about a different Pakistan, that doesn't exist any more and if it does then Bangladesh is the successor state.

Not the name should determine the successor state of Pakistan, but rather the determination of representativeness through democratic means.

The first acknowledgement by India of the current Pakistan as a state in its own right was made through the Simla Accord. For all other purposes and issues related to pre-Simla Accord, either India would consider any treaties and resolutions dealing with India and Pakistan as null and void; or would consider them to be applicable to India and Bangladesh, as Bangladesh would be recognized by India as the successor state of the original Pakistan.

Perhaps with Indian support, Bangladesh should try to get itself recognized as the successor state to pre-1971 Pakistan in the international community. Once this has been established. Bangladesh can choose to withdraw from the question of plebiscite in J&K, and accepts J&K's Instrument of Accession to India. The UN Resolutions on Kashmir become null and void.

Then Pakistan simply becomes an illegal entity occupying Gilgit-Baltistan and West-Jammu, in need to be kicked out.

[brihaspati]

ramanaji,
as you point out - and extending my own arguments, sooner or later the "Islamic periphery" has to recognize themselves as permanent peripheries. Islam's imperialism driven by Arabism means that there will never be an opportunity for the periphery to become genuine parts of the "core" as the the Islamic core will always need to preserve distinctions aligned to their primitive exclusivist tribalism.

Pakjabis have to make this choice. Unfortunately, such choices are never seriously considered for such entitites unless they suffer overwhelming military defeats combined with genocidal pressures to "opt out" [something they were forced upon to become Islamic in the first place].

The author of the article sees "universalism" whereas I see only tactical pretension of "unification" to mobilize manpower towards imperialist control from a "centre". It simultaneously uses "cult of the personality" to achieve this unity - which has the danger of getting reduced to exclusivity based on that individual dictator's regional/clan/coterie connections - just as it happens with all Marxist movements. This leads to so much regionalism and subregionalism within so-called pan-Islamism. All such universalist pretensions are basically a cover to try and gain the "centre" and imperialist control.

[ramana]

Can you blog all this to let others get the benefit of our discussion?

[svinayak]

In pre-modern times, Pakistan as a state would have disappeared because of its rapidly declining will to live. Today, it can become like Afghanistan and Yemen and Sudan – despite its nuclear assets – but the prevailing international order will prevent it from disappearing. Because of its extreme economic dependency on the outside world, Pakistan may even take some pragmatic steps to water down its medieval ideology and identity-coercion. It is quite clear now that it simply does not have the ideological conviction to fight the ‘superior’ puritanism of Al Qaeda. But it can be helped by a world community scared of Al Qaeda’s destructive outreach and, in return for this help, Pakistan may make an effort to strip itself of its coercive identity without even risking an intellectual discussion of it.

They are cogniscent of the failure of Pakistan. They are looking for survival of the ideology and the army so that they can pass on for another generation with outside support.

He is talking BRF speak. He is saying the same thing with out using the right terminology. He is describing a nationless state which is propped up by the 'prevailing international order".

The bigger picture is Westphalian state system works in modern nations and not in pre-modern nations. The UN system has too many states that are not capable iof surviving as states.

The post WWII created a large financial system and global trade which took care of the client states.
Now post 911 all the free money has dried up and will not be available for state to survive.
The prevailing international order will support for only so long before they will have to make a decision.
India can force that decision so that the end is inevitable.

ramanaji,

The author of the article sees "universalism" whereas I see only tactical pretension of "unification" to mobilize manpower towards imperialist control from a "centre". It simultaneously uses "cult of the personality" to achieve this unity - which has the danger of getting reduced to exclusivity based on that individual dictator's regional/clan/coterie connections - just as it happens with all Marxist movements. This leads to so much regionalism and subregionalism within so-called pan-Islamism. All such universalist pretensions are basically a cover to try and gain the "centre" and imperialist control.

This is a correct view. The pretension of a global unity is a false one.
They have imperialism within imperialism.

[svinayak]

Bolton on Pakistan
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/09/bol ... democracy/

Bolton: Democracy Is Not ‘Always The Answer’
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that “[m]embers of Pakistan’s spy agency [ISI] are pressing Taliban field commanders to fight the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan.” Referring to the story Thursday night on Fox News, war hawk John Bolton — potential GOP presidential candidate in 2012 — made an astonishing claim regarding the type of government that should be in control of Pakistan: that the country was better off under military authoritarian rule, which (allegedly) would have been easier to “lean” on to prevent the ISI from helping the Taliban:

BOLTON: [D]emocracy and civilian governments in Pakistan have been so discredited because of incompetence and corruption. I thought the Musharraf government, military, authoritarian rule that it was, was the most likely kind of government to be able to make the changes we made. [...] I would have kept Musharraf in power. I think the Bush administration made a mistake in pushing him out. In Pakistan they call the military the “steel skeleton” because it really is the only thing that holds the country together. That offends some people who think democracy is always the answer. Personally, I would put American interests above that. I wouldn’t have gotten rid of Musharraf.

Watch it:

So it seems that Bolton has officially taken himself out of the democracy promotion crowd. But his prescription for stability in Pakistan appears to be at odds with what he himself said in 2007, that the military regime that governed the country at the time was untrustworthy and “filled with fundamentalists“:

Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile may be technically secure, Bolton said but the issue isn’t whether the weapons are locked away. “It’s a political issue,” the former U.S. ambassador said. “If the military comes unstuck, if it divides, then the technical fixes won’t protect those weapons.”
He is talking of Pakistan military getting divided. This is a good scenario and it is possible in the near future. They are worried about it.

Musharraf is in a difficult spot, Bolton said. “Even the military is filled with Islamic fundamentalists that he’s tried to keep in lower positions.”

“But they’re pervasive,” he said. “And he doesn’t have the flexibility of a real military dictator.”

Bolton has even reportedly said that he “did not think one democracy should tell another democracy not to act like a democracy.” Maybe now he feels that this is permissible or perhaps he is just looking back to his non-democratic roots. “I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count,” Bolton told election workers recounting ballots cast in Florida’s disputed presidential race between George Bush and Al Gore in December 2000.

[Pulikeshi]

B,

Thanks for trying to answer my question. I remain as always a skeptic on this issue.

Peddling ideology in pursuit of realist goals is the imperative,
but pursuing the expansion of ideology for its own sake is suicidal.
All such conflicting activity are subject to the Coase theorem or modifications

There are many examples, Ashoka, Rome, Mongols, etc. So with this version...

[Johann]

While discussions of Pakistan's political future are by nature qualitative rather than quantitative, socio-economics is another matter.

A couple of years back I posted UNO projections of Pakistani population growth which basically pointed to a doubling of population within 50 years as the most likely outcome.

When we speak of Pakistan's failures of development consciously or unconsciously the benchmark is India and to a lesser extent China and S.E. Asia, and poverty is treated as either static, or more likely growing.

It is worth looking at where Pakistan stands in a global context, so I'm posting a link here to one of the Millenium Development Goal Scorecards that have been coming out this year. They are worth looking at to see how Pakistan looks in the big picture.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/topics/pov ... scorecards

What is striking to me is not Pakistan as an absolute failure, but rather the lopsidedness of its progress.

Until the floods the percentage of Pakistanis in desperate poverty (defined as living on less than $1/day) was actually *falling* - Pakistan is listed by the Overseas Development Institute as one of the top ten relative performers, although it was in fact number ten.

On the other hand there was little improvement in access to primary education, and ZERO information on improvements the gender balance of education. None. Given the Pakiban's work in the last few years I'm sure the figures would have been very grim.

Research over the last 4 decades strongly suggests that people turn extra food and prosperity in to more babies UNLESS women a) get an education, and b) are allowed/encouraged to work outside the home.

The source of Pakistan's population growth is not worsening poverty, but rather *decreasing* poverty (and more access to food and healthcare) coupled with stagnant, and in some cases regressive educational policies.

In the medium term it is worth considering what this means about the relationship between the PA and the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic order in Pakistan. They've been denied education (but not necessarily information) but they weren't actually being left to starve and die. The PA has been able to secure international funding for development work, while reaping its political benefits. The PA has secured its legitimacy and popularity with these improvements, while the West which has largely funded such work has seen a growth in public hatred. The floods of course put a huge, huge strain on all of this, as does the Pakiban's targeting of Western aid agencies, the Kerry-Lugar act, etc

[brihaspati]

Pulikeshi ji,
part of my answers were in jest.

However the other point you hint is more serious. But the examples you give - were not driven by expanding the ideology, although some of its leaders might have thought so genuinely. The collective effort was however peddling of ideology in pursuit of "perceived" realistic goals. I have my doubts that Ashoka was pursuing ideology only - personally I think he was using the theology and its organized structure in the same way Constantine was using the early warring Christian factions - the reason both "emperors" were forced to call "conclaves/councils" to collate a consistent imeprialism friendly ideology. The Mongols were initially partly pagan/animist/ancestor worshipper and partly Buddhist and did not really take up the ideological challenge until Hulaku. But his descendants found Islam a better vehicle for their imperialism.

I would rather pose the reverse problem - that imperialism and certain ideologies shaped and mutually enhanced each other. Are you worried that SD will get contaminated from a similar process - the virtual or apparent imperialism in the line I have consistently held - of reabsorbing and sanitizing the "periphery" like Paki occupied territories and turn them into part of the "core" and hence continuously expand the core?

[brihaspati]

While discussions of Pakistan's political future are by nature qualitative rather than quantitative, socio-economics is another matter.

A couple of years back I posted UNO projections of Pakistani population growth which basically pointed to a doubling of population within 50 years as the most likely outcome.

When we speak of Pakistan's failures of development consciously or unconsciously the benchmark is India and to a lesser extent China and S.E. Asia, and poverty is treated as either static, or more likely growing.

It is worth looking at where Pakistan stands in a global context, so I'm posting a link here to one of the Millenium Development Goal Scorecards that have been coming out this year. They are worth looking at to see how Pakistan looks in the big picture.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/topics/pov ... scorecards

What is striking to me is not Pakistan as an absolute failure, but rather the lopsidedness of its progress.

Until the floods the percentage of Pakistanis in desperate poverty (defined as living on less than $1/day) was actually *falling* - Pakistan is listed by the Overseas Development Institute as one of the top ten relative performers, although it was in fact number ten.

On the other hand there was little improvement in access to primary education, and ZERO information on improvements the gender balance of education. None. Given the Pakiban's work in the last few years I'm sure the figures would have been very grim.

Research over the last 4 decades strongly suggests that people turn extra food and prosperity in to more babies UNLESS women a) get an education, and b) are allowed/encouraged to work outside the home.

The source of Pakistan's population growth is not worsening poverty, but rather *decreasing* poverty (and more access to food and healthcare) coupled with stagnant, and in some cases regressive educational policies.

In the medium term it is worth considering what this means about the relationship between the PA and the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic order in Pakistan. They've been denied education (but not necessarily information) but they weren't actually being left to starve and die. The PA has been able to secure international funding for development work, while reaping its political benefits. The PA has secured its legitimacy and popularity with these improvements, while the West which has largely funded such work has seen a growth in public hatred. The floods of course put a huge, huge strain on all of this, as does the Pakiban's targeting of Western aid agencies, the Kerry-Lugar act, etc

The primary problem is that the PA or the state fails to mobilize internal resources as agricultural taxation is almost nonexistent given feudal stranglehold on the state. Moreover from Yahya's time the process of feudalization of the army has started with officers given estates as a Roman style "pacification" attempt in troublesome provinces. In order to dispense state roles therefore PA gets foreign funding. But here they are forced to then spoil the broth for the "Dawaist" mullahs who demand a share of the "charity activity" as otherwise their own power is threatened. Hence increasing Islamization as a necessary way out for the state and PA and compromise with the mullahs. Its a collective project where each of them are forced to walk increasing Islamization and therefore lack of education/women's empowerment.

External funding, and trade profits are the things to cut off to force them to raise internal revenues - that is the point where the whole system will unravel.

[Johann]

The primary problem is that the PA or the state fails to mobilize internal resources as agricultural taxation is almost nonexistent given feudal stranglehold on the state. Moreover from Yahya's time the process of feudalization of the army has started with officers given estates as a Roman style "pacification" attempt in troublesome provinces.

So much in Pakistan is in flux. The floods, pressures from the Pakiban, the Kerry-Lugar bill, the global economic crisis, rising energy prices, Western commercial disinvestment in Pakistan, the PRC's growing investments and extractions as it logistically and economically links Pakistan to its western provinces, more modest Indo-Pakistani economic and transportation links. I think its going to be a couple of years before we can assess what the collective impact on Pakistan's socio-economic conditions is going to be.

One thing that is constant is that the PA is always keen to maintain intermediate entities to take the responsibility for conditions - Pakistan's political parties and their feudal grandees, the West, India, etc. On the whole they seem quite good at convincing ordinary Pakistanis that they are not to blame when things go wrong, despite holding the greatest share of political power, and despite the fact that they take the credit when things do go right.

The one thing that strikes me is that educational sector investment and reform is perhaps the most important place the outside aid can make a difference in Pakistan, and that is the one place where it is NOT going. Its this lack of meaningful education, even among those who attend school that perpetuates both the PA's political hold, and the general underdevelopment of the population and economy.

[Lalmohan]

johann
whilst you are right about education, there can be no change unless the supreme power in pakistan is changed to a more benign, citizen caring model
that means the end of army hegemony
that means the end of pakistan as we know it
i dont think they have left themselves any other options
it is late in the day
the forces of darkness are gathering

[Johann]

Lalmohan,

The PA will not go quickly, but when it does the peoples of what is today Pakistan must be ready to chose something better, something more progressive and constructive.

That will not happen without education. I don't know how long a window the world has to use its money and leverage to bring changes in education, but I don't think its indefinite. I think Western developmental work is going to be shut out by targeted violence as the US-Pakistani friction grows.

[Lalmohan]

^^^ i am tending towards the darker more unpleasant scenarios. hard to see a soft landing for this imbroglio

[RajeshA]

In the Pakistani Elite, there is not a single constituency that has not corrupted itself absolutely. All these constituencies, army, feudals, mullahs, politicians, land developers and businessmen, RAPE, have Pakistan in their grip. There is no constituency to really lead any renaissance, because that breaks the social contract of the elite. They will also not allow the mango abdul to rock their boat.

The elite will not let the lid on the pressure cooker to open, so the pressure cooker can only explode.

[RajeshA]

X-Posting from Af-Pak -> Pak-Af Watch Thread

Freedom to America Solution

There are many suggestions doing the rounds as to what USA should do in AfPak - the Blackwill Solution, the Biden Solution, etc. From the Indian PoV, what India would like is either

1. America increases the radicalization of Pakistan to such an extent that the Pakistani Taliban and the Pakistani Army get into a good fight, keeping the Jihadis at home and not in Kashmir.
2. America gets into a direct war with the Pakistanis finishing off Pakistani Army for good.

As long as America sits in Afghanistan, this possibility is still open. So India should make use of it. The question is how?

America needs Pakistani cooperation in their GWOT, but they are not getting it. Instead they are getting Pakistanis training and funding the Afghan Taliban to take on American forces in Afghanistan. America wants to retaliate against the sanctuaries in Pakistan but cannot, because of American dependence on supply lines through Pakistan. So America needs to free itself of dependence on Pakistan for land access to Afghanistan.

Here is the deal. India helps America free itself of the dependence on Pakistan for supplies. How?

USA allows India a free hand to trade and deal with Iran. India can build an oil refinery in Iran and in Kazakhstan, and supply petroleum products to Central Asia and Afghanistan. USA builds big gasoline and diesel storage facilities in Northern Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, so that at any given time, it is not dependent on Pakistan. India can supply refined petroleum products to these facilities.

Besides that USA funds construction of railroads and highways in the region with American money, and India does the building. We build a railroad networking Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan in Indian Broad Gauge (1,676 mm). If the Europeans are willing to transfer and give technology to India for high-speed railway, then India could do that in that way also.

Also India helps build the infrastructure for transporting stuff into Afghanistan through the Western route - Turkey (or Greece, Bulgaria, Black Sea), Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan (or Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan), Afghanistan. NATO can also use the railroad through Russia.

By allowing India to trade with Iran, India uses the Chahbahar Port and the Zaranj-Delaram Highway to transport non-military material to USA in Indian Trucks plying in Iran.

Why would Iran cooperate? Well it would give them a lifeline if there is a refinery working in Iran. They too get refined petroleum products. Secondly, India and Iran can agree that even though America should not stay in the region for long, it is important that America weakens the Taliban and Pakistan before leaving. There both have similar opinions.

If America becomes independent of Pakistan, America would be far more willing to hit the Haqqani Network and the Quetta Shura within Pakistan, besides other targets within Pakistan. That would drive America into a clash with the Pakistani Army, only the next time America will not back off and apologize for any drone strikes but only increase them. Should Pakistan ever retaliate, it would mean an all out war and America would finish off the Pakistani Army. I know there are those who don't believe that America would be willing to finish off their rent-boy, but in the heat of losses, one cannot discount out an escalation. Pakistanis tend to brag and threaten more than they can deliver, and may be America calls Pakistan's bluff.

The thing is India can spread her wings more into Central Asia at a time when China is going in there big time, we can keep our relationships with both USA and Iran, and we can get America to destroy TSPA, giving us the possibility to take PoK more easily and deal with a broken up Pakistan.

India needs to get into the game. We have lost all means to influence the going ons in a region very important to us. This could be one way to do that. When Obama comes a calling, may be India can offer some advice, on how to make the American Forces independent of Pakistani pressures.

[Sanku]

Great idea RajeshA!! You are certainly on a roll....

[RajeshA]

Sanku ji,

Thanks. We should also keep in consideration, that this could also mean big bucks for Indians for carrying out all the construction projects and the logistics. If Pakistan can make billions, then there must be some billions for India as well.

[tarun]

If the Europeans are willing to transfer and give technology to India for high-speed railway, then India could do that in that way also.

Minor OT nitpick, isn't this 2010, we don't need someone 'willing' to 'transfer' technology, our large corporate groups can just buy whatever technology their companies would need if there are sufficiently large infrastructure projects being handed out to them.

[RajeshA]

If the Europeans are willing to transfer and give technology to India for high-speed railway, then India could do that in that way also.

Minor OT nitpick, isn't this 2010, we don't need someone 'willing' to 'transfer' technology, our large corporate groups can just buy whatever technology their companies would need if there are sufficiently large infrastructure projects being handed out to them.

Why buy, if one can get it for free! Europeans are sitting in Afghanistan too. It is also in their interest to promote such construction projects which help the movement of goods more easily to Afghanistan.

[Johann]

^^^ i am tending towards the darker more unpleasant scenarios. hard to see a soft landing for this imbroglio

I'm certainly interested in hearing your thoughts.