America considers Pakistan as a nightmare

Asif Haroon Raja

Till Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May 1998, Pakistan was the sworn enemy of India. After the tests, USA and Israel ganged up with India and became the avowed enemies of Pakistan. Nuclear weapons with a Muslim state having missile power, conventional military strength and reasonable technological and industrial base and above all strong Islamic streaks and Jihadi fervor was unacceptable to the trio. The Indo-US-Israeli nexus vowed to destabilize, denuclearize, de-Islamize and balkanize Pakistan in a graduated and systematic manner. Balkanization scheme had number of shades but the leading one was to carve out independent Balochistan in the south and independent Pashtunistan in the northwest. Sindh had already been sufficiently subverted by RAW since mid 1970s. 

India had carried out its nuclear explosion at Pokhran in 1974 and upgraded overt five nuclear tests in May 1998 with Soviet and US blessing since both wanted India to emerge as an unchallenged power of South Asia and a counterweight to China.  This was notwithstanding that after 1970 Washington began to lean towards Beijing. Gen Yahya Khan helped the Sino-US détente in mid 1971. Breakup of communist bloc was the initial step taken towards the eventual dismemberment of USSR. Instead of being obliged to Pakistan, the US stood among the company of Pakistan breakers in December 1971. 

1990s saw earth shaking events like collapse of Soviet Union and its status reduced to Russian Federation; demise of communism and end of cold war; global balance of power shifting from bi-polarism to uni-polarism under USA. The US abandoned Afghanistan, ditched Pakistan and befriended India. Pakistan’s tit for tat response to Indian nuclear tests in May 1998 poured cold water on the future designs of sole super power. Nawaz Sharif was not forgiven for refusing to listen to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The two leaders had exerted immense pressure on Nawaz telling him not to conduct nuclear tests. His ouster and making a horrible example of him became a foregone conclusion as was the case with ZA Bhutto who had laid the foundation of Pakistan’s uranium enriched nuclear program at Kahuta in 1976 under DR AQ Khan.

Acquisition of nuclear capability by Pakistan gave newfound confidence to its people and deterred India from indulging in any misadventure. Pakistan’s nuclearization drew further USA closer to India and further away from Pakistan.  Sharp contrast in relationship was amply seen during the state visit of Clinton to India and Pakistan in March 2000. Pakistan under Gen Musharraf was seen as a pariah state.    

9/11 gave an opportunity to the neo-cons to implement their sinister agenda against selected Muslim countries which included Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. It is now widely believed that 9/11 was an in-house drama. George Galloway has endorsed the call given for reinvestigating 9/11 since there are serious unanswered questions like rapid collapse of three world trade centre (WTC) buildings; discovery of engineered nano-particles in the dust; anti-hijack exercise  being carried out at the same time as the hijacked plane attacks; 4000 Jews working in WTC missing from duty. The FBI suspect one of the world trade centre towers took a secondary hit before collapsing. Dick Cheney’s Memoirs reveal Bush gave order to shoot down any hijacked plane before United Airlines 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, which was heading towards Capitol building in Washington.

Naom Chomsky says US invasion of Afghanistan was illegal since to-date there is no evidence that Al-Qaeda had carried out 9/11 attacks. Real purpose was to force Taliban to submit to US mercantile interests in Central Asia. The US failed to provide any evidence to Taliban since it didn’t have any. All the 19 hijackers were Arabs with majority from Saudi Arabia and the plan was hatched in UAE and Germany. The axe however fell on Afghanistan which had nothing to do with 9/11. Afghanistan suited USA and its strategic partners UK, Israel, Germany and India because it helped in achieving their geo-strategic objectives in the region. Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia and Central Asia were of their prime interest.

George W Bush in one of his addresses to the American audience had stated that since the cave dwellers (Islamists) didn’t like the freedom, values and civilization of free world, therefore they were out to destroy the West. With this rhetoric he justified crusade against Islam. UNSC promptly ceded to US request and gave a green signal to destroy one of the most impoverished states of the world, which had been at war since 1979. Although no Afghan was involved in 9/11 and the US had not furnished any proof of complicity of Al-Qaeda, and had also refused to hold trial of Osama at a neutral venue, yet the country was pulverized and its nationals massacred at a mass scale.

America has no moral justification to stay in Afghanistan which is in its illegal occupation since December 2001. It first cooked up reasons to attack Afghanistan and now it is fabricating justifications to prolong its stay till 2014 and preferably make the occupied country its permanent military station. Likewise, the US is continuously manufacturing stories to prepare grounds for possible invasion of Pakistan since it feels it has sufficiently weakened it from within through CIA-RAW-Mossad-MI6 orchestrated covert war.

The world has already been conditioned into believing that Pakistan is a fundamentalist, nuclear proliferating and failing state which abets terrorism and in league with al-Qaeda and Taliban it is harming US-NATO interests in Afghanistan by denying it victory against militant forces. In order to scare the world and to prepare a solid case to get Pakistan declared a failed and a terrorist state; Indo-US-Israeli propaganda machinery has floated a scary story that Pakistan’s nukes are unsafe and liable to be stolen by Islamic extremists who are anti-US and anti-west. These self-perceived fears have turned Pakistan into a nightmare. 

Obama regards Pakistan as a nightmare; in his and US policy makers view, Pakistan is too dangerous to possess nukes because of its eternal links with religious extremists. A fear has crept into the minds of American leaders and has got converted into a bug that Islamic extremists might takeover the reins of nuclear Pakistan. If neo-cons in America, BJP in India, extremist Jews in Israel can attain power what is so exceptional and horrifying about Islamic extremists in Pakistan. Hatred coupled with fear of Islamists had propelled Bush to invade Afghanistan. Are the conservative Muslims in Pakistan dubbed as extremists people aliens from a different planet, or they have horns on their heads, or walk on four legs? Are the people with secular bent of mind the only ones more patriotic and loyal to Pakistan and hence fit to rule the country? Historically, the people of northwestern tribal belt have remained exceptionally loyal to Pakistan and have kept their area free of foreign interference and influence. They have never sought separation from Pakistan as in the case of secular Baloch rebels who openly invite foreign powers to intervene and make Balochistan an independent state.

While the US, western powers and India are against tribal people, they support the cause of Baloch separatists. They want Pakistan security forces to eliminate each and every tribesman with arm in FATA but cry out when any action is taken against the anti-state elements in Balochistan involved in target killings of non-locals and security forces. In the dictionary of US, only those qualify to become extremists, non-state actors and terrorists who are anti-American and dare to pick up arms against aggression. All those who meekly submit to US aggression and occupation and those who help in fulfillment of US agenda are seen as good guys and are helped in many ways. It is the latter category that has emboldened USA to dub Pakistan as a nightmare.       

WikiLeaks has proven that America is duplicitous and has dangerous designs against Pakistan. The leaks by the whistle blowing website owned by Australian Julian Assange are aimed at creating bad blood within Muslim world, discrediting Pakistan, its political and military leaders and institutions. Major focus has been on spoiling the high image of Pak Army led by Gen Kayani and ISI under Lt Gen Pasha, to undermine their good work done in war on terror and to spoil civil-military relations.    

The writer is a defence analyst.