By : K. H. Zia
The U.S are not looking for peace in Afghanistan. To bring about peace you need a strong, representative and patriotic government, not a bunch of murderous thugs and drug dealers who will sell their country at the drop of a hat. To understand what is behind the U.S interest in Afghanistan we have to read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book, ‘The Grand Chessboard.’
What they are aiming at was spelt out by Newt Gingrich, one time speaker of the House of Representatives: ‘The fact is, if you slow down the casualty rate and you’re not losing young Americans, the American people will support gradually growing allies for a long time’ that will make long-term troop presence in Afghanistan acceptable to the American people as happened in the case of Germany, Japan and Korea (David Rhode in The New Yorker of 22nd August 2017). Mr. Mehdi is right that U.S intention has always been to somehow de-nuclearise Pakistan. They had their chance when Musharraf laid down the country for them and more, giving many of us constant sleepless nights worrying at what the general was doing. President George Bush told British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he ‘wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan’
He said this at the time when Pakistan was totally committed to doing the U.S bidding despite horrendous cost to herself. Fortunately, they missed out on the opportunity. In part we have to be grateful to the indomitable spirit of the Afghan insurgents for this. The reason for hegemonic powers not wanting smaller nations to have nuclear weapons is because these constitute a great ‘equaliser’. There is great risk in messing with the countries that have them. For instance, Israel has adopted what they call the ‘Samson Doctrine’ —- if I am going down, I am going to take you with me. Presumably, the Pakistan military is aware of it. With vital economic interests near and around our borders the great powers simply cannot afford to risk direct confrontation to do an Iraq, Libya or Syria on Pakistan. .
The only other choice for them is to create political and economic instability in the country aimed at breaking up the country into smaller dependent units. The U.S commissioned the Rand Corporation to carry out a study entitled, ‘US Strategy in the Muslim World After 9/11’. It recommended ways to ‘identify the key cleavages and faultlines among sectarian, ethnic, regional and national lines (among the Muslims) and to assess how these cleavages generate challenges and opportunities for the United States’.
Unfortunately lofty personal ambitions, pecuniary gain and other such ‘incentives’ come in the way of understanding by our myopic leaders and media of what the West has in plan for Pakistan among others. Memories are short and so is their knowledge of recent history. In 1971 too their equally less bright forerunners had banded together to create a countrywide movement to get the trial of a known traitor abandoned regardless that his whole life had been devoted to breaking up Pakistan.
To make matters worse, a general, whose ambition far exceeded his knowledge of politics and world affairs played into their hands and the rest is history. It is sad and pitiful indeed that history is being repeated and we don’t even know it. If we carry on with our ‘dharnas’, protest marches and other such destructive activities that grievously hurt our national interest the end can’t be good. It is time for these people to wake up to the consequences of the game that is afoot. If they don’t, which is highly likely, it is up to the concerned citizens to bring the point home using social media and other means to drive the point home.