’Transforming’ Pakistan

Washington deliberately engineers “controlled conflicts” in Asia to justify US military presence in the region. The Bush Administration has wielded American military might to serve its foreign-policy objectives, one among them being US exploitation of natural resources of other states.

The present situation in Pakistan is the consequence of a well-crafted American design to weaken and split the country. President Pervez Musharraf sought to reduce Pakistan’s dependence on the US—that is precisely why Washington decided to edge him out of power: under American pressure, the Pakistani authorities had to allow Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to return to politics and participate in the elections. Simultaneously Musharraf was forced to resign from the post of Chief of the Army. Following Benazir’s assassination the PPP’s popularity rating soared dramatically. As a result, the Opposition parties secured an overwhelming majority in the country’s parliament—the murder of Benazir came as a windfall for the Americans and the British keen on reaping dividend through the poll results.

Musharraf offered his resignation and with that the strong central power that he symbolised in Pakistan disappeared. Bringing the situation in the country, and that in the areas bordering on Afghanistan in particular, under control and exerting decisive influence on the Pakistan Army and the ISI are beyond the capability of the weak PPP Government that is in saddle at the moment in Islamabad.

In the prevailing conditions, the Americans can provoke a civil war and wipe out, from the face of South Asia, Pakistan as it exists today. According to this scenario, only two provinces will form the new state (of a truncated Pakistan)—Sind and Punjab—while one of the two remaining territories (NWFP) will be part of Afghanistan and the other will become a new puppet state (of Baluchistan).

The threat of nuclear weapons falling into the Islamists’ hands is a matter of grave concern for the world community as a whole. This is thus a sufficiently plausible pretext for the US troops to invade Pakistan and use its territory to attack Iran whose current leadership is a source of serious worry for Washington for quite sometime now essentially because of Tehran’s fiercely independent stance that will not countenance the hegemony of any power including that of the White House (the guardian of the status of the sole surviving superpower).

The bombing of Pushtun villages near the Afghan border by the American drones and the US special operations in the NWFP and FATA constitute the first phase of materialising the project to change the geopolitical map of the region.

The PPP’s overt foreign-policy moves towards the US and dependence on Washington due to Pakistan’s current financial bankruptcy have brought manipulation of the country’s political process from abroad within the distinct realm of possibility.

It is against the backdrop of these games that Washington is intending to play in the region that the US seeks to make New Delhi more dependent on it militarily, economically and politically. In these circumstances, the Indian Government needs to tread carefully in its own interest while dealing with the United States always keeping in mind what Pakistan has been subjected to by its overseas mentor and never forgetting how the Americans did not even once hesitate to ostracise their “true friend and one of the most reliable partners” in the war on terror—Pervez Musharraf—just to carry out their regional plan.