Grand Trunk Road

Khalid Aziz, “Mangal Bagh and the fragmenting state”:

[...]Afghanistan’s narcotic production delivered the final blow to the hopes of any success against the militancy in Afghanistan. It provided financial autonomy to the militants. It has made a monster which is growing in strength each year. The militants obtain from $100 to $150 million a year in taxes from the narcotic value chain. In 2001, Afghanistan had 8,000 hectares of poppy fields; in 2007 this increased to almost 200,000 hectares. Today, Afghanistan controls 93 percent of the world’s opiates market. Drugs are more than 60 percent of the Afghan GDP, amounting to about $4 billion a year.[...]
I foresee that militancy in Pakistan will degrade institutions as long as drug money continues to be pumped by Afghan militants from across the border. One unconfirmed report even suggests that a major objective of the militants is to degrade the security structure so that new markets and trafficking routes are established in the region. It is alleged that one new route being developed is from Kunar in Afghanistan to Bajaur and onwards to Xinjiang in China. Is this the main reason for the militancy in Swat?

This Washington Post article describes the contents of a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which claims that there is no proof that up to $2 billion of the aid paid by the Bush administration to the Pakistani government has been used for its intended purposes. The report resulted in a debate by members of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs.

“The more I learn about U.S. Coalition Support Funds to Pakistan, the more I am troubled: first, in terms of waste, fraud, and abuse of a huge amount of U.S. taxpayer funds; second, about the program’s failure to achieve vital U.S. security objectives; and third, about the program’s incompatibility with a long-term strategic partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan,” said the subcommittee chairman, John F. Tierney (D-Mass.).

The article mentions that despite these concerns the United States this week cleared a payment of $373 million to Pakistan.

Here’s an editorial in The Nation analyzing the results of the by-elections.

However the feature that stands out prominent is the performance of the PML(N) which stood head and shoulders above over others especially its coalition partner PPP. Broadly speaking, its achievement is that it succeeded in hanging on to the seats that had been vacated by its candidates, unlike the PPP, which lost two seats of the Punjab Assembly, in Khanewal and Muzaffargarh. This has its symbolical import as well. Since southern Punjab was considered to be a PPP stronghold, the failure of the party to retain those seats appears to be a telling blow to the party. This could also be seen in the context of the Punjab Governor earlier saying that he would turn the provincial capital into a PPP fortress

Honestly, it didn’t take a genius to predict that Salmaan Taseer’s thuggish threats of turning Lahore into Larkana were not going to have a favourable effect on the voting public of Punjab.

If you are interested in the Pakistan Labour Party, you might want to check out their magazine, Mazdoor Jeddojuhd. Today, I read an article titled “Afghanistan, Pakistan ka Naraz Hamsayah” (Afghanistan, Pakistan’s angry neighbour) which was a nice little primer on Afghanistan-Pakistan relations since 1947 with a little bit of background on 19th century Afghan relations with Britain and Russia from a Trotskyist perspective (Karzai is always referred to as “Amreeki agent Karzai”). The last page of the article focuses on the recent tensions since the June 11 strike on Mohmand Agency.

From The News:

KARACHI: Federal Advisor on Interior Affairs, Rehman Malik Friday ruled out initiation of any military operation in FATA.
[...]
Rehman Malik said soon a forceful action will be initiated against the terrorist elements in NWFP and asked the people not to be concerned about NWFP’s situation.

An editorial in the Nation, providing a good summary of the events of the last few months in NWFP and FATA and the federal government’s inept handling of it.

From Use of force last option to restore peace, says Hoti in the June 24 edition of Daily Times:

Hoti said that peace in Pakistani areas was linked to peace in Afghanistan. “If there is no peace in Afghanistan, there will be no peace in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), and if there is no peace in FATA, there will be no peace in the province (NWFP),” he said.

I think the rest of the country, and especially the military action enthusiasts will have to think about these words long and hard in the months to come.

ISLAMABAD: A high level meeting held here Wednesday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani to review war against terrorism and law and order in NWFP decided that Chief of the Army Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani will be responsible for all military operations in tribal areas and to keep the government informed.

The meeting decided that the Governor NWFP in consultation with the Federal and provincial Governments, will remain responsible for planning, execution and coordination of a well thoughtout, comprehensive development plan in FATA.

The meeting unanimously agreed that elimination of terrorism and extremism is the gravest challenge to Pakistan’s national security and to fight this menace a multi-pronged strategy will be followed.

Is this the beginning of a full-fledged civil war?

UPDATE: Dawn has an article citing Rehman Malik promising that there will be some “action” would be seen within the week, referring to the an anti-militant operation around Peshawar.

Military operation in tribal areas ‘last option’: PM. The News. June 25, 2008.
Govt promises operation. The Dawn. June 25, 2008.

Finally, an article in the Dawn that honestly discusses the dangers to Peshawar and the Pakistan government’s amazingly careless approach to it in the last 6 months. Although you have to love the understatement of this: “It would be a shame if Peshawar were to fall.”

So grim has the situation become that a committee that includes Chief Minister Hoti, Governor Owais and the Corps Commander Masood Aslam met on May 31 to discuss possible options for defending Peshawar.

The prime minister’s adviser on interior, Rehman A. Malik, landed in Peshawar on June 19 to discuss the situation. The two meetings, however, yielded no results.

The military, the paramilitary, the constabulary and the police are unable or unwilling to muster enough force to defend the city.

In some ways, this apparent apathy for Peshawar reflects the federal government’s lack of urgency to handle the situation in tribal regions and cope with a possible fallout of the peace agreements it is pursuing with tribal militants.

President Pervez Musharraf – whose dramatic volte face on the Taliban and alliance with the United States in 2001 largely contributed to the mess in the tribal region, has taken a back seat. The only person constitutionally mandated to look after Fata, the president has since the Feb 18 elections more or less lost all interest in the borderlands.

Those who have worked with him closely on Fata say that except for occasional briefings, there have been no “brainstorming meetings’ on the subject with key players for months. The last such meeting took place before the general election, according to credible government officials, and they do not even remember the date!

It’s not surprising that Musharraf has lost all interest in FATA if Ahmed Rashid’s description of him is to be believed. In his book, “Descent Into Chaos” Rashid says that in his only meeting with Musharraf which took place in 2007, Musharraf spent one hour lecturing him on the fact that Pakistan had had no role in Afghanistan since 1979.

Khan, Ismail. Emboldened militants set sights on Peshawar. The Dawn. June 25, 2008.

This article by Brian Cloughley, published in The News today is interesting because of its rather unequivocally pro-Pakistan nature. I noted, with interest, that Cloughley, on his own website states that:

He is engaged in editing the diaries of LtGen (retd) Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, who was military commander in North West Frontier Province in 2001-2004 and Governor from 2006-2008. The narrative will extend to 6 January 2008, when General Aurakzai resigned his post.

Now that is interesting, because no matter how unfavourably one regards Aurakzai’s tenures in the NWFP, they were extremely important and there are hardly any accounts available. Anyway, the op-ed is an interesting one, but curiously lacking any examination of Pakistan’s role in the whole quagmire.

Cloughley, Brian. Five Afghan Wars. The News. June 25, 2008.