Those Paks Never Give It A Rest

Farahnaz Ispahani, a chief adviser to Pakistani president Zardari, has made a modest proposal to the US.  No doubt but with the most straight of faces the man has the unmitigated nerve to propose that We the People move immediately to provide a "Marshall Plan" for Pakistan.  (Please note that while the link is to a Pakistani site, the Ispahani proposal was put forth in an op-ed piece on USA Today, but the Geek was too lazy to search for this.)

The way Pakistani politics is structured we can be certain that Ispahani would not have penned the piece had it not been pre-approved by his boss.  So it can be taken as a trial balloon launched by the most senior levels of the civilian government(?) of Pakistan.  It is  official.

Not only official but also a disgusting travesty.  Part of the travesty is the man's probably willful failure to comprehend the nature of the original Marshall Plan, the iconic model of self-interested but nonetheless altruistic foreign aid.

First, the Plan was not aimed at any one country but rather was open to all European states including the Soviet Union and those old nations of Middle Europe which had fallen under the sway of the Red Army.  It was a mechanism for the sorting out of friends from enemies at least in major part, and in this it was quite successful.

Second, the intent of the Plan was the forcing of European joint decision making.  Individual countries might have their own shopping lists, but a priority was placed upon those projects which would benefit the region to the greatest extent.  There was a desire on the part of the US to see greater and more rapid European integration on the economic and political levels alike.

Third, it was necessary for the recipients of Plan aid to spend the majority of the money in the US.  The real selling point to Congress was the blunt reality that the money would be recycled to the US and thus assist in post-war economic readjustment at home.

None of these factors are present in Pakistan.  There is no need to force Pakistan to choose a side--it has already done that in practice if not in rhetoric.  There is no need to foster regional integration.  The Pakistanis have a concept of integration which extends as far as Afghanistan.  It is called operational dominance.

Finally, the Pakistanis would like to spend the money wherever they please.  It might, for example, best suit the needs and hopes of Islamabad best if the mulcted money were to be spent with the Trolls of Beijing and not with the Capitalist Infidels of the US.

The president and his man seem to believe that Pakistan deserves largess without end simply because some three thousand Pakistani troops (primarily from the undertrained, poorly equipped and usually unpaid Frontier Corps and not the regular army) have been killed in conflict with the Taliban et al.  Should we cruel and heartless infidels not think that is sufficient sacrifice of lives, the presidential adviser throws in the two thousand police who have died purportedly at the hands of the jihadi.

The Marshall Plan was not American atonement for the European lives lost in World War II.  It was not the product of a collective feeling of guilt over having failed to prevent the outbreak of the war or of having entered the war only after Pearl Harbor.  Rather, it was a piece of calculated self-interest as was the creation of NATO, a carefully considered mechanism of defense against a perceived threat.

Ispahani makes the usual attempt to preempt this approach.  He alleges that massive economic aid will provide the necessary basis for internal improvement which will automatically reduce the appeal of violent political Islam.

There is a word for this: Crap!

There no evidence that poverty on its own is correlated positively with violent political Islam.  Indeed, there is evidence behind the contention that violent political Islam is far more the province of the better off, better educated members of society--including that of Pakistan.  The money which has gone to direct support of Pakistani development projects after surviving the hazards of graft, corruption, kickbacks, and assorted insider deals has not shown any benefit accruing either to the image of the US or the conditions of life affecting the recipient communities.

The record of previous civilian aid programs ranging from the building of dams to the provision of emergency food aid is a dreary and disgusting tale of misappropriation, illegal and improper diversion, and, even when every thing goes correctly, a resulting sense of Pakistani entitlement.  (Think back and recall the farmer whose fields and property had survived the floods last year due to an American designed and constructed dam.  Was he appreciative?  No way!  He was bent out of shape because the Americans had not been back to properly maintain and upgrade the dam and its associated irrigation projects.)

President Zardari and his advisers would be better off if they were to contemplate the real causes of violent political Islam which has inflicted so much alleged damage, death, and despair on their country.  The real causes are simple.

There is a misplaced sense of victimhood focusing on India and its alleged Satanic supporters, Israel and the US.

Then there is the ultimate impact of the program of "Islamification" instituted by Zia more than twenty years ago.  The importation of the austere Saudi form of Islam along with Pakistani modifications has provided more than one generation with the mythology of Islamic superiority, Islamic entitlement, Islamic victimization which has looped together with the preexisting sense of Pakistan having been denied its deserved place of sub-continent supremacy by the machinations of India.

Then, of course, there is the success of ISI through its Wing S in creating and operating groups predicated on violent political Islam as a substitute for more conventional forms of war.  As Frankenstein's monster escaped its creator's control so also have the advocates of violent political Islam.

To any objective observer, the problems of Pakistan are those of Pakistani manufacture.  They have all been made in Islamabad or Rawalpindi.  For decades now the powers that be in Pakistan have rejected an honest search for peace with India, preferring a sort of forever war.  They have also turned their backs on conventional war in favor of nuclear poker and very lethal use of terror.  It is totally unsurprising that they are now being burned by the inevitable blowback.

The same intellectual bankruptcy seen in the forever war with India and the use of violent political Islam as a proxy is seen in the arguments advanced by Ispahani and his boss.  They, like the government and military in general, know only one trick--bluster and extort.  This is how they met Secretary Clinton today.  This is what rests behind the demand for a new Marshall Plan.

If the Obama administration has any sense at all, any orientation as to time and place, it will make clear that, to quote Maxwell Smart, "The trick is old!  The trick is stupid!"  And in this case the trick will work no longer.  To say that the US has no options in the region other than to continue to pay Pakistan off and hope for the best is to show a level of intellect such as to make a tapeworm seem like a genius.

We have options.  It is certain that the administration knows perfectly well what they are.  The only question is whether or not it has the political will to take a better course than business as usual.  It may be time to tell the lads in Islamabad that they best peddle their goods to a different buyer, say, China.

The Abbottabad Raid--A Lesson For India?

Last week, one or another of the assorted chiefs of the Indian armed services assured the press of the country that India could replicate the American raid which ended the career and life of Osama bin Laden.  While the statement must have sounded good in the ears of many Indians, it was one showing remarkable economy with the truth.

India has been baffled for years on how it should respond to the numerous attacks mounted by terror groups supported, trained, equipped, commanded, and controlled, and, in some cases, created by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.)  The default response within the realms of journalism and politics has been to demand air strikes, a limited armored thrust, general war, or, on occasion, a "covert" operations.  The default response of the government since the terrorist attack on India's parliament by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in December 2001 and the consequent US brokerage has been a combination of diplomatic notes and "restraint."

After the May 2002 attack by Pakistani assets of the violent political Islamic nature, the US engaged in months of coercive diplomacy with the result that then Pakistani chief of state Pervez Musharrif offered the most sincere and official assurances that never more would any terrorist operate against India from any soil controlled by Pakistan.  The assurances were guaranteed by then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.  The government of India bought the Pakistani promises because and only because they were backed by the words of the US.

There were six more Pakistani backed terror attacks on India over the next several years, most notably the Mumbai Affair in November 2008.  In the last event, the Indian government presented Pakistan with reams of carefully documented evidence of involvement on the part of Pakistani nationals operating on Pakistani territory.  The accompanying requests for extradition of the named suspects were studiously ignored by the government of Pakistan.  So were Indian demands for investigations, reports, and judicial action.  Recently a government spokesman yawned off renewed requests for extradition as "familiar and outdated."

The Indian government has demonstrated a remarkable desire for a peaceful end to the ancient conflict with Pakistan.  The Indian president, Manmohan Singh, has invested his prestige as well as tremendous effort in this direction.  The pursuit of a peaceful end to the Kashmir conflict as well as the plethora of other matters on which Pakistan and India differ mightily has come to nothing.

Nor is it likely to do otherwise in the foreseeable future.

The Pakistan government, army, ISI, and their supporters or hangers-on in the elite need the ongoing pseudo-war with India to survive in power and prosperity.  Without the forever war against India, the current structure of government, military, spooks, and jihadists would collapse.  The greatest enemy of the status quo in Pakistan is peace with India.

While there is no reason for India to abandon the fruitless search (it helps assure good relations with the US if nothing else), the folks in New Delhi have to consider other options.  And do the consideration very, very rapidly.

No matter how the specifics of the aftermath of the shooting of Osama bin Laden play out with respect to US relations with Pakistan, there is no reason to conclude that the ISI and army will abandon the jihadist weapon in the necessary war with India.  Since the war must continue in order for the status quo to survive, it is requisite that the conflict be fought with means militating against vertical escalation.  The Pakistanis have no real desire to see escalation as such would run the very high risk of crossing the nuclear threshold.  Both India and Pakistan did learn that the risk of unwanted escalation runs high with the rapidly blooming crisis following the December 2001 parliament attack.

The Indians evidently learned more than did the Pakistanis as is demonstrated by their having continued to stay the course of pro forma protests over the run of Pakistani sponsored if not ordered terrorist outrages down to and beyond the Mumbai massacre.  The Pakistanis seem certain that India will stay with this approach into the future, so the risk of any response from New Delhi more robust than a sternly worded Note is perceived to be very low.

Unless and until the Indian government and military demonstrate the political will to mount armed responses commensurate with the provocation, there will be no end to the use of the jihadi weapon by Islamabad.  This translates into two specific actions, at least one of which would be very visible to the public at large.

The first, and most self-evidently public of these, is the creation of a legal framework which would serve to justify and make legal any Indian action, overt or covert, armed or not, directed against terrorists and their sponsors or facilitators located anywhere in the world.  This sort of act, like the American prototype, assure a patina of law for any retaliatory actions outside the "hot pursuit" paradigm.

Behind the scenes the Indian military must develop a low signature capacity for special operations of the same sort as that conducted by the US in Abbottabad.  It would also be necessary to demonstrate the new capacity publicly so as to dispel the impression of total incompetence generated in Mumbai by Indian commandos who took a vast number of hours filled with highly visible missteps to subdue the handful of terrorists.

Admittedly, the Americans by coming in the "back door" from Afghanistan had an easier task than would any Indian raiding party given that they would have to come via the heavily guarded "front door."  (One factor which seems to have eluded all of the legion which has argued the Paks had to be in on the Abbottabad operation is the simple one that very few of Pakistan's defenses, air or ground, face the direction of American penetration.)   This gives additional saliency to the contention that India must give some public show of a very high level of competence in special operations so as to obtain the necessary deterrent capacity in the estimate of the Pakistanis.

It is also stipulated that the creation and development of the necessary capacity in special operations of the Abbottabad sort will take money.  This means the Indian budget makers will have to make more tough decisions of the sort exhibited recently with the reprogramming of money from buying more aircraft carriers to supporting anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean.

However, it should be noted that the robust, not to say aggressive, stance taken by India regarding the pirates provides a platform for demonstrating both political will and military capability to Islamabad.  The Indian navy has taken a leading role in offensive moves against the pirates--a move which surprised many observers even though the importance of Indian Ocean maritime commerce to India is well known.  A judicious use of the anti-piracy mission will allow further development of the special operations capabilities including intelligence, command and control, coordination of assets, rapid response, and low visibility.

As new capacities are developed and firmly in place, the Indian government can make use of its assorted minor insurgencies to put a public face on them.  In a way it is to India's benefit that it has several insurgencies in progress out in the boonies; they provide both good exercise for special operators and excellent opportunity to allow adverse parties to gain a hint of what might befall them or their proxies.

In the meantime, don't brag, no matter how good the words sound in your ears--they might come back to bite you in an anatomically unpleasant location.