ISLAMABAD -- Re-mapping of the Muslim world is under the spotlight of American strategists, working on redrawing its borders along ethnic lines and creating new political entities in the name of justice for 'oppressed Muslim minorities.' That this also reflected the mindset of the former U.S. administration of George W. Bush was apparent from its efforts to engineer grounds for military intervention, regime-change and fragmentation in target countries. This included Pakistan.
Rising jihadist movements, challenges to its hegemony by other emerging power centers, the economic debacle, declining limits of its power and shifting of the economic epicenter to Asia, all pointed to America's rapid loss of power status. It, therefore, had to redefine its strategic global policy framework and pursue all options to prevent its slide from power.
American strategists believe that by fracturing the national unity of Islamic states America could deny strongholds to jihadis and choke their financial resources. They want oil-rich territories like Kurdistan, the eastern Arabian peninsula, and Baluchistan, to be carved out and controlled by puppet regimes to secure energy resources, and splinter other Muslim countries for easier micro-management. Iraq is already going through the motions. The invasion of Iran remains on the cards.
As for Pakistan, America has labeled it as unstable due to "political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction" (CIA report) and cites these as causes for growing Talibanization. Some of these are clearly America's own creation. Arguing that this might bring Islamic radicals to power, giving them control over the nukes – a nightmarish scenario for Israel, its objective is to take out the Pakistani nukes.
Although its government is at America's beck and call, Pakistan's army remains the stumbling block in this venture, which controls nukes and oversees political dispensation. It also resents America's Afghan war, reluctant to step up operations against the Taliban despite U.S. pressure, because it feels this would jeopardize national security by alienating Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, generate hostility in the sensitive border belt and distract it from meeting the main threat from India.
Suspecting sympathy for Taliban and jihadist groups among ranks of the Pakistan army and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Americans fear this to be a further setback in a war that coalition forces are set to lose in any event.
Therefore to Americans, Israelis and Indians, a truncated Pakistan comprising Punjab and perhaps Sindh, with a weak military devoid of an effective intelligence agency and without nuclear fangs, is critical. The provinces of Baluchistan and the North West Frontier (NWFP), therefore, become targets for secession.
Col. Peters, a military scholar at the Pentagon, proposed the Balkanization of the Middle East in his article "Blood Borders." He advocated the incorporation of the NWFP into Afghanistan and the creation of a sovereign Free Baluchistan, carved out of Baluch areas of Pakistan and Iran. Pakistani Baluchistan is estimated to hold 25.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil.
In his article "Drawn and Quartered," Selig Harrison of the Center of International Policy in Washington, predicted Pakistan's breakup into three sovereign entities along ethnic lines: Pashtunistan (comprising Pashtuns of NWFP and Afghanistan); Free Baluchistan (a federation comprising Sindh and Baluchistan); and Pakistan (comprising the "nuclear armed Punjabi rump state"). He cited rising nationalist sentiment in the Pashtun belt and growing disillusionment of the Pashtuns, Baluchis and Sindhis with Punjab and Pakistan as the cause.
Both Peters and Harrison sing the same tune and present the doctrine that broadly reflects American foreign policy.
Baluchistan also became a high priority target for India and the United States due to Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf's overtures toward China, seeking its strategic economic interests and presence in Baluchistan to marginalize mischief-making tribal chiefs.
China's presence in Gawadar meant it would have access to the Indian Ocean, unacceptable both to Indians and Americans – the former perceiving this a threat to its upcoming Blue Water Navy and the latter upset with its proximity to the Straits of Hormuz.
General Aslam Beg, Pakistan's former army chief, notes in an article that the Strategic Partnership Deal between India and the United States has led to the creation of a joint espionage network comprising the CIA, Israel's Mossad, Britain's MI6, India's Research and Analysis Wing, and others in Afghanistan engaged in destabilizing Pakistan and Iran, China, Russia and other Central Asian states.
According to Beg, dissidents from the tribal belt are being trained at Sarobi and Kandahar for missions inside the NWFP, whereas bases at Lashkar Gah and Nawah are arming, training and financing the Baluchistan Liberation Army for insurgency inside Baluchistan.
In the NWFP the insurgency by a new group called Pakistani Taliban, reportedly fighting a proxy war for India and the United States, is seriously undermining the security of the tribal belt and some settled areas of the province.
Consequently, the Pakistan army is engaged on four fronts: fighting Afghan Taliban inside Pakistan's tribal belt, engaging Pakistani Taliban in the NWFP, fighting insurgents in Baluchistan, and facing Indians troops amassed along the Indo-Pakistan border in the wake of the Mumbai attacks - an extremely difficult situation for the army that is forced to stretch its limited resources.
Michel Chossudovsky, director of the Center for Research on Globalization and author of "America's War on Terrorism," concurs with this assessment in his article, "The Destabilization of Pakistan." He states "Washington's foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and Balkanization of Pakistan as a nation." He says: "The U.S. course consists in fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan."
The U.S. initiatives to fragment the Muslim world, including Pakistan, are misguided and would prove a grave miscalculation, promising an extremely volatile and unstable geopolitical scenario. Given America's economic and political constraints and the ability of jihadis to successfully challenge what they see as U.S. imperialism, this could cause the situation to spiral out of control, proving counterproductive to U.S. interests worldwide and seriously undermine the regional and international security environment. Hence U.S. President Barack Obama would do well to reconsider the Afghan war.
Shahid R. Siddiqi is a columnist. He has worked as a journalist and a broadcaster, held senior management positions in the corporate sector and has served in the Pakistan Air Force.
Rising jihadist movements, challenges to its hegemony by other emerging power centers, the economic debacle, declining limits of its power and shifting of the economic epicenter to Asia, all pointed to America's rapid loss of power status. It, therefore, had to redefine its strategic global policy framework and pursue all options to prevent its slide from power.
American strategists believe that by fracturing the national unity of Islamic states America could deny strongholds to jihadis and choke their financial resources. They want oil-rich territories like Kurdistan, the eastern Arabian peninsula, and Baluchistan, to be carved out and controlled by puppet regimes to secure energy resources, and splinter other Muslim countries for easier micro-management. Iraq is already going through the motions. The invasion of Iran remains on the cards.
As for Pakistan, America has labeled it as unstable due to "political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction" (CIA report) and cites these as causes for growing Talibanization. Some of these are clearly America's own creation. Arguing that this might bring Islamic radicals to power, giving them control over the nukes – a nightmarish scenario for Israel, its objective is to take out the Pakistani nukes.
Although its government is at America's beck and call, Pakistan's army remains the stumbling block in this venture, which controls nukes and oversees political dispensation. It also resents America's Afghan war, reluctant to step up operations against the Taliban despite U.S. pressure, because it feels this would jeopardize national security by alienating Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, generate hostility in the sensitive border belt and distract it from meeting the main threat from India.
Suspecting sympathy for Taliban and jihadist groups among ranks of the Pakistan army and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Americans fear this to be a further setback in a war that coalition forces are set to lose in any event.
Therefore to Americans, Israelis and Indians, a truncated Pakistan comprising Punjab and perhaps Sindh, with a weak military devoid of an effective intelligence agency and without nuclear fangs, is critical. The provinces of Baluchistan and the North West Frontier (NWFP), therefore, become targets for secession.
Col. Peters, a military scholar at the Pentagon, proposed the Balkanization of the Middle East in his article "Blood Borders." He advocated the incorporation of the NWFP into Afghanistan and the creation of a sovereign Free Baluchistan, carved out of Baluch areas of Pakistan and Iran. Pakistani Baluchistan is estimated to hold 25.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil.
In his article "Drawn and Quartered," Selig Harrison of the Center of International Policy in Washington, predicted Pakistan's breakup into three sovereign entities along ethnic lines: Pashtunistan (comprising Pashtuns of NWFP and Afghanistan); Free Baluchistan (a federation comprising Sindh and Baluchistan); and Pakistan (comprising the "nuclear armed Punjabi rump state"). He cited rising nationalist sentiment in the Pashtun belt and growing disillusionment of the Pashtuns, Baluchis and Sindhis with Punjab and Pakistan as the cause.
Both Peters and Harrison sing the same tune and present the doctrine that broadly reflects American foreign policy.
Baluchistan also became a high priority target for India and the United States due to Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf's overtures toward China, seeking its strategic economic interests and presence in Baluchistan to marginalize mischief-making tribal chiefs.
China's presence in Gawadar meant it would have access to the Indian Ocean, unacceptable both to Indians and Americans – the former perceiving this a threat to its upcoming Blue Water Navy and the latter upset with its proximity to the Straits of Hormuz.
General Aslam Beg, Pakistan's former army chief, notes in an article that the Strategic Partnership Deal between India and the United States has led to the creation of a joint espionage network comprising the CIA, Israel's Mossad, Britain's MI6, India's Research and Analysis Wing, and others in Afghanistan engaged in destabilizing Pakistan and Iran, China, Russia and other Central Asian states.
According to Beg, dissidents from the tribal belt are being trained at Sarobi and Kandahar for missions inside the NWFP, whereas bases at Lashkar Gah and Nawah are arming, training and financing the Baluchistan Liberation Army for insurgency inside Baluchistan.
In the NWFP the insurgency by a new group called Pakistani Taliban, reportedly fighting a proxy war for India and the United States, is seriously undermining the security of the tribal belt and some settled areas of the province.
Consequently, the Pakistan army is engaged on four fronts: fighting Afghan Taliban inside Pakistan's tribal belt, engaging Pakistani Taliban in the NWFP, fighting insurgents in Baluchistan, and facing Indians troops amassed along the Indo-Pakistan border in the wake of the Mumbai attacks - an extremely difficult situation for the army that is forced to stretch its limited resources.
Michel Chossudovsky, director of the Center for Research on Globalization and author of "America's War on Terrorism," concurs with this assessment in his article, "The Destabilization of Pakistan." He states "Washington's foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and Balkanization of Pakistan as a nation." He says: "The U.S. course consists in fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan."
The U.S. initiatives to fragment the Muslim world, including Pakistan, are misguided and would prove a grave miscalculation, promising an extremely volatile and unstable geopolitical scenario. Given America's economic and political constraints and the ability of jihadis to successfully challenge what they see as U.S. imperialism, this could cause the situation to spiral out of control, proving counterproductive to U.S. interests worldwide and seriously undermine the regional and international security environment. Hence U.S. President Barack Obama would do well to reconsider the Afghan war.
Shahid R. Siddiqi is a columnist. He has worked as a journalist and a broadcaster, held senior management positions in the corporate sector and has served in the Pakistan Air Force.
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