It is rare that the release of a book coincides with a momentous event to which it provides many answers. Bruce Riedel?s account of US-Pakistan relations, appropriately titled Deadly Embrace precisely does that. The ?taking out? of Osama bin Laden from the backyard of Pakistan?s military in Abbottabad, might have puzzled some, but to long standing observers of US-Pak relations, this comes as no surprise, as Riedel?s book confirms what many of us have known for years. The author was, for three decades, a CIA operative specialising on Pakistan. It led him to become adviser to four US presidents, including Barack Obama. This is his account of how Pakistan has become what it is now: the epicentre of global jihad.
To the uninitiated, the book attempts to help the reader ?understand Pakistan? and its underlying obsession with India. This has been a constantly recurring theme since the bloody partition of the sub-continent. As is also the blow-hot, blow-cold relations between the US and Pakistan: from the days of president(s) Eisenhower to Nixon, when Pakistan became a bulwark against Soviet expansion in Asia, to the time when General Zia used the Soviet card again to get American aid?in billions of dollars?and how he launched his two-pronged jihad, first in Afghanistan and then against India in Kashmir, are stated in great detail.
But Zia?s gift to Pakistan of an ?incendiary mix of despotism and Islamisation?, led to millions of refugees from Afghanistan and the Kalashnikov culture, and an alliance with terror groups initially created for India, that is an embarrassment and challenge that is pushing Pakistan into a dark hole.
A lot of this?says the author? was done with America?s knowledge. Washington was so blinded by its anti-communism agenda (just as it is currently with its anti- Al-Qaeda agenda), that it gladly fell into a ?deadly embrace? with Pakistan. What followed was the now regular pattern of billions of dollars and military equipment being poured in, with frequent meetings amongst top officials in Washington and Islamabad. The agenda then was to push the Soviets out; the agenda is now to eliminate the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, many of whom were carefully trained and nurtured by Zia?s generals and the ISI, at America?s behest. Details of where Osama bin Laden came from and how Mullah Omar was recruited and trained were known to the CIA, all along. No wonder the US is cautious not to push the Pakistani generals too hard for having harboured Osama, because the author admits that Pakistan is ?undergoing a severe crisis, which America helped create over the years?.
There are interesting assessments on every fa?ade of relationship between the US and Pakistan including that Musharraf?s support to the US in the post 9/11 operations in Afghanistan was based on the fact that India would have no role in a future dispensation of Afghanistan. The US knows that Pakistan?s India obsession is so big, that its army and its people are willing to live with terrible attacks by some of the very terror groups (such as LeT) they see as strategic assets to be used in India and Afghanistan! In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Musharraf felt that he was unwilling to sacrifice his links with the Taliban even if it cost Pakistan a heavy price. Today, nearly 30,000 Pakistani civilians and over 7,000 officials have been lost to terrorist attacks. Pakistan?s claim that it is a victim of terror does not address that this terror is of its own making, with some indirect support of their American allies.
Much, therefore, in this book would validate what India has been saying for at least a decade about Pakistan?s role in terror attacks, in Kashmir and elsewhere. The US has now only woken up to the ISI menace and after the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, perhaps because Americans and Israelis were amongst those that were clearly targeted on that base. Despite that, the author believes that the only way forward is to engage Pakistan, because scorn and demarches?in the years when the US dumped Pakistan?have failed.
This book offers both a worst-case scenario?if Pakistan were to become a jihadi state, and the possibilities of that are there?and what could be done to turn Pakistan around. But it still falls short of offering a dramatic solution that would simultaneously address the two central problems that the world must grapple with. One, what must be done with Pakistan?s nuclear assets?a creation of its obsession to counter the Indian threat?and two, the jihadi menace that has now gone out of control. America is perhaps the only country that can confront Pakistan on both these accounts and offer some hard choices with the help of India and other international powers. But as there are so many skeletons that could still tumble out of the cupboard, America apparently has decided instead to tread cautiously. No wonder, Hillary Clinton gave the ISI a clean chit about any knowledge of Osama?s presence under its very nose!
The writer is a commentator on military affairs; http://www.maroofraza.com