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A Cynical Look At The Mini-War In Pakistan. Do The Yanks Know What They’re Doing?

October 21, 2009

Explosion Anton Goryunov writes from Moscow: We, Russians, are cynical people. It comes from our Soviet past when cynicism helped us to keep our sanity intact. We always treat what politicians tell us with deep suspicion, bordering on total distrust most of the time. And, being cynical, we have our own way of looking at world events and drawing our conclusions from what we see and read.

If you ask us what, in our opinion, is happening in Afghanistan and around it at the moment, we would say that things are going from bad to worse over there because the United States and other NATO countries have no idea what to do next and how to pull out without losing their face. They boxed themselves into a stupid situation, pretending that most of the world’s terrorism originates from Afghanistan, and now they don’t know how to untangle themselves. And what is even worse, the Americans, in their usual manner, are creating an even bigger problem now by spreading the war to the territory of Pakistan, with unpredictable consequences.

It was Washington that pushed the Pakistani government into launching the massive offensive in South Waziristan to root out the Pakistani Taliban. Islamabad was never very keen on antagonising the powerful warlords in that part of the country that borders Afghanistan for fear that violence would spread across the whole country. But now that the U.S. aid has become directly tied to Pakistan’s ‘commitment to fight terrorism’, authorities in Islamabad had no choice but to send their troops – 30,000 of them – into South Waziristan to take on the Pakistani Taliban, supposedly because they threaten the very existence of the Pakistani state itself.

And now we are seeing a mini-war in progress in Pakistan, a nation with nuclear weapons, by the way, as we cynics always like to point out when things start getting out of hand over there. And all because some people in Washington want to resolve their problems in Afghanistan by weakening the Taliban. The fact that the Pakistani army is actually fighting a totally different enemy at the moment is not really bothering the U.S. military and politicians. At some point, they say, the Pakistanis will eventually get to the Afghan Taliban hiding in South Waziristan and the situation in Afghanistan will start improving very quickly.

Which would not happen, as any cynically minded observer would tell you, as Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are not operating as one united force, with the former having their own bases and network of informers and supporters inside Afghanistan itself. Although now that the Pakistani army has started its offensive it would probably result in both branches of the Taliban joining their efforts and some of the Pakistani Taliban actually moving into Afghanistan itself. Just you watch NATO’s casualties grow in numbers.

Meanwhile the bloody conflict in South Waziristan unravels, creating a massive refugee problem in Pakistan and alienating extremists in other part of the country, possibly dragging North Waziristan and northern Baluchistan into the conflict and, even more importantly antagonising some elements within the Pakistani Army itself. Everyone now agrees that the current onslaught is going to be a long and bloody and might create a serious crisis in Pakistan itself.

And here is what we, Russian cynics, conclude from all that is now happening in Pakistan: the Americans are at it again, stirring trouble in the whole region to gain tactical advantages for themselves. Like it happened in Indochina that could not recover for about 30 years after the Vietnam War had ended. Like it happened in Iraq, where a civil war will break out when the American troops leave and split the country into three parts. And now we are seeing a similar scenario unravel around Afghanistan, with Pakistan getting drawn into the conflict and even Iran starting to feel the pressure as well.

Will India be sucked into this conflict as well? Who knows, it might well happen and the whole region might explode, just like it is portrayed on the image accompanying this article. (I have to praise our designer, Paul, for finding such a great looking bang for my piece.)

This is a testing time for the whole world. It would be wise for everyone to start paying attention to what the current U.S. Administration is actually trying to achieve in Afghanistan. And call on it to stop before it is too late.

– End –

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