Paknationalists
- GHQ-Pentagon romance is over
- US/NATO containers leaked weapons to anti-Pakistan terrorists
- Pakistani military examined possibilities of meltdown as back as 2002
- Pakistan is a robust and successful nation but rulers are bringing it down
- US pursuing policy of ‘controlled attrition, demolition’ of Pakistan, using raids, corrupt politicians
- Pakistani military made tactical successes against terrorists but will lose in the end
- A year to 26/11, was it a JSOC attack or a US/NATO attack?
- US recruited agents in Pakistani media
- Pakistan Army convinced American stabbed us in the back several times
- US expected to act against Pakistan through increased CIA drones, Balochistan terror
- Signs of American provocations: arrest of alleged Mumbai attack mastermind, mysterious militant incursions from US-controlled Afghanistan, a US battleship off Gwadar
Pakistan has reached the point of a meltdown, warns a former senior former Pakistan Army officer.
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| Brig. Sharaf during a military ceremony |
In his latest column for The Nation, retired Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf says the United States and its allies inside the elected government of Pakistan are pushing the country toward an internal collapse.
“The economic meltdown of Pakistan is a deliberate and methodical operation,” writes Brig. Sharaf, adding, “As the US and NATO forces contemplate a symbolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, they will leave behind effective perpetual pivots of threat against presumed policies/targets in Pakistan. The credibility of this policy is based on a script of a discredited, ill organized and failing Pakistan.”
But his most astonishing revelation in the column is his admission that Pakistan’s armed forces have been war-gaming such scenarios as early as 2002.
And despite this, it is hard to explain why Pakistan finds itself in a difficult internal and external situation in 2012.
In Brig. Sharaf’s words:
“Why has Pakistan willingly made itself vulnerable and disadvantaged in an environment that offered fleeting opportunities? A nuclear country with abundant natural resources, manpower, and sustainable economic indices succumbing to a melting point speaks volumes of the mindset and elastic conscience of its rulers; also a reflection of dysfunctionalism within.”
Brig. Sharaf is a rare breed of commentators in the confused and confusing Pakistani media. While his peers indulge in dirty politics, he has chosen to rise above the crust and focus his weekly columns on analyzing how a failed government and unreliable external allies are taking Pakistan down.
He worked at GHQ, the headquarters of Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi in the period when Pakistan consolidated its relationship with the United States after 9/11. Some of his former colleagues claim Brig. Sharaf fell out of favor with former president and Army chief Gen. Musharraf over differences on US policy. Sharaf advised caution in granting the United States excessive Pakistani concessions. Sharaf refuses to confirm this.
Two years ago, in an essay, entitled From East India Company To West Pakistan Corporate, he nearly predicted the collapse of the elected government due to incompetence, and anarchy on Pakistani streets.
This is what he said in 2010:
“Notwithstanding tactical military successes in Fata, Pakistan is ultimately positioned to lose on the larger canvas. A cohesive national policy needed to win such a conflict remains elusive. The government rather than strengthen and synergize other instruments of policy in tandem with military operations is hell-bent to reach an irretrievable position. As the anger of people grows to frustration, it will give way to violence, chaos and more militancy.”
This is exactly what is happening now. The Pakistani armed forces cleared many areas close to the Afghan border from terrorists and criminal gangs. Commanders of the US military and the US media scoffed at the Pakistanis when terrorists swept through Swat Valley in northern Pakistan. The US military with all of its resources failed, they argued, in exterminating insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, how could Pakistanis do any better?
But Pakistani soldiers and commanders stunned critics by expelling terrorist gangs back to where they came from: US-controlled Afghanistan. Pakistani military has successfully held the peace in the region for three years now. But as Brig. Sharaf says, Pakistan’s elected government has failed to transform military successes into permanent successes by improving governance in the area.
Brig. Sharaf’s indictment is damning. He condemns Pakistan’s failed political parties and politicians for the mess in the country, a view endorsed by most Pakistanis.
He writes:
“Pakistan’s rapid descent to anarchy is engineered by a coterie of corrupt and opportunist political parties adhering to different shades of ideologies conspicuously short on a unified national purpose, an interventionist and anti-anarchic judiciary acting as a custodian of ‘rule of law’, an insurgency laced by urban terrorism, lack of federal and provincial writs, proliferation of alternative systems of arbitrations, shady jirgas, poverty and rising waves of crime. Was this the Pakistan envisioned by Asif Ali Zardari when he declared that ‘democracy is the best revenge?’ Within the given script, he pursued the policies of a military dictator with vigor and craft.”
Brig. Sharaf’s perspective on the US military and intelligence role in and around Pakistan is clear. He makes an interesting observation: that one year after the 26/11 Salala attack, where 26 Pakistani soldiers were assassinated one by one by invading US commandoes, the operation is beginning to look more like a JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command] operation rather than a US/NATO operation.
He accuses Washington of pursuing a policy of “controlled attrition and demolition” of Pakistan through military raids and American support to corrupt Pakistani politicians.
He says:
“In the US perspective, one major consideration seems to be the controlled attrition and demolition of Pakistan under ‘shaping the environment’ on a timeline. The US support of Pakistan’s corrupt political elites through backdoor deals has ensured moral and fiscal bankruptcy.”
He accuses the United States of recruiting commentators in the Pakistani media who use the word ‘liberalism’ to disguise their role as promoters of US meddling in Pakistan:
“At the same time, it engages select Pakistani scholars and opinion makers to create a breed of armchair liberals, critics, intellectuals and writers, who untiringly praise the merits of the supremacy of democracy oblivious to the frightening drama unfolding within.”
Sharaf says Washington’s ultimate goal is to create conditions for an international intervention in Pakistan:
“Consequently, the USA could end up following a containment policy of Pakistan through economic manipulation, symbols of threat and outright coercion including limited Cold Start raids. It is expected that as Pakistan becomes weaker, it will also become pliable. The ultimate mismanagement will unleash implosion, parochialism, division of the country and lead to an international intervention. The issue of Punjab as a bastion of a strong army and Pakistani nukes would be settled for good. Pakistan’s geography could be redrawn. But laced within this simple narrative are dynamics that could explode the entire region and, therefore, the efficacy of working through proxies in Pakistan.”
The GHQ-Pentagon romance, says Brig. Sharaf, is over:
“The army actually feels convinced that the US has stabbed it more than once in the back and the times of GHQ-Pentagon romance is over. The container traffic has resulted in the proliferation of US weapons and linkages with the ongoing insurgencies in Pakistan. Yet, it has persisted with military diplomacy and kept communications open. According to Fair, the attainment of common strategic objectives in the Pak-US relations has been overcast by divergence over security issues. With its hands full, the army is not keen to be sucked into any new conflict. It will wait and see how the dynamics within Pakistan shape themselves and may choose to work invisibly.”
“By choosing this option, the pressure on Pakistan army is likely to increase through drones, sponsored militant activities particularly in Balochistan and posturing. The arrest of the Mumbai mastermind, fresh offensives into Dir/Chitral from bases in north Afghanistan and presence of a US carrier off Gwadar are some of the implied threats. In case the issue of GLOCs cannot be resolved, raids into Pakistan will intensify. In a worst firebreak point, the naval quarantine of Pakistan cannot be ruled out. Opening of a corridor through Balochistan alluded in my op-ed titled Pakistan’s Future War [2009] could not be farfetched? This is how Pakistan’s Long War will be fought step by step.”
The solution? Brig. Sharaf’s answer is close to what other analysts are increasingly advocating now: a purge in the system with a break in politics for some time to give Pakistan and Pakistanis a breathing space.
Sharaf wants the Supreme Court of Pakistan to declare the government of President Asif Zarari a threat to the national security of Pakistan:
“Pakistan has reached a point where democracy as revenge is counterproductive. Every event is set to move in concert with US designs, unless the Supreme Court finally decides that the present dispensation is no more in the national interests of Pakistan; a question for Pakistan’s legal experts to ponder and liberals to rue.”
Read Brig. Sharaf’s column here.
