This article was first published at Axis of Logic.
Driven by paranoia with resurgent Islam as a threat to the established social order in the West and their obsession to control this very important oil rich region, American strategists have toyed with the idea of redrawing political boundaries of Islamic states along ethnic lines. The American attack on Afghanistan and Iraq on false pretexts of ‘war on terror’ was the initiation of this strategy. Now they seek to legitimize their actions by labeling them as efforts to dispense justice for ‘oppressed Muslim minorities’.
They believe that smaller entities would be easier to micromanage through puppet regimes, enabling them to contain militancy and squeeze into extinction Jehadi outfits by choking their funding.
This ‘remapping’ involves splintering the Muslim world and creating sovereign states of Balochistan, Kurdistan and Arab Shia State by carving out and unifying Pakistani and Iranian Baluchistan territories to create Free Balochistan; unifying Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan to create Greater Kurdistan and slicing off Eastern Saudi Arabia to unite it with Southern Iraq to create Shia Arab State. It is no coincidence that these territories hold bulk of the world oil and host anti-imperialist movements.
Brilliant thinking! This promises them a picture-perfect Muslim world, tailored to their needs. The difficulty, however, is that the undertaking is too ambitious, out of sync with reality and unachievable. And this mindset is bound to pitch Christianity and Judaism versus Islam, a horrifying scenario that could send shock waves deep into the Western world.
American global interests have routinely propelled it into adversarial engagement with the Muslims, losing their hearts and minds. More often than not, Israeli interests have defined American foreign policy direction, particularly where their interests are congruent. For instance, both the US and Israel have eyes on the oil reserves of Caspian Sea and Central Asia, they need energy pipeline project transiting through Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Balochistan and desperately want a wider security shield for Israel, which involves denuclearizing Pakistan.
Israel’s interest to de-fang Pakistan’s nuclear ability dates back to mid-eighties when it attempted to bomb Kahuta facility in collusion with the Indians – a mission that was aborted when an alert Pakistan Air Force took to the skies. Now in Afghanistan they have a perfect opportunity to collude with America and India to take out Pakistan’s nuclear assets through subversion.
Pakistan’s denuclearization is important to India too. Pakistan has to be trimmed in size to enable India to achieve undisputed regional leadership. This is in American interest too, as a dominant regional power – India, could counter China that grows stronger by the day and will eventually challenge American expansionism into Asia. Together with Russia, China has already forged an alliance, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to squeeze the American military bases out of Central Asia. For America, an independent friendly Balochistan will also be very useful to keep Iran under close watch and serve as energy corridor to Central Asia.
Pakistan is, therefore, up for reconfiguration in this chess game of geo-strategic interests. It is no more of interest to America as a unified entity. President Obama’s insistence to stay on in Afghanistan followed by a massive military buildup is not apparently without sinister motives. Afghanistan not only provides safe haven and logistical support for espionage and subversion against Pakistan, it has also joined the bandwagon by creating its own Research & Analysis Milli Afghanistan (RAMA) with Indian help, a new intelligence outfit tasked to destabilize Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Balkanization strategy was presented in a 2006 article in the US Armed Forces Journal ‘Blood Borders’ that advocated the incorporation of NWFP into Afghanistan and creation of a sovereign ‘Free Balochistan’, carved out of Baloch areas of Pakistan and Iran. Grounds: ethnic affinity.
Pakistani Balochistan is estimated to hold 25.1 trillion cft. of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil, in addition to gold, copper and coal deposits, it borders Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China and has a strategically located port that can connect Central Asian countries and China to Arabian Sea.
In his article “Drawn and Quartered” (New York Times) Selig Harrison of the Center of International Policy, Washington, forecasts Pakistan’s break up 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 attributes Pakistan’s balkanization to rising nationalist sentiment in the Pashtun belt and growing disillusionment of the Pashtuns, Balochis and Sindhis with Punjab and Pakistan.
Both articles essentially sing the same tune and present a doctrine that seems to broadly reflect America’s long term objectives.
In this backdrop, the assessment of Michel Chossudovsky, Director of Montreal based Center for Research on Globalization (author of America’s “War on Terrorism”) is significant. In his article ‘The Destabilization of Pakistan’ he warns: “Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation”. He states: “The U.S. course consists in fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan. This course of action is also dictated by U.S. war plans in relation to both Iran and Afghanistan.”
This cannot be dismissed as conspiracy theory. There are pointers that corroborate Chossudovsky’s thesis. The Indo-US Strategic Partnership Deal “aims at containing and curbing the rising military and economic power of China and the increasing threat of Islamic extremism in the region”. Reports say a joint espionage network of CIA, Mossad, MI-6 and RAW operates in Afghanistan to destabilize Pakistan and other regional countries. Dissidents from Pakistan are being trained at Sarobi and Kandahar for missions inside NWFP, whereas bases at Lashkargah and Nawah are being used to train dissidents from Balochistan for missions in support of Balochistan Liberation Army.
Now view other developments: Benazir returns after a deal with the US and is eliminated. Musharraf is shown the door. Zardari, a man of most dubious credentials, is catapulted into the presidency as Benazir’s replacement and assumes all powers. Economic downturn bankrupts the country and creates social chaos. The federal and provincial governments are completely immobilized. Corruption hits the sky. And the people begin to lose faith in the federation.
Then as a sequel to Bombay fiasco, the army is made to run from pole to post, insurgencies erupt in the FATA, North and South Waziristan and Malakand Division by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan – a rogue outfit aided and supported from Afghanistan and which is a known protégé of the occupiers of Afghanistan, the NWFP gets destabilized, the Army gets bogged down in quelling insurgencies and maintaining internal security, Baloch separatists get energized and the people of Pakistan are massacred and terrorized.
American interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs has reached such an ominous level that the country seems to be run by an American under secretary of state or envoy Holbrook rather than its elected representatives. The parliament has ceased to be of any consequence. Pakistan suddenly finds itself in turmoil, the like of which it has not experienced before.
it is true there is a nexus between afghan government india israel and united states to destabalize pakistan and contain it’s nukes in the first phase secondly break up and civil war in pakistan.pakistan needs a nationlist leadership which can fight external and internal threat more aggressivly and concentrate on basic problem of pakistani people such as more money for education,health and jobs.
pml-n,ppp and other political parties does not deserve to be in government.nawaz sharif and zardari are the convicts and benazir was killed in a well planned attack which was out source by out siders.
Wow – you and the entire Pakistani nation is super paranoid. Maybe, US should just leave the region and stop all aid/loans to Pakistan. Let’s see how things turn out for you real soon!!
Please do…i’m pretty sure we’ll be better off…America on the other hand will NOT without us…why do you think the American’s keep pumping money into Pakistan? out of the goodness of their hearts? Are you even aware that the US has the largest debt than any other country in the world? think about it…read a little…stop watching FOX “NEWS” and then get back to me…
There are strong indications that the Indian security and intelligence establishment has finally launched the covert war in Pakistan that they have been planning for about a year. The Indian officials have been seething since last year because their inability to “punish” Pakistan following the Mubmai terrorist attacks that they blamed on Pakistan. They shelved the idea of lightning air strikes strategy dubbed “Cold Start” against Pakistan for fear of sparking a major war. But they have continued to talk about covert actions by Indian agents to destabilize and balkanize Pakistan. Former RAW chief B. Raman has argued that India appoint a covert ops specialist as the new head of RAW. He said last December that “at this critical time in the nation’s history, RAW has no covert action specialists at the top of its pyramid. Get a suitable officer from the IB or the Army. If necessary, make him the head of the organization.”
K.C. Verma, a former IB official and a RAW outsider, was appointed earlier this year as the new head of RAW. This choice appears to have been made at the suggestion of intelligence hawks like B. Raman to appoint an outsider, in spite of significant resistance from within the agency. Mr. Verma’s has been tasked with rapidly building strong covert ops capabilities within RAW. It is not a coincidence that the terrorist attacks in Pakistan have dramatically increased since Verma took the reins of RAW.
Paranoia is Pakistan’s real enemy.
And religious fanaticism.
Both of these are enemies of progress.
Those are our true enemies.
They are much more dangerous than any external threats.
Our enemies can only destroy us if we continue with our paranoia and religious fanaticism.
Guys, Those who watch things from a distance do not appreciate what Pakistan is going through. It is very convenient to call it paranoia. Ask those who have to experience bombs exploding around them in the market places, schools, public offices, on the road side, etc. Ask those whose family members and bread earners get blown up in these blasts. And who is doing this? It is the American, Indian and Israeli sponsored rouge militants out of the North West tribal area who are heavy paid and equipped to destabilize Pakistan. Don’t think this is suspicion. There is solid evidence to this effect. Siddiqi is on the spot. This is all a part of the scheme to denuclearize Pakistan.
As for Alan’s comments about aid, yes please keep your aid. We will be too happy without it. We will go through hardship but in the end we learn to stand on our own feet. Now people are convinced that Pakistan will fight its way out of the economic crises once this life support system, this aid addiction, is removed. And you know Alan why America borrows from Tom to give to Peter? To be able to create its political influence by buying out corrupt and incompetent politicians, which by the grace of God we have plenty. The biggest of them all being the current occupant of the presidency, whom I am ashamed to call Pakistan’s president. American aid comes with strings. It is not given out of love or concern for humanitarian causes. Don’t forget America is a selfish, Jewish run capitalist country which would want to extract its pound of flesh for every penny it lends.
Please do not be naive. Understand underlying facts. Do not make simplistic statements without going deep into issues. Be real guys.
There is no mention of the Afghan Taliban or the jihad in Kashmir.
Wow.! Heights of paranoia! Grow up.. Nobody is out to ‘get’ you. You created the Taliban mess and you let the Mujahideens grow in strength. You spent more on defence than you can afford and you blame everyone else but yourself!
I see great things ahead for Pakistan.
This guy is in the wrong business(supposedly Journalism).He has such a fertile,imaginative mind that he would make a very good script writer for films.All he needs is a dash of romance added to his story and Voila!.We have an action packed THRILLER!.