Obama plan will be disastrous for Pakistan if accepted by government

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: Top experts on Afghanistan and Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas agree that President Barack Obama’s new strategy for the region is a recipe for disaster from Islamabad’s point of view. They lament that short-sighted people at the helm of affairs are jubilant over the $1.5 billion yearly reward for implementation of the plan.

“Pakistan would be reduced to a battlefield if our leadership accedes to Obama’s strategy,” commented Rustam Shah Mohmand, former interior secretary, former ambassador to Afghanistan and a top security expert.

Former Fata secretary Brig (retd) Mehmud Shah is of the view these are testing times for political as well as military leaders, who are expected to defend Pakistan against the sinister Zionist conspiracy to destabilise and denuclearise Pakistan.

Yet another renowned expert on Afghanistan and tribal areas and a respected journalist, Rahimullah Yousafzai, warned the Obama strategy would lead to instability in Pakistan. “There would be an open war in the fields and streets of every city and town of Pakistan,” he feared, believing the armed forces might not be in a position to support the new approach.

According to experts, the US, which has completely failed to bring peace to Afghanistan or vanquish the Taliban movement, is hell-bent on pushing its war inside Pakistan and wants to expand it beyond the tribal region.

Rustam Shah Mohmand told this correspondent that peace in Afghanistan could not be ensured without withdrawal of occupational US and Nato forces and their replacement by peace-keeping troops. He felt after failing to bring peace to Afghanistan, Washington was exerting pressure on Pakistan and wanted to use it for the attainment of its own objectives.

He said instead of understanding the sensitivities attached with the Obama strategy for Pakistan’s future, the country’s leadership was happy to receive American dollars at the expense of stability. “I have information our rulers are thinking on these lines,” he claimed, warning Pakistan was being pushed towards destabilisation.

Rustam Shah pointed out the US was also involving Iran, India, China and Russia in pressurising Pakistan to fall in line. He argued the US war on terror was never Pakistan’s war “but now we have been pushed into a situation where terrorism and extremism has become a key challenge for us”. He said post-9/11 policies had fuelled the insurgency in the tribal belt, which remained calm and peaceful throughout the Pak-US war against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Referring to Turkey’s refusal to accept $12 billion US package in return for supporting Washington’s Iraq war, he insisted the government must reject the $1.5 billion offer; otherwise, Pakistan would become a battlefield.

Rahimullah Yousafzai told The News those allured by the $1.5 billion per annum aid package should remember what had not been achieved with $60 billion in Afghanistan was impossible to realise with this aid. It was sad to see the Pakistani rulers welcoming the Obama strategy without giving it a serious thought or getting inputs from the relevant institutions, he maintained.

“Instead of welcoming it, we should lodge a serious protest with Washington,” he said, adding Pakistan would be the sole loser in case this strategy was implemented. Rahimullah suggested the Obama administration should be asked why Islamabad — a close ally of Washington — was not consulted on formulation of the strategy.

In Rahimullahís view, the armed forces may not be willing to accept this controversial plan which, he thought, could be a major factor behind instability in the country. He also cautioned that even if Pakistan agreed to the strategy for the sake of $1.5 billion annual aid, it would be impossible for it to meet the conditionalities attached to it.

Admitting the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has badly damaged Pakistan, he said what was proposed by Washington would lead to an open war in streets and fields of cities and towns.

Brig (retd) Mehmud Shah cautioned Pakistan was heading towards the most difficult times in its recent history, both owing to Washington and because of the incompetence of its own rulers. He acknowledged extremists were badly hurting Pakistan as well as Islam. But he agreed US drone attacks and Washington’s policies were also fuelling extremism and terrorism.

He was surprised to see that President Zardari did not utter a word on the highly emotive issue in his recent address to the joint sitting of parliament. The former Fata secretary saw America’s public misgivings about the ISI a clear indication of its bad intentions about Pakistan and its strategic institutions.

Although, Obama sounds realistic as compared to his predecessor, he insisted the US administration was controlled by the Jewish lobby and the Neocons, who are not ready to tolerate any Muslim country to be a nuclear power. No US president, in Mehmud Shah’s view, could defy the limits set by the Jewish lobby for world politics.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21308