John Bolton and the familiar American fantasy!

Yesterday, John R Bolton the former US Ambassador to the United Nations wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal, “The Taliban’s Atomic Threat”. This guy is so off the wall that there seems to be no hope for Pakistan and its neighbors. The only question is who is worst, Democrats or the Republicans? A total lack of understanding about the “idea of Pakistan” is simply frightening! During the past 62 years since Pakistan was created, the Republicans were in power for 36 years in America and the Democrats for the remaining 26. Both sides invested billions and billions of dollars in the hope of developing Pakistan into a moderate Islamic country, friendly to the United States of America. What happens to Afghanistan, India or Iran in the bargain was of no concern to the expanding ‘Superpower’. Liberals and conservatives, progressives and neocons, both sides had enough time and money to experiment everything in their arsenal to achieve their objectives. Did they succeed in any sense of the world? The answer lies in the rise of Taliban and the failing state of Pakistan! Happy?

Today, May 3, 2009, Fareed Zakaria had an hour long interview with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Pentagon on his weekly show ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS’ on CNN. Gates echoed the policies of Obama administration. These policies are no different than the ones pursued by the George W Bush administration or for that matter the last 11 presidents. These policies are, invent a democracy in a fundamentally Islamic state, and train Pakistan military officers in the US, just in case the first policy fails. Keep supplying sophisticated weapons aid to the loyal ally against a democratic invader like India etc etc. Put what ever spin you want but the basic thrust has been the same and would remain unchanged. Do you know why? Americans never understood the “idea of Pakistan”. The glue that binds Pakistan is “hate India”. The dictators of Pakistan have always known that if their country develops like China or India, the logic for a separate country disappears. General Pervez Musharraf saw the results of building good and durable relations with India! The Pakistani establishment went after his blood. The Islamists mounted a relentless campaign against him and finally America had to mid-wife a transfer of power.

Here is the bummer! For the first time in Pakistan’s history, radical Islam has found a home in the so called “AfPak” region. Pakistan is not a moderate ‘Muslim State’. This is only an American fantasy. More than 70% of Pakistani population has been radicalized during the past 30 years. The fundamentalists have tasted power, first in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. They are not going to give up political power for any monetary inducement what so ever. The earlier the Americans understand this the better off they would be in the long run. A huge majority of AfPak population hates America and Americans just like they hate India and Hindus or Israel and Israelis. The Pakistani establishment would never allow the AfPak region to develop and prosper. If we all do not learn our lessons from the past 62 years, we would never ever learn to deal with this explosive situation. Fortunately for Afghanistan, India and Iran, this time the American ass is on line. The jihadis have tasted blood on September 11, 2001. They would follow the Americans whenever US decides to leave the region.

Team-Obama seems to have an ‘Intellectual Blind-Spot’

President-elect Barack Obama has assembled an impressive cabinet for his incoming administration. Few would disagree with that. I would personally hold my judgment for the next 6 months. During the past 12 months, Obama preached a few creative ideas with regards to his foreign policy. His willingness to normalize relations with Cuba, direct and unconditional talks with Iran and striking targets inside terror-infested Pakistan. Since his election as the 44th President of the United States, he has designated Hillary Clinton to be the next United States Secretary of State and Susan Rice as the next US ambassador to the United Nations. Both are unlikely to actively promote Obama’s limited foreign policy vision!

Foreign policy is not a major issue when it comes to Presidential-election in the United States. Every candidate has a vision for America without any international dimension. This time around, domestic economy has consumed every politician in Washington. Outgoing President George W Bush appears to be fighting a rear guard battle. There is a potential vacuum developing in the world and Team-Obama is sending very timid signals to the international community. Pakistan recognized this opportunity and mounted a commando raid on Bombay to test the waters and was delighted to find a complete failure in India as well as around the world. This is not India’s problem by any stretch of imagination. Wait till American interests are hit once again. Team-Obama seems to have learnt very little from Bill Clinton.

When it comes to South Asia, there seems to be an intellectual blind-spot in America’s State Department. Barack Obama is not going to be pro-active when it comes to that part of the world. Pakistan is developing into the next Afghanistan with 60 nuclear war-heads and 6 times the population of their Western neighbour. The combination of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) is far more lethal compared to Taliban -al-Qaeda nexus. If only India or Bombay was the target of this commando-style raid by the above combination, they would not have targeted the American and British nationals, leave aside the Jews and their Nariman House. My hunch is that Pakistan is in desperate need of money and Obama administration was likely to be far more stringent then their predecessor. The only way to get large tranche of foreign aid was to do something dramatic and attract world attention. Did they succeed in doing that? Just THINK about it!