George W. Bush (via last.fm)
With his term as president coming to an end, George Bush would like to leave a legacy of having dealt with terrorism and of giving it a stunning blow. His aim would be to close a chapter which shook the very foundations of USA. The seventh anniversary of 9/11 has yet to see the brain and mastermind of this act being punished. In his last gamble President Bush has allowed raids into Pakistan knowing quite well that this will create a unique and unpredictable situation which may be very difficult to handle. He knows for sure that the consequences of this last gambit will not his to deal with and most certainly with the first biggest challenge for the next president, be It Obama or Mcain. So why were the incursions into Pakistan not allowed earlier? Why did the policy of hot pursuit of terrorist given a dose of cold water? For answers we need to evaluate the aftermath of 9/11, the options available to the Bush administration and the relationship that America had to develop with Pakistan.
Aftermath of 9/11 and options for the Bush administration.
In the aftermath of 9/11 it was quite clear that Afghanistan was the training and recruitment grounds for terrorists. In spite of all evidence pointing towards the links between Saudi Arabian funding and Afghanistan serving as an excellent training ground, Bush chose to free Iraq from Saddam and use the anti terror hype to attack and invade Iraq. A task, many felt that he was compelled to finish on behalf of his father.
- That 15 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia had to be deliberately ignored, since any action against that country would mean dealing with an oil embargo seen in 1979.
- If USA had perused the policy of engaging the Saudi government, its economy would have to take a very hard hit. What went behind the curtains of diplomacy is for history to reveal itself in the next 10 to 15 years. The best option at that time was to invade the state supporting terrorists.
The first attach on Afghanistan was devastating resulting in large scale killing s of civilians, the terrorist that America was after managed to escape into the tribal areas of north west frontiers in Pakistan. Although the Americans would have like to continue with their hot pursuit, their ally in General Parvez Musharraf seems to have convinced Bush that his forces would hunt down the terrorist. He must have also made it very clear to the Bush administration that any hot pursuit would be seen in an extremely negative fashion by the local population giving rise to anti American sentiments.
Relationship of USA with Pakistan
Pakistan was always a close ally to the USA especially during the soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Americans always had a deep suspect for India with its socialist roots and close ties with Russia. It was seen as a brilliant move to be keep Pakistan as a strategic ally and use it to counter the Russians in Afghanistan, China and India. Pakistanis influence on Iran although was questionable, but the overall equation which was so good that it had to followed through. The resultant was stalemate situation where the Americans could not publically blame the Saudis or carry out their mission into capturing terrorist in Pakistan. It had to be a wait and watch situation where fingers were crossed that General Musharraf would keep his promise of using internal resources to track and capture terrorist. And initially a number of them were captured who were of middle of low ranking designations. The top masterminds were still in hiding.
ISI and Terrorism
The ISI, the intelligence wing of Pakistan has been given the authority of recruiting and training ‘militants’ for the Kashmir cause. It had been quite successful in destabilising the state. The objective was simple to use a proxy war against India, since two direct wars had seen it loose considerable ground and self respect. It proved quite difficult of the ISI to keep recruiting the local Kashmir population and hence the trained Pathans from the Afghan region were deployed to carry out the subterfuge. As the activities of the ISI became more and more clandestine it became a power of its own separated from the military command. ISI leaders knew that if any of its actives were to come out in the open with supporting proof, it would result in Pakistan being declared as a terrorist nation. This acted a double edged sword to the ISI to grow it power base. Whether the ISI has made inroads into the local populations is still a question; however the recent terrorist attacks in India unfortunately have a significant local hand. Pakistan too has not escaped from terrorism, what the ISI cultivated has now become a snake which has started striking it back.
Turning point
In it prime objective of destabilising India ISI had to give a large supporting role on attacking the Indian mission in Kabul. Evidence of which was quite strong and compelling.
Filed under: India Politics, World Politics | Tagged: Afghanistan, Americans, Bush administration, George W Bush, Geroge Bush, India, ISI, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, president USA, raids in pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Soviet war in Afghanistan, terrorism, United States | 3 Comments »
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