Washington Report On Middle East Affairs – October 2018

are in Afghanistan. They represent a pow-

erful force in Pakistani politics—and that’s

where Imran Khan, Pakistan’s new prime

minister from the heart of Pashtun territory,

also comes in.

Bottom line: the U.S. has consistently at-

tempted to enlist Pakistan into rescuing

America’s losing war in Afghanistan; a key

U.S. demand has been for the Pakistanis

to sever ties between Pakistani and Afghan

Taliban movements and crush all radical Is-

lamist groups in the border region. There is

no doubt Pakistan has indeed helped the

Afghan Taliban (Pashtuns) to fight on in

Afghanistan. Pakistan has a deep interest,

domestic and foreign, in keeping close ties

with all Pashtuns, Taliban or not. (The Pak-

istani Taliban movement is more violent

than the Afghan one, but cannot be easily

crushed—perhaps only tamed—even by

the Pakistani government.)

And the power base of Pakistan’s new

prime minister, Imran Khan, lies precisely

in this Pashtun region of the country. He

will not likely agree to any policy pressures

from the U.S. to crush Taliban cross-border

ties; he favors a strong Pashtun/Taliban

presence in any Afghan government.

Imran Khan has also been outspokenly

critical of the U.S. role in Pakistan, and he

will guard Pakistani sovereignty more jeal-

ously than his predecessors.

And then there are geopolitics with India.

Already greatly outweighed and outgunned

by a huge and powerful Indian state on Pak-

istan’s eastern border, Pakistan’s geopolitics

dictate that it can never allow its geographi-

cally narrow state to be simultaneously

threatened by a pro-Indian government on

Pakistan’s western border in Afghanistan.

Yet India has hugely invested—financially,

politically and in terms of intelligence pres-

ence—in Afghanistan, with U.S. blessing—

perceived by Islamabad as a deadly geopo-

litical threat. Pakistan will do all it can to en-

sure that Afghanistan does not fall under In-

dian political domination. That also means

deep involvement in Afghan Pashtun politics

(that include Taliban).

The U.S. has consistently run roughshod

over Pakistani sovereignty throughout its

war in Afghanistan, thereby generating

strong anti-U.S. feelings in Pakistan. (My

first novel, Breaking Faith: An American’s

Crisis of Conscience in Pakistan,deals

heavily with these issues, including the CIA

and American military presence in Pak-

istan, as well as the complicated range of

Pakistani Islamist movements at the

human level of a Pakistani family.)

And, finally, we have the ever-growing

China factor. Pakistan has long been China’s

closest ally and considers Beijing to be an

“all-weather friend”—in pointed distinction to

perceived U.S. opportunism in Pakistan.

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are now in-

tegral elements in China’s sweeping new

economic and infrastructural Eurasian devel-

opment plan “One Bridge, One Road.” (Iran

too, incidentally, is linked into the same Chi-

nese vision.) There is no way Pakistan will

ever choose close ties with Washington over

ties with China, for a dozen good reasons,

including shared mutual distrust of India.

In short, Imran Khan may well bring

some fresh air into Pakistani politics, in-

cluding a declared willingness to clamp

down on the country’s rampant corruption.

The powerful Pakistan military also sup-

ports him. It is hard to imagine how the

U.S. will not continue to lose ever more

traction in the Pakistan-Afghan morass

short of undertaking a major U.S. shift

away from its military-driven foreign policy.

That U.S. policy and style seems to tally

ever less with the interests of most states

of the region.

IMRAN KHAN ON U.S.-PAKISTAN

RELATIONS

Imran Khan has long been a critic of U.S.

military intervention in Pakistan. Below are

excerpts from a 2013 interview he con-

ducted with ABC News on how he would

deal with the U.S. as prime minister:

“We want to be friends of the U.S., [but]

we don’t want to be a client state of the U.S.

We don’t want any U.S. aid. The war on ter-

ror, we want to fight it our way, not how

we’re told.....we don’t want any drone at-

tacks because drone attacks link us to the

U.S. war. Drones are killing the same peo-

ple the Pakistan army is fighting....The way

to peace is through our tribal areas. There

are about a million armed men in the tribal

areas. There are only about 10,000 to

20,000 militants. If we win them over to our

side, our tribal people will win the war....

“Fifty thousand Pakistanis have died.

This country has been radicalized. We are

more insecure than ever before. There’s

something like $80 billion this country has

lost in this war. The U.S. aid is about $20

billion. The country is sinking into poverty,

into chaos; the state is getting weaker.

There is a consensus in Pakistan that

there is no military solution. So therefore

we’ll look for a political solution. We want

to be an ally in peace with the U.S., but no

longer can this war continue....

“If [drone strikes] were so accurate and

vital, we should be winning the war. But

the U.S. isn’t winning in Afghanistan, we

certainly aren’t winning in Pakistan. So

what have these drone strikes

achieved?....It’s totally counterproductive.

It’s caused more militancy. All it does is

cause collateral damage, caused anti-U.S.

[sentiment], and guess who gains? The

militants....

“The U.S. is stuck in Afghanistan. We’re

stuck in our tribal areas. People are igno-

rant of the history of this area. Never have

they ever accepted a foreigner to come

and occupy them, either in our tribal areas

or in Afghanistan. And so this is going

against history. Therefore it’s time to give

peace a chance. For both Pakistan and

the U.S. We’ve had enough of fighting. We

want peace. And if peace means that

you’re anti-U.S., then people do not under-

stand. Unfortunately some people in the

U.S. feel that unless you do whatever the

U.S. tells you to do, you’re anti-U.S. I be-

lieve that it’s time for the U.S. to make

Pakistan a friend rather than a client state,

a hired gun that is paid money to do it’s

bidding. I think that time is over. Pakistan

is past that stage; the country can no

longer take this war anymore.”

In Their Own Words

46 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS OCTOBER 2018

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