PAKISTAN FACES STARK CHOICES WITH PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS FOR CENTRAL EURASIA

Pakistan's military ruler President Pervaiz Musharraf has pledged full cooperation with the US against terrorism, but Pakistan will need to carry out a U turn in its policy of support to the Taliban if it is to regain the West's confidence and end its present diplomatic isolation. The stark policy choices the Pakistani military faces may involve a complete turn around from its 20 years of clandestine support of Jihadi parties and the growth of a Jihadi culture that have sustained its policies in Kashmir and Central Asia.

After having spent the past seven years providing every conceivable form of military, political and financial support to the Taliban, Pakistan is now being asked by Washington to help the US bomb Afghanistan with the aim of eliminating Osama Bin Laden and toppling the Taliban regime.

In an immediate follow-up to Musharraf's rhetorical pledge to assist the United States in countering international terrorism, President George W. Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell asked Pakistan to take concrete measures to prove its sincerity. "We thought as we gathered information and looked at possible source of the attack it would be useful to point out to the Pakistani leadership at every level that we are looking for and expecting their fullest cooperation and their help and support," Powell said at a news conference on September 12.

A day after mentioning Musharraf's message of support, Bush said, "now we have to find out what that means and we will give the Pakistani government a chance to cooperate and participate as we hunt down those people."

The US has given the military regime a list of demands in order to facilitate Washington's expected attack on Bin Laden. The US demands are believed to include permission for the use of Pakistani airspace for the bombing of Bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, the immediate stoppage of Pakistan's supply of fuel and other supplies to the Taliban, the closure of Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan in order to prevent Arab terrorists escaping to Pakistan from their bases in Afghanistan and sharing intelligence with the US about Bin Laden and the Taliban.

The list is clearly only the first step in testing Pakistan's resolve to stand by the US and the Western alliance. More demands on Islamabad are almost certain to follow, including the use of military bases, airports and harbors for the widely expected US military offensive. Washington has asked for a comprehensive report from Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) about every detail it has on Bin Laden, including his contacts with Pakistani extremists, his use of Pakistani militants to carry secret messages around the world and his hiding places in Afghanistan.

At the same time the US has given the ISI a little time –"no more than a week or so," according to Western diplomats, to see if it can persuade the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden and dismantle the multinational network of extremists belonging to his Al'Qaeda organization. Senior ISI officers are in Kandahar holding intensive talks with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, in a bid to persuade him that if he does not hand over Bin Laden, US strikes will also target the Taliban leadership. However the chances of success are bleak because of the close relationship between Mullah Omar and Bin Laden.

On September 15, Omar issued a defiant statement against the US saying the Taliban were ready to defend Bin Laden and die. The Taliban have issued a series of contradictory defiant and conciliatory statements, but there appears to be panic in the movement and several ministers in Kabul and commanders in the field have sent their families to Peshawar and Quetta – indicating that they themselves are ready to flee.

For now, Washington is following a two-track policy, putting pressure on Pakistan but at the same time giving it space to absolve itself of its past support for the Taliban and deliver Bin Laden – something the ISI has refused to help the US do over the past five years. Since September 11, Musharraf has huddled with his top generals, and has given no public statement of his intentions. In two brief television appearances, he has appeared exhausted. After meeting with all his generals, the cabinet and the National Security Council, the government has only said, without giving details, that it will stand by the US.

Clearly Musharraf has every reason to be worried. Pakistan has a 2000 kilometer border with Afghanistan and the US would need Islamabad's full military and intelligence cooperation if it were to launch a strike against Afghanistan. But for the past seven years Pakistan has been the main provider of military supplies, fuel and food to the Taliban army and Pakistani officers have advised the Taliban on their military campaigns. Over the same period up to 60,000 Pakistani Islamic students have fought in Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban leadership, three quarters of whom were educated in Pakistani madrassas, or religious schools.

On September 5, 2000, when the Taliban captured Taloqan in north eastern Afghanistan – the then headquarters of the anti-Taliban United Front – more than 60 Pakistani military officers and a small unit of the Special Services Group – Pakistani commandos – were involved in supporting and advising the Taliban force of 12,000 troops which included some 4,000 non-Afghan militants fighting for the Taliban.

At present at least some 3,000-4,000 Pakistani Islamic militants are fighting with the Taliban in their on-going offensive against the anti-Taliban alliance. Thousands of Pakistani and Kashmiri militants also train in Afghanistan for the war in Kashmir. Pakistan's knowledge of the Taliban military machine, storage facilities, supply lines and its leadership hierarchy is total. Pakistan also has the most comprehensive information about the role of foreign militants, their bases and numbers which include the 055 Arab Brigade of Al'Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a dozen Pakistani militant groups and also groups from the East Asia and China. The US is now asking the ISI to turn over all this information to the CIA.

If the army decides to fully commit to the United States, Musharraf will have to do even more. He will have to withdraw Pakistan's recognition of the Taliban regime as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, condemn the Taliban, force them to extradite the thousands of Pakistani fighters, close the border with Afghanistan, evacuate Pakistani military advisers inside Afghanistan and stop all fuel and other supplies to the Taliban. He'll have to do all of this at the very moment when they will be preparing to resist the American invasion.

He will also have to crack down hard on Pakistan's Islamic extremists who support Bin Laden in Pakistan and provide Al'Qaeda with logistics, communications and other support. Musharraf may additionally be obliged to ban those Pakistani groups such as Harakat-ul Ansar and Jaish-e-Mohammed, who are listed by Washington as terrorist organizations. The largest Pakistani party fighting in Kashmir, Lashkar-e-Tayabba is also on the US terrorist watch list. All these groups have received tacit state support in the past because they are involved in the war in Kashmir. Stopping their activities – because they could pose a threat to US forces – will be a major problem for Musharraf.

If Musharraf decides to fall in line with US policy, he will receive widespread support from the majority of Pakistanis, who are tired of the country's dire economic crisis, chronic lawlessness and a trend towards the "Talibanization" of Pakistani society, caused by Islamic extremists. Earlier this month neo-Taliban Pakistani groups in the northwest Frontier Province prevented UNICEF from carrying out a polio immunization campaign for children because they considered it un-Islamic. The same groups have smashed TV sets and forced women to stay at home, as the Taliban have done in Afghanistan.

At the same time Pakistan could negotiate major concessions from the US for its support – the lifting of five layers of US sanctions against Pakistan, a partial write-off of the country's $US 38 billion international debt, more loans from the IMF and the World Bank, greater US pressure on India to settle the Kashmir dispute and the reestablishment of a close military and intelligence relationship with the US to counter Washington's growing military and economic links with New Delhi. However the core issue and the fear for many Pakistanis is that the US may just use Pakistan, as it did in the 1980's against the Soviet Union and then once the US mission is over, the US will walk away from Pakistan leaving it in its present political chaos and into a closer military alliance with India. That fear is not only expressed by Islamic groups, but also by Pakistani liberals.

What Pakistani leaders are most concerned about is a backlash from Islamic parties and conservative Islamicists within the army's officer corps, who will accuse Musharraf of kow-towing to the Americans. Maulana Samiul Haq, who heads a string of madrassas that many Taliban leaders attended in the early 1990's, and that are now attended by the IMU and other Central Asian militants, has warned Musharraf that there will be a huge public backlash if Pakistan concedes to US demands.

"I am sure the Pakistan army will not allow this to happen and Musharraf will be mindful of the sentiments of his under-command. There will be a strong public backlash also," Haq said on September 14. Haq's provocative comments reflect moves by Islamic fundamentalists to increase pressure on Musharraf from within the army not to make concessions to Washington.

Several retired generals and former ISI chiefs, known for their hard line Islamic views, have been even more provocative claiming that the bombings in the US were carried out as part of an Israeli-Jewish conspiracy in league with the CIA in order to give Israel a free hand to crush the Palestinians and defame Muslims.

Some Pakistanis are also deeply concerned about US intentions towards the Taliban, and in particular the Pashtuns from whom the Taliban are drawn and who straddle the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. They additionally worry what the future state of Afghanistan will look like. The US is likely to target the Taliban leadership and its military formations and encourage an anti-Taliban uprising in the Pashtun belt in the south and east of the country, which is the Taliban heartland.

In terms of Afghanistan's future, there is already growing US and international support for the Loya Jirga (tribal council) peace process headed by former Afghan King Zahir Shah, who now lives in exile in Rome. The Loya Jirga (LJ) process is almost certain to become the main political alternative for Afghanistan to be backed in coming months by the US and NATO. Pakistan does not support the LJ process and would insist to the US that it continues to have a major say in the formation of any future government in Kabul.

If Pakistan is fully on board with Washington, Islamabad will still be able to influence the outcome of the US attack and may retain influence to determine the possible future Afghan government. If it is not on board, the US is unlikely to listen to Pakistani demands. Musharraf is between a rock and a hard place and the way he goes could determine the future viability of the Pakistani state. This is a moment of reckoning for Pakistan. It has to decide whether it wants to be part of the international community or wants to go it alone with all the risks involved, including the state's possible collapse and it being labeled a pariah nation.