IT seems President Bush failed over a dinner Wednesday night to end the growing row between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf. Karzai has become increasingly critical of what he sees as the failure of the Pakistanis to stop cross-border support for Taleban and Al-Qaeda forces operating in his country. But did the US leader really expect a rapprochement? Indeed, is Bush in fact responsible for the growing tension between the two countries?
It is clear that Musharraf is coming under increasing pressure from his allies in the fight against international terrorism, despite his government’s clear and unequivocal commitment to that struggle. The key issue is the peace deal struck earlier this month between Islamabad and the semi-independent Pashtun tribal leaders in North Waziristan, at the end of a yearlong assault by the Pakistan military. A total subjugation of this highly independent region was never going to be possible. However Islamabad halted its military drive in return for assurances from tribal elders that foreign fighters would quit the region and that the tribesmen would no longer support attacks into Afghanistan.
But US forces in Afghanistan claim a dramatic increase in cross-border incursions since the peace deal was made, and they blame Islamabad. The British have gone further: A top secret security assessment by the Ministry of Defense in London claims that Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, has been indirectly supporting both the Taleban and Al-Qaeda. The document even suggests the ISI be disbanded. This drew an understandably angry response from Musharraf as he prepared to leave Washington for the UK and a meeting yesterday with Tony Blair. The British government has denied the report reflects its thinking. It is nevertheless remarkable that such a highly sensitive document from the normally secretive British establishment should have found its way into the public domain.
It is easy to suspect that at Washington’s instigation, pressure is being applied on Pakistan from both London and Kabul to have Musharraf follow a far more rigid US line. Yet the success of the Pakistani leader has been in balancing often anti-Western public opinion with a clear determination to attack international terror, which threatens all civilized countries, not simply the West. Outside interference on this scale, if it continues, is likely to undermine Musharraf’s carefully charted domestic policy.
Now is not the time for allies against international terror to be falling out. Indeed the only people who will benefit from a rift, particularly between Kabul and Islamabad, are the terrorists themselves. This should give rise to the suspicion that somewhere within the shadowy intelligence community focused on the Taleban and Al-Qaeda activities in Afghanistan, there are malign forces seeking to spread disinformation and set allies at each other’s throats.
And we already know how easy it is to fool the Bush White House with phony intelligence.
