Over Indus

Fra et udmærket interview i Harper's med en Ahmed Rashid:

FATA is now almost entirely controlled by the Pakistani Taliban militias who in turn provide cover, protection, and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban and to Al Qaeda. (...)

Now the Pakistani Taliban are expanding their area of control in the settled areas of the North West Frontier Province. They have reached Attock on the Indus river, which is really the cultural and social dividing line between Afghanistan-Central Asia and Punjab and the Indian subcontinent. This is a very dangerous development for Pakistan and the world.

Forudsat at krigen i Afghanistan skal vindes, må talebanerne i Pakistan imødegås. Dette kan kun ske fra pakistansk side, da en krig mod selve Pakistan er urealistisk, mildt sagt. Tricket er at få dem til det. Hæren vil ikke af sig selv, den tænker mere på Indien. Om en omfattende "normaliseringsplan" i grænseområderne:

...until Pakistan takes some radical political steps in FATA, this development money should be held back. At the moment, any aid money would end up either with the army or the Taliban. At the same time it would be ruinous if U.S. troops were to cross the Durrand Line and attack FATA. It would unleash a storm of unrest in the Pashtun belt which could lead to major destabilization of the government through suicide bombings and so forth.

Og sandsynligvis afskaffe Pakistans civile institutioner og cementere militæret i rollen som den egentlige overherre.

Hvordan kunne man dog tro, at Musharraf, militærets mand, ville konfrontere sine egne?

Det er spøjst. Det, som Vesten bør gøre i Pakistan, er det, vi påstår at ville: Støtte demokratiet. Men i virkeligheden ønsker vi ham med sildesalat på brystet - demokratiet er jo vægelsindet; man kan ikke stole på det. Var Vestens accept af Musharrafs militærdiktatur et spejl af en fascistisk undertone i Europa og USA? En stærk mand, der tager sig af sagerne? Vores accept af Karimovs brutale styre i Uzbekistan er en lignende situation:

President Islam Karimov has run a highly repressive, corrupt and totalitarian political system and he has refused to carry out even the basic economic and political reforms that other post-Soviet states have done. There is no democracy and no opposition, and as a result the opposition tends to become radicalized quickly, and then forced underground. Many young people are subsequently lured to Islamic militancy, which today means going to FATA and Afghanistan for training with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and other such radical groups allied to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Such groups have now become pan-Central Asian in that they take in recruits from Xinjiang in China and Chechens in the Caucasus. The U.S. relationship with Uzbekistan has been complex, but under Bush it has come to focus entirely on the need to use Uzbekistan as a support base for military operations.

A real crisis in Uzbekistan is likely to develop over the succession to Karimov. He is old and ill. There is infighting between the power brokers of his regime over who would succeed him, while he is trying to secure his family’s wealth by insisting upon his daughter Gulnara as his successor. Any succession crisis that would divide the regime would be immediately exploited by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and other such groups because there is no democratic opposition in the country. These militant groups are in the process of creating an underground Islamist movement in Central Asia–what is now being termed the “Central Asian Taliban.” The shock waves from a destabilized Uzbekistan will be felt throughout the region.

Terrorkrigens fremtid synes at ligge i at give penge til diktatorer, der slås med indre islamistisk opposition - om ikke andet, så fordi Vesten ikke vil eller kan lægge soldater til. Men penge har vi, penge til hele verden.