Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Last week, for the second time in as many months, we warned about the sharply deteriorating state of relations between the US and Pakistan.  However, we did not expect relations to deteriorate quite as far and as rapidly as they have in the past week.  The past week has even seen the governor of the Punjab (supported by a former intelligence chief) reminding the US that Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state.  And, behind the scenes, Pakistan is urging China to join a bilateral defence pact.

Last Thursday (22 September), Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Haqqani network had been responsible for the 13 September attacks on the US embassy and Nato buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan, and that “the Haqqani network...acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency”.

Mullen added: “In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan - and most especially the Pakistani Army and ISI - jeopardises not only the prospect of our strategic partnership, but also Pakistan's opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence.”

This was an even blunter accusation of Pakistani complicity than the remarks we reported last week of US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, who had said on 16 September: “There is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government.  This is something that must stop.”

Earlier, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had said that the US would do everything necessary to defend allied forces against attacks by the Haqqani group, including launching attacks on the militants’ bases in Pakistan.   Mullen’s remarks to the Senate committee were taken in Pakistan as reinforcing this warning.

Three things about the Pakistani reaction to Mullen’s intervention are of particular note, the first of which is that the army is clearly leading the response and the government is following the army’s lead.  Following Mullen’s comments to the Senate, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ishaq Pervez Kayani called an emergency meeting of army corps commanders on 25 September at which it was agreed that Pakistan should resist US pressure to mount an offensive in North Wazirizstan.  After the meeting, one official said: “We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done.”

At all stages, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has followed the military’s lead, and Kayani and other top military brass were scheduled to attend an All Parties Conference (APC) called by Gilani for today (29 September).

The second point is that the consensus in opposing the US pressure is based not just on anti-American sentiment but on a growing belief that the United States is in a weak position.  There is a strong feeling in Islamabad that America has lost the war in Afghanistan and that it cannot afford a break with Pakistan.  This was reflected in an editorial on 26 September in the pro-military Pakistan Observer, which wrote: “Pakistan at this point has many options and we do not think that the United States, now overstretched in Iraq, Afghanistan, and some African countries, can afford to break the alliance with Pakistan.”

This feeling that the US is not in a strong position to push Pakistan around will have been reinforced by Mullen himself when he told the Senate committee:

"I believe that a flawed and difficult relationship [with Pakistan] is better than no relationship at all.  Some may argue I have wasted my time, that Pakistan is no closer to us than before, and may now have drifted even further away. I disagree. Military cooperation is warming. Information flow between us and across the border is quickening. Transparency is returning, slowly.  With Pakistan's help we have disrupted al-Qaeda and its senior leadership in the border regions and degraded its ability to plan and conduct terror attacks.  Indeed, I think we would be in a far tougher situation today, in the wake of the frostiness which fell over us after the Bin Laden raid, were it not for... the fact that we could at least have a conversation about the way ahead, however difficult that conversation might be."

The third point is that the level of the anti-US rhetoric has reached highly dangerous levels.  The media is full of commentaries about the need to say ‘no’ to America – or, as The Frontier Post has put it, to say a “big NO to any slavery and enslavement” to America.  The Nation, a conservative-nationalist English-language daily based in Islamabad, concluded its 26 September editorial by saying: “The nation is expecting the politico-military leadership to come up with a firm resolve to defend the sovereignty and integrity of the country whatever the cost.”

But, for inflammatory language, none could beat Punjab Governor Sardar Latif Khosa, who on 26 September warned the US against attacking Pakistan by invoking Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.  He said: “Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan; it is an atomic power.  It has the ability to defend its sovereignty and nobody should be in any doubt about the power of Pakistan’s army and missile technology.”  Former ISI chief General Hamid Gul has made the same point in the past week.

Finally, there was a warning from the pro-military Pakistan Observer that unnamed “other countries” could be sucked into a conflict if the US were to attack Pakistan.  It wrote: “We would warn the US that if there is an aggression against Pakistan, it may also suck in other countries and there would be a fallout worldwide.”

There was no elaboration as to who these other countries could be, but there is no doubt that Pakistan is assiduously courting China.  It would seem unlikely in the extreme that China would become militarily involved if tensions between the US and Pakistan were to escalate to that level.  But strong diplomatic support would surely be forthcoming.  At the beginning of this week China’s Vice Premier Meng Jianzhu was in Islamabad for a two-day visit, to meet with both the prime minister and military chiefs, and local sources reported him as saying that China is an “all-weather friend” to Pakistan and will stand by it in its “hour of need”.

Also there is no doubt that Pakistan is looking for more than diplomatic support, with sources saying that Pakistan has been lobbying China hard in recent months to agree to a bilateral military pact.  One Pakistani official has been quoted as saying: “Our view is, and it is also shared by authorities in Beijing to an extent, that this will send a strong signal to the world that Pakistan is not alone...an emerging world power is standing behind it.”  Sources say that Prime Minister Gilani formally raised the issue with China shortly after the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May.  China may not yet be ready for this development, but the direction of travel is clear.

By any standards it is an exceptional week when a previously key ally of the United States alludes to both the nuclear card and the China card in response to US demands that it cease supporting a terrorist group or face the consequences.  JdeC.

NOTE: Not surprisingly, India has found Admiral Mullen’s comments about the links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Haqqani network irresistable.  On 25 September, India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna commented: “We have always been saying it.  I am glad the US finds it has also suffered under the ISI.”