That slow dance with the jihadis

Some jihadi leaders have been detained while others, notably Maulana Masood Azhar, have again proven hard to find. Bank accounts are being seized though, as in the past, none is likely to have more than a few hundred rupees or a few dollars.

There is no guarantee that the adherents of jihadi ideology will not create new organisations, to be available for fresh bans in another two years.

General Pervez Musharraf’s military regime can, when it wants, bar a powerful personality or a significant force from the national arena. Look at the iron will demonstrated in keeping former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto from the political process. Both are in exile.

In case of Sharif, the Saudi Arabian government has been made the guarantor for keeping him away from Pakistan. For Bhutto, huge amounts of Pakistan government money have been spent over several years to pursue criminal prosecutions. These have yet to yield a definitive conviction.

Bhutto’s husband, Asif Zardari, has completed seven years in prison as an undertrial. The ISI has engineered a split in both Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP).

Under Bhutto’s leadership from exile, the PPP received 25 per cent of the popular vote in the controlled election of 2002. Sharif’s faction of the PML ended up with 11.5 per cent.

But several leaders of both parties have been detained on charges of corruption and disqualified from electoral politics. On the other hand, the head of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, banned as a terrorist organisation on January 16, 2002, was allowed to run for parliament. He won and supported the government in the National Assembly, before being assassinated in Islamabad a few weeks ago.

The point is General Musharraf and his associates simply do not see the threat of militancy and terrorism the way they do political opponents.

Almost every action against the jihadis has been reluctant, in response to international pressure. Although General Musharraf started talking about rolling back Islamic militancy soon after taking power in October 1999, it was not until August 14, 2001, that he announced his first steps against religious militant groups.

Then too only fringe groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Muhammad were banned, while Tehrik-e-Jafaria and Sipah-e-Sahaba were put on a watchlist.

After 9/11, General Musharraf’s alliance with the United States and his decision to abandon the Taliban raised hopes. But not until January 2002 did he order the bans and arrests. The arrested jihadis were, however, released within a few days. The banned groups reconstituted themselves under new names.

Although General Musharraf and his spokesmen claim they have initiated the latest crackdown on their own, is it a coincidence that it came within days of public statements by US diplomats that Washington was dissatisfied with Islamabad’s handling of militant groups?

The problem is the inability of Pakistan’s ruling generals to recognise the post-9/11 global environment is no longer conducive to the jihadi option — as an instrument of regional influence or of rectifying military imbalance with a historic adversary.

General Musharraf wants to be an ally of the US. If that alliance requires some steps against homegrown Pakistani jihadis, so be it — just as the Taliban had to be abandoned under American pressure.

But the heart of the general or his team is not in abandoning the jihadis. They would like the jihadis to behave, avoid public display of fervour and attacks on domestic sectarian targets. There would be penalties for not toeing the line, occasional crackdowns.

But the jihadis cannot and will not be treated as the enemy — unlike politicians, instinctively considered enemies by the ruling generals.

Pakistan’s rulers see this as a win-win strategy. Pakistan gets the benefit of being a US ally, without giving up the option of sub-conventional warfare for influence in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

India’s tendency to drag its feet over resolving the Kashmir dispute politically will keep the Kashmiri people unhappy for years to come. A recent report in New York Times said, ‘‘More young Kashmiri men appear to be joining a guerrilla campaign for independence in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, according to Kashmiri political leaders and human rights groups.’’

The report also cited the continuation of human rights violations by security forces, wiping out any gains from the representative character or inclusiveness of the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government in Srinagar.

Given India has repeatedly blundered in handling Kashmiris, it is only a matter of time before the indigenous unrest reaches the proportions of the early 1990s. The jihadis would be useful at that stage, especially if the Americans pull out of Afghanistan or their interest in the war against terrorism declines.

Pakistani officials have often misjudged the consequences of their actions. They did not expect India to cross the international border in the 1965 war and failed to anticipate the military collapse in 1971.

That Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988 would lead to a drop in American support was not planned for. Neither was the possibility of an international military effort against the Taliban.

The present policy of alliance with the US while continuing the slow dance with the jihadis could also become another lose-lose strategic proposition.

The international environment is no longer conducive to the jihadi idea. It may have made sense for Pakistani policymakers to support and tolerate Islamist militants before 9/11, no longer. The international focus on Pakistan is simply too great for it to be able to pursue contradictory policies.

Moreover Pakistan’s ‘‘betrayal’’ of the Taliban has made the jihadis cautious in depending on governments they do not control. This means while they would not be averse to cooperation from state actors, they would not trust them.

Thus while Pakistan’s rulers might simply want to hold the jihadis in reserve for another thrust in Kashmir, the jihadis themselves would not refrain from attacks inside Pakistan or against Pakistan’s friends such as the US.

Pakistan could lose American friendship, risk further deterioration in relations with India and still have no control over the jihadis.

Instead of allowing scepticism about its periodic promises of a crackdown on jihadis to persist, the Musharraf regime must openly acknowledge the jihadi option is no longer feasible.

The entire paraphernalia that goes with the jihadist doctrine — an educational system based on hatred, promotion of xenophobic nationalism, demonisation of democratic politics and the insistence on the ascendancy of the military — must be brought to an end.

(The author is visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. He served as adviser to prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and as Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka)