Pakistan's "Deep State" Fights Back

By Steve Hynd

Last night I asked Pakistani ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, "What's the plan if the US now finds Zawahiri and Mullah Omar in compounds in major Pakistani cities?" I didn't really expect a direct answer from the ambassador - after all, who am I? But today's news brings an answer of sorts.

A Pakistani official has, not very helpfully, described the action at Bin laden's compound as "cold-blooded". Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has said that US military personnel must be cut to "minimum essential" levels. And the good general, who was head of the ISI at the time of the attacks on Mumbai in 2006 which the Pakistani intelligence service are believed to have been complicit in, also says that "any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States."

So that's my answer. The plan, if Mullah Omar is found in a safe house in Quetta or Zawahiri in Islamabad, is to sulk and simply stop co-operating with the international community.

You know, I think the U.S. should expect more for its $23.5 billion dollars in direct military aid and payments over the decade from 2002 to 2012 (PDF).

In The Australian today, Camilla Cavendish gets to the heart of the White House's problem - that consistently over administrations it has allowed Pakistan to play the victim:

The West cannot turn its back on Pakistan, which is a nuclear power, but it must rewrite the script so that the army cannot continue to play the victim card with Washington, asking for aid to combat extremism while blatantly failing in the mission and exporting terrorism elsewhere.

Best of luck with that. As I say, it's not a new problem or a partisan one in the corridors of DC - and even now, most American experts and policymakers are afraid to call a spade a terrorism-enabling state.

And even if D.C. should finally decide Pakistan isn't even worth the name of "fair weather' ally, nothing is going to change there without changing the dynamic whereby a "deep state" military and feudal elite make a charade of democracy. In a must-read post, A.A. Khalid writes:

Pakistan�s establishment has now put the country at grave risk. To international observers, Pakistan is either dishonest or incompetent, and to our domestic nutcases Pakistan has committed the ultimate betrayal, while the ordinary Pakistani just feels this strange mix of humiliation, shock, sadness, happiness (Bin Laden is gone) and bewilderment at the whole affair. In short, Pakistan comes out of this whole sorry affair as a Judas-like figure in the West, while Pakistanis have to ask some deep questions and face brutal retaliation. As ever, normal innocent Pakistani civilians and brave Pakistani soldiers, security personnel and police will pay the price for the establishment�s adventures.

This latest adventure the establishment has taken the country on leads only to destruction. But this latest incident has perhaps delivered a blow to the Deep State internationally and perhaps this will filter through in Pakistan. Time to ask questions and finally confront the demon within.

Real democracy, with intra party elections with a free and fair electoral process and where politicians are not tainted by corruption, feudalism and army collusion is something that Pakistan has never experienced. This latest episode could mark a turning point or watershed moment. It could be the ��Eureka�� moment when Pakistanis realize it�s time for civilian to control the political process and for the soldiers to back to the barracks once and for all.

Without the death of the Deep State all anti-terror measures and reform initiatives will ultimately fail.

But as Mosharraf Zaidi wrote back in February, don't go expecting any Pakistani Spring revolution.

Elections come and go in Pakistan, and there is a vocal set of voices to counter the military�s dominance of the national discourse. Yet, the military continues to be an all-weather navigator for Pakistan�with ample assistance from the US.

That's been the dynamic for a long time now, and that's the way the dynamic is likely to stay.

Update: Pakistan pays U.S. lobbyists to deny it helped bin Laden. And now you know why the dynamic is likely to stay the same. One lobbyist has received $2 million from the Pakistani government in two years - and given the way things work between the two nations that money probably originated in US taxpayers pockets!