Why the US Wants the Collapse of Pakistan

11.01.2008

John Berlin

Why the US Wants the Collapse of Pakistan

The death of Ms Bhutto, who would certainly have become Pakistan's new Prime minister, throws Pakistan into deeper chaos. It even brings the prospect of the possible collapse of Pakistan as a national state within our horizon. Whereas the Taliban, al-Qa'ida and ISI (Pakistan's intelligence service) all had a significant interest in killing her, the US government benefits the most from Ms Bhutto's death.Some things about Ms Bhutto were not very favourable. Over the years, there were several heavy allegations of corruption (in particular: making illegal profits from government contracts) and abuse of power (in particular: the laundering of money that was gained by government contract profiteering) - and investigations in these matters did indeed come up with serious indications of wrongdoings worth hundreds of millions of dollars. On the other hand, some of the evidence supporting the allegations appears to have been fabricated by Ms Bhutto's political opponents - but such things somehow "belong" to Pakistan's political system; real corruption as well as the manufacturing of "evidence" against political competitors are part of Pakistan's internal political gameplay.

Killing off a high-profile competitor is something very different; it doesn't fit Pakistani political culture and it will not bring anyone within the present political system any enduring political gain, not even Ms Bhutto's arch-opponent, President Musharraf. The President may, perhaps, use the situation for a new clampdown on the country, in order to prevent further destabilization, but in the somewhat longer run this pro-Western President of this Islamic country would create only more violent opposition to his rule. In the long run, Ms Bhutto's assassination does not bring any real advantage for Musharraf.

Destabilization

On the contrary, Ms Bhutto's assassination only furthers the destabilization of Pakistan, the last thing Musharraf wants. His regime's eight years of harsh military rule, its lack of success in raising economic conditions, its open disregard for legality and perhaps most of all its professed pro-Western stance in combating "Islamist" terrorism in this country where a majority adheres to a strict interpretation of Islam, have made Pakistan's President very unpopular.

Under enormous internal and international pressure, Musharraf recently agreed to put an end to military rule and to hold parliamentary elections in January, which would most probably have been won by his greatest opponent, Ms Bhutto. Ms Bhutto's death is more a blow to the re-emergence of a functioning democratic system than a win for Musharraf. He would have had a far greater chance of disabling her influence within the system, either by manufacturing new corruption "evidence" against her or by unveiling real evidence, or perhaps by making her into a close ally (which would have taken away most of her credibility), than by having her killed like this. Without the acknowledged political opposition leader who - at least in the eyes of "the masses" - strove for real democracy, the political system is further disabled and political life for Musharraf becomes much, much more difficult.

The Taliban, al-Qa'ida, ISI - and the US

If we want to know who had Ms Bhutto killed, we must ask who of those involved with Pakistani politics can professionally plan and carry out such an attack, and who of those that can do this most benefit from her death.

It has become a kind of established tradition to point fingers at India when there's trouble in Pakistan, since the two countries have been more-or-less at each others' throats for over half a century. India certainly likes to see its neighbour in serious disarray, but it really cannot be expected to have an interest in seeing at its north-western borders the chaos and anarchy that ultimately may result from the serious destabilization of Pakistan.

Was it then, perhaps, a lone gunman? Some madman with a deadly grudge and a gun? That is out of the question. Raw footage and eyewitness accounts of the assassination make it clear that there were two explosions and several gunshots; clearly it was not the work of a lone gunman.

Quite the contrary: an explosion, followed by gunshots and another explosion are indications of a military-style operation. Images of a man with a handgun firing at close range have been widely televised, but raw footage, as well as multiple eyewitness-accounts, paint a different picture. Eyewitnesses saw "men with long-barrelled rifles" before the attack; they saw someone firing from the roof of a nearby cinema, as well as from two other directions. Whoever the man with the handgun was and whatever his involvement, this was a well-planned and surgically executed operation.

A rough chronology seems to be that first there was an explosion as a decoy, to draw attention and create chaos; then Ms Bhutto was fired upon from several directions (so as to minimize her chances of survival), followed by the quick detonation of a second pack of explosives (so as to enhance chaos, as well as destroy the crime scene).

So who can carry out such an operation and who seeks the destabilization of Pakistan?

That limits the number of candidates to four: the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, ISI, and the US government. The Taliban are on the rise in Afghanistan again, and they already effectively control significant parts of the northern Pakistani regions of North and South Waziristan, which share a largely open border with Afghanistan - and the Taliban are looking to spread their brand of extremist Islamic fundamentalism further into Pakistan. For them, further destabilization of the country is very helpful. The Musharraf regime has not taken much hard action against the Taliban, for fear of further alienating the population of the northern provinces, which has very strict Islamic views, as well as cultural and family ties to the adjoining Afghan border region. Ms Bhutto, proponent of a secular civil democracy, was a principled opponent of the Taliban. It was expected that she would, when Prime Minister, organize tougher action against the Taliban - and she would certainly have become Prime Minister.

Nuclear weapons

al-Qa'ida wanted Ms Bhutto dead for years. There exist today many "regional" al-Qa'idas around the globe, but here we mean the original of that name. Ms Bhutto was high on this al-Qa'ida's target list, partly for the same reasons, the Taliban have, but more so for other reasons. It was Ms Bhutto's often stated intention to allow US troops to hunt al-Qa'ida more actively on Pakistani soil and to allow the IAEA to question Mr. A.K. Khan on his nuclear arms trade. Mrs Bhutto, from al-Qa'ida's point of view, was even more "Westernized" than President Musharraf and therefore a very valuable ideological target.

Moreover, "Westernized" though she was, she was able to unite a substantial part of the population and thus prevent or delay the desired collapse of the Pakistani political system and the country's possible subsequent fragmentation. Whereas the Taliban, as a regional force, sees the collapse of Pakistani central government a goal in itself; for al-Qa'ida, which has a global strategy, it would open up a real chance of getting control of one or more weapons from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Pakistan's nuclear command structure is somewhat decentralized, in order to prevent the nuclear weapons from being inoperable in case the President is killed – yet, so far, the President's national authority keeps the system in place. If you destabilize the country, you may weaken the national authority and hence the command structure sufficiently to get control of one or more of the country's 60-odd nuclear weapons. The Taliban lack the expertise to handle nuclear devices; al-Qa'ida certainly does not.

Certainly, ISI, Pakistan's large and powerful intelligence service, had an interest in the execution of Ms Bhutto. Remember, Islam in Pakistan is largely of a very strict kind - so it should not be surprising that such "fundamentalism" also runs through ISI. That doesn't hamper ISI in being a very good (i.e. effective) intelligence service. ISI did - and does - support a wide range of shady groups and organizations in Asia and in the Middle East, so as to keep abreast of developing trends and to have a good foothold in many places. ISI has long supported the Taliban.

For example, in 1979, it began to facilitate extensively a long-term CIA operation in Afghanistan to help the Taliban and others (among whom was Osama bin Laden) fight the Soviets (nowadays people tend to forget that Osama once was a de facto CIA operative.) After the retreat of the Soviets, ISI kept strong, sympathetic, religion-based ties to the Taliban and other "Islamist" groups. This should have stopped after September 11, 2001, but it didn't.

For example, only a few years ago, NATO forces captured a large number of Pakistani Taliban fighters in an Afghan-Pakistani border region, many of whom provided details about ISI funding and running Taliban training camps (even in Pakistan) and about ISI providing documents, money, and weapons. It is not surprising that a leaked report from the British Ministry of Defence in 2006 stated that "(…) indirectly, Pakistan, through the ISI, has been supporting terrorism and extremism" emphasis is mine - JB. Among experts, it is an accepted fact that the "sophistication" of al-Qa'ida, in comparison to the Taliban, has a specific attraction to fundamentalist members of the higher echelons of ISI.According to several reliable Western intelligence sources, ISI is riddled with al-Qa'ida sympathisers. Obviously, ISI (or elements of that organization) had a significant interest in stopping Ms Bhutto. Given the level of influence ISI has with the Taliban and with al-Qa'ida in Pakistan, neither would assassinate a prominent political figure in Pakistan without, at the very least, ISI's consent - but since ISI is also strongly influenced and partly funded by the CIA, it is nearly inconceivable that the high-profile execution of Ms Bhutto would have been possible without American approval.

A much larger scale

So let's widen the view. There are those outside of the Pakistani "domain" who benefit, and who benefit on a much larger scale. The White House has long accused President Musharraf (whose Presidency is a tight-rope-act between Westernism and Pakistani Islam) of not doing enough in the "War on Terror", but they can not intervene as long as Pakistan is a coherent state with a lot of anti-Americanism filling the state structure. So, rather than wait until Ms Bhutto would become Prime Minister and allow US forces under Pakistani "guidance" to hunt al-Qa'ida - and go through all the troubles of having US forces be "associated" with Pakistani politics - the US government would gladly see the state of Pakistan collapse.

That would enable larger deployment of US forces, for example, based upon the argument that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal would no longer be safe. At the same time, the pretext of "bringing democracy to the Muslim world" would again be used, knowing full well that this would create more terrorists.

American military planning is already under way for a larger-scale intervention, this year; troops are already being prepared; for example, despite the official position that there are less than a hundred US military personnel in Pakistan, in Punjab, there are secret US military bases with troop levels totalling, at present, a few thousand - and Punjab isn't the only region that has US combat troops present.

Traditional mainstream media are being fed stories that underline the "need" for US intervention. Scenarios are already being floated to carve up Pakistan into "Greater Baluchistan" (which is now Pakistan's largest province) and some other new "states" in which to install puppet regimes.

All in all, the White House needs terrorism as its blanket excuse for intervention. Since ISI is both strongly CIA-influenced, as well as riddled with al-Qa'ida, it is not only that the Bhutto assassination could not plausibly have been organized without the ISI, it is also ISI which carried out American orders.

If the plan works, the weakening or even collapse of the state of Pakistan will create a new battlefield badly needed by the White House. The "War on Terror" (as the War on Islam is often termed), like most wars, needs expansion or it collapses. If you project an "Enemy", you also need the "Enemy" to be successful at times.

Don't be surprised if al-Qa'ida suddenly has nuclear weapons.

Without success for the Enemy, you may no longer be sufficiently able to instill fear in the people and have them follow you.

The White House needs the destabilization of Pakistan to continue the "War on Terror". Ms Bhutto's execution is one big step towards that goal.

John Berlin
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report