The Overt and Covert Objectives of War on Terror and Pakistan

The war against terror, which started in the wake of terrorist attacks on twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, USA, on Sept. 11, 2001, has completed its sixteen years. In the initial years of this war, former US President George W. Bush, who launched this bloody war, claimed that a new era has begun and that liberal democracies have to survive and “we will pursue the terrorists everywhere,” yet today it stands vividly clear that the covert goals of the war were not eliminating terrorism rather it was launched to extend American sphere of influence and fill the power vacuum created by the demise of the USSR in 1991-92.  

In an address after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush explained the consequences of the attacks to the world. He expounded the American intention of dealing with iron hands with the terrorists, either states or non-state actors, and named some countries in many of his later speeches. The war was to be launched against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for which seeking Pakistan’s assistance was inevitable. After attacking Afghanistan and crushing the enemy, the US and NATO forces should have left Afghanistan immediately but the covert plan was not to defeat Al-Qaeda rather it was to stay in Afghanistan and implement hegemonic designs of the United States in this part of the world. Since then, the US-led NATO forces are present on the Afghan soil, with no plans to withdraw in the near future. Pakistan was also made part of this game that has inflicted colossal losses on every sector of the country.

The United States has failed to achieve its overt objectives as it has miserably failed in eliminating the influence and clout the non-state actors (NSAs) like Al-Qaeda had in this region. On the contrary, enduring war has resulted in mushroom growth of NSAs and now the threat and the nature of the war have radically changed. The US presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan resulted in creation of various brands of Taliban, ISIS and other proxy forces of the rival states.

Furthermore, the US had preached that lack of democracy in rogue states was the root cause of terrorism and they must be democratized, but it failed to accomplish this rhetoric-based, highly ambitious democratization plan. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan were targeted in the name of democratization but these countries are now facing political instability like never before.

After analyzing the policies and actions of United States in the post 9/11 period, it can easily be discerned that the US had opted for de facto policy of Islamophobia and it was actually a new crusade against the Muslims. All the theatres of war on terror are in Muslim countries and Islamic values and teachings are consistently being made polemic.

In addition, the US’ un-proclaimed agenda of the war on terror was to secure its trade routes, i.e. Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Malacca and Bay of Pigs to reach Asian markets and increase its global economic outreach, which it fulfilled, albeit to some extent, by diverting the concentration of the world from these areas and engaging them in war on terror. The stay in Afghanistan was also a tactical pressure on Iran to withdraw its plans for making an atomic bomb and compel it for a deal with the West. The maturity of talks and somewhat normalization of state-to-state relations between the US and Iran helped NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan, yet US bases are still operational in different areas of the country.

In June 2006, the then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice coined the word “Creative Instability” by saying: “We have to create an arc of instability, chaos and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, Pakistan and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan,” and implement the project of “New Middle East” which started with the war between Lebanon and Israel in the same year. Now the US has left the region due to its pivot to the Middle East for accomplishing its project “Creative Instability,” which has practically started in the name of “Arab Spring” and is now at its peak in Syria and Iraq. It confirms the US’ nefarious designs to target the countries that are considered potential fortresses of Islam and have considerable influence in the Muslim World.

Pakistan has been named in the new game of Creative Instability and the US acted upon accordingly but the response from Pakistan was not pragmatic and its results were not comprehended, in advance, by the policymakers. New tactics of violence and operations have been started in Pakistan against the state machinery as well as other soft targets. A new wave of homegrown terrorism was felt and its effects permeated very quickly in the form of various attacks. A kind of civil war had erupted between NSAs and Pakistan’s law-enforcement agencies and ethnic schisms in the society became wider and wider. The sovereignty of the country was consistently violated and attacks on non-combatants as well as on their own ally’s forces i.e. Sala Check Post incident, were launched by NATO and the USA. Numerous agents of spy agencies of different countries came to Pakistan to work on their own agenda, thus directly targeting the country’s internal security apparatus. Due to unknown threat and invisible enemy, Pakistan went after even its own citizens and started operations that cost billions of rupees, beside losses in infrastructure, and spilt blood of the innocent citizens and combating and non-combating soldiers.

Pakistan has been consistently demonized as a sponsor of terrorism and godfather of terrorist ideology during the past sixteen years. But, the institutional response to the ongoing violence and growing terrorism was shaky and inadequate, to say the least. It is high time we assessed the causes, consequences and impact of war on terror on Pakistan and foresaw the future of war on terror in the global as well as regional scenario.

Due to the aforementioned propaganda against Pakistan, country’s relations with other states of the region, and rest of the world at large, have been considerably affected. Pakistan had a friendly and stable relationship with Afghanistan but its aligning with the US in war against terror upended the nature of these relations and the blame game and distrust ensued. Iran also saw Pakistan’s decision as unnecessary and taken in haste, and it too developed hostilities against the country.

So, amidst this state of affairs, Pakistan needs to revisit its policies and strategies – both internal and external. Pakistan has its own interests to pursue and they cannot be compared with those of any other country. Pakistan is a member of many regional and global organizations and plays a vital role in them, so it should build its external relations keeping its own national interests supreme and should not opt for ad hoc, abrupt changes and a paradigm shift in its policies and strategies; rather any such change should be guided by core principles, norms and values and must translate into pragmatic decisions. Pakistan has now more global presence than in the pre-9/11 era; so, it should use it position for achieving its basic needs of image-building through proactive diplomacy. The image building can best be served through better diplomacy and wisely using the elements of soft power.

More reliance on basic principles and institutions, and less on individuals’ roles, is the best way forward. Lessons must be learnt from the past mistakes. Democratic institutions should be made strong as per our national agenda so that they may cope better with the emergency situations as we have seen during All Parties’ Conference after APS attack in December 2016. Institutional capacity-building can prove fruitful in such situations. Cooperation and timely coordination among the institutions should be focused for more dynamic and momentous consequences. Internally, Pakistan should adopt such policies which are guided by its internal and external needs supported by popular demands and aimed at stability and prosperity of the country and its citizens.

Last but not least, global politics changes with the passage of time; as states are rational actors and have no permanent foes or friends and have no permanent policies. States adjust their strategies to move ahead along with other states without inviting any confrontation. The decisions in war on terror were mostly ad hoc and situation-based, prepared due to pseudo-democracy, yet today Pakistan has a democratically-elected government which should not follow the policies of its predecessor in its present form. Parliament should be taken into confidence for avoiding internal rifts in such issues e.g. Yemen Crisis decision was referred to the parliament for creating consensus.