[Reader-list] "Terrorism dilemmas come down to Kashmir"

[Sanjay Kak]

Terrorism dilemmas come down to Kashmir

Brian Till

Sun, Oct 25, 2009 (2 a.m.)

http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/25/terrorism-dilemmas-come-down-kashmir/

The most vital region in this world today, for U.S. interests at
least, remains a maze of cloud-shearing piles of rock and sweeping
valleys, both checkered by impoverished towns and men clutching AKs —
but this pile is hundreds of miles from Kabul.

So the logic follows: One can not tolerate an unstable Afghanistan for
fear that it will become the Mecca of a perverted Islam once more;
and, one cannot hope to stabilize Afghanistan without also addressing
Pakistan; and Pakistan, we must understand, has almost no hope of
winning its internal battle with a radicalized Pashtun militia known
as the Taliban unless it engages its entire military in the exercise.

But the bulk of the Pakistani military remains tied down in the
Punjab, protecting the heartland from an Indian invasion; according to
Farukkh Saleem, executive director of Pakistan’s Centre for Research
and Security Studies, 80 percent to 90 percent of Pakistan’s military
assets are in use countering the Indian threat.

Sameer Lalwani, a colleague of mine at the New America Foundation, has
put forward a net assessment of the nation’s capacity to wage a
counter insurgency (COIN) campaign in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province.

Leaving aside the strategy of COIN for the moment, Lalwani — comparing
the terrain, population size, language difference and a range of other
factors — contends that an effective campaign will require 370,000 to
430,000 more troops than presently involved. It’s a redeployment
that’s unconscionable to the Pakistani military; such a move would
leave Pakistan vulnerable to its vicious rival.

Thus, Kashmir, the dispute at the center of the bloody fissure between
India and Pakistan, remains the most important region to the U.S.
interests — and, ironically, it exists as one of the few conflicts
over which we cannot wield significant influence.

There has not been a call for U.S. mediation, the boisterous Indian
population likely won’t stomach American pressure, and there is no
need to reiterate the loathing Pakistanis feel toward the United
States. Particularly, the Pakistani military — with whom power
ultimately resides and which has the capacity to undermine any
progress — is well steeped in distrust of the U.S.

The conflict was born from the bloody partition of India and Pakistan
as the queen’s bankrupted empire sought to liquidate following World
War II. Though it receives less attention than the sister conflict
born from the death of the British realm — Israel/Palestine — it is
likely the more severe of the pair. Between 35,000 and 50,000 have
died since 1989, when the Mujahadeen victors in Afghanistan sought to
make the princely state into the next theater of holy war.

Kashmir is the most important example of why the U.S. cannot afford to
accept the anarchy we find and allow to simmer in many parts of the
world. Somalia, Juarez, Haiti: We have become too globalized and are
combating problems too transmittable for the humble foreign policy
that George W. Bush espoused as a candidate.

Indeed, the defining struggle of our time — unlike those of previous
generations, which pitted competing imperial aggressions and ambitions
and competing capitalist and communist ideologies against one another
— our challenge and foe exists outside the state system; it is the
battle against lawlessness, backwardness and statelessness.

One can’t help but think: Had John F. Kennedy’s attempt to negotiate a
solution with Prime Minister Harold McMillan for Kashmir in 1963
proven fruitful, we might be living in a substantially less terrifying
world. Perhaps it ought to be a lesson to us. Mediate and assist more,
even if interests do not appear to be at stake — who knows when they
might be.

Brian Till, a columnist for Creators Syndicate, is a research fellow
for the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington.