Pakistan’s instability In taking action against terrorists, the United States must use extreme care not to risk innocent lives or threaten Islam, specialists here say.
limits U.S. options
Isle experts maintain that Bush
must avoid waging a holy warBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com"These are fairly isolated groups of disgruntled peoples, and a major U.S. assault that involves collateral damage against innocent civilians might galvanize even greater opposition around the world," said Dru Gladney, University of Hawaii professor of Asian studies.
Many Muslims worldwide are sympathetic to the United States and against terrorists, said Gladney, who studies Muslim societies and ethnic identifies.
"But if it was felt that there was a crusade against Islam, even though President Bush has withdrawn that term, it sticks in many Muslims' minds. There would be a backlash and galvanize Muslim opinion against the U.S."
Arun Swamy, an East-West Center fellow who specializes in domestic matters in Southeast Asia and, to some extent, India and Pakistan, said U.S. options are limited.
If the United States wants to go into Afghanistan like it went into Iraq, it will be a difficult military operation because of treacherous terrain, he said.
"It is a very rural country. It has been through 25 years of war, and it will look more potentially like Vietnam than Iraq. It is easy for guerrilla fighters to go into the hills and fight. The Taliban spent a decade fighting Russians that way."
Good intelligence is needed on the location of terrorist camps for airstrikes, and they are very mobile, said Swamy, originally from India.
The United States also must figure out the balance between pressuring neighboring countries to help fight the terrorists and the domestic impact on those countries, he added.
"Nobody in Washington wants to see the Pakistan regime collapse. If it does, it will look more like Afghanistan or Somalia, only on a bigger scale."
If pushed too far, Swamy said, the country faces tremendous domestic turmoil. Military groups are well armed with shoulder stinger missiles and anti-helicopter missiles left over from the U.S. support for Afghan rebels against the Soviet Union, he said.
A lot of drug and gun smuggling goes on in the region, Swamy said. "The situation is dangerous for everyone in Pakistan."
Toufiq A. Siddiqi, former senior fellow at the East-West Center who was born in India and received his undergraduate education in Pakistan, said Pakistan "has an important new role to play as a front-line state in the fight against terrorism."
Chances of success would be enhanced if the United States and its allies helped Pakistan modernize its educational system and accelerate economic development, he said. "This needs to be a longer-term commitment and one that will remain even after the current crisis is over."
Siddiqi, now president of GEE-21, a nonprofit group working on global environment and energy issues, described a 50-year history of U.S.-Pakistani economic, educational, military and political relations.
He said the Pakistani government is "walking a tightrope" now -- offering full cooperation to the United States to fight terrorism but facing divergent views in the country on how to do this.
He said Pakistan has always had a strong feeling of "community" with other Muslim countries, and there is little support for sending troops to fight against any of them.
Several groups oppose cooperation with the United States because of its continuing support of Israel, he said. Also, many Pakistanis feel the United States has often neglected their country although they are longtime allies, he said.
Pressured on all sides, the Pakistani government has begun discussions with political and religious representatives to build a broad consensus for action, Siddiqi said.
Gladney said a delicate balance is needed in largely Muslim countries between groups that want to push toward the Islamic rule of law and those who want a more democratic, pluralistic system and are afraid of backlash if they support the United States.
One of the major issues for Muslims affected by globalization, he said, is whether it equals westernization and Americanization. "It's a matter of cultural and religious survival," he said.
Pakistan is very unstable, he said, adding, "To some extent, even Taliban, if they cooperated with the U.S., probably would lose any sense of legitimacy they have." And they are still involved in civil war in the northeast, he said.
Gladney, who was on the Chinese border with Afghanistan last month doing research on China's relationship to Central Asia, said China would be worried about the fallout from a war in that region, such as refugee problems. "It has just begun to get a handle on the drug problem, with cooperation from the Taliban government."
The only source of real income if war were to break out would be drugs and international Muslim support, he said.
Afghanistan is surrounded by Muslim countries not sympathetic to Taliban, and "all are quite nervous about the Islamic state and radicalism they've supported," Gladney said.
However, he said, if something is done that is considered a threat to all Muslims, it might shift the balance of opinion.
Swamy said there was hope initially that the United States would support an alliance to overthrow the Taliban. The assassination of the resistance leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, by a suicide bomb before the terrorist attacks in the United States occurred "at the worst time for the rest of the world," Swamy said. "He was a charismatic leader holding together the movement."
Many countries would like to eliminate the Taliban, which has provided a training ground for militant groups from different parts of the world, Swamy said. But there are serious domestic pitfalls in supporting the United States against a Muslim country, he said.
There also is a mixed feeling about military action in those countries, and not just among Muslims, he said. "The real trick is, How do you keep collateral damage to a minimum?"
