I was eleven years old when he stopped me in the school playground, "Go home Paki! Go home to your pointless country!". Those were the words of the class bully in my Comprehensive. I'm glad to say it was a rare occurrence but, nonetheless, unsettling. Racism aside, I guess he had a point. In many ways, as far as Britain and the West were concerned, Pakistan was "pointless". How times have changed, but for all the wrong reasons.
The Australian Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, described the Afghan-Pak border region as the "the current international hotbed of terrorism" in a press conference with Condi Rice last week. This was an understatement. It's not just the border region, but increasingly Pakistan proper.
The stability of Pakistan is vital to our national interests. As we saw with the tragic events of 9/11 and 7/7 – what happens in Pakistan and its border regions has the most profound effects on our people and way of life. I would go as far as to say that the stability of Pakistan is THE most serious threat to our national security. If Pakistan turned into another Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, the consequences are too terrifying to contemplate.
Whilst NATO and its allies are having some success in crushing militants in southern Afghanistan, many are just being pushed across the porous border into Pakistan's largely lawless tribal areas. The Pakistan Federal government's remit has always been weak in the tribal areas (part of the constitutional settlement that led to the country's creation), but today it is at its weakest. Afghan and Arab militants are re-grouping in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the U.S. and NATO will not follow them, and where the Pakistan's own forces are too weak or unwilling to challenge them. This is no doubt giving the militants time to re-build and strengthen.
More worrying still, is Pakistan's growing internal militant problem – the Pakistan Taliban. Despite the efforts of President Musharraf in the aftermath of 9/11 to shut down some of the militant led madrasah's (religious schools), many have continued to grow and receive foreign funding. Witness the takeover by militants of the Red Mosque in Islamabad earlier this year, which only came to an end after a bloody army raid ordered by Musharraf.
The insistence of the UK and the US on elections earlier this year, has only weakened Pakistan. Musharraf was by no means perfect but, by historic Pakistan standards, he was the best leader the nation had had since the death of its founder. Under Musharraf, the average Pakistani saw a decent increase in living standards and blatant (but not all) corruption was routed out. Today, although Musharraf is still President (for now), you have a weak factious government that seems unable to take any major decisions. Since it was elected, the stock market has tanked by over 40%, annual inflation has risen to 25% and foreign reserves are reaching a record low. More worryingly, internal terrorist activity has rocketed and co-operation with the US and NATO has severely weakened.
The nightmare, but not at all impossible, scenario is a militant takeover of Pakistan. If this happens, the result is Iraq+Iran+Afghanistan, squared. Pakistan is the only nuclear armed Islamic state, with a reported arsenal of over 100 warheads and the long-range ballistic capability to deliver them. It has an army of over 600,000, the 7th largest in the world. There are more Pakistanis than there are Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans and North Korean's put together.
But it's not too late if we act fast. The UK, US and the West should consider a significant economic, military and intelligence assistance program for Pakistan. Although strong in spirit and energy, the militants and their hard-core sympathisers in Pakistan probably number no more than 10 percent of the population. The other 90 percent, especially those living in the large cities, are ordinary people that just want to get on with their lives. It's these people we need to appeal too. Given our historic ties to Pakistan, the UK should lead this program and should start right away. No one's pretending there is an easy solution, but politicians should stop shrugging their shoulders when confronted with the Pakistan problem, and wake up and smell the lassi.
By the way, that school bully – he's now in southern Afghanistan with British forces. Good on him.
