No Exit From Pakistan Read online

  polls in 2008 were relatively free and fair, the campaigns that preceded them

  were almost certainly coursing with ISI money. In one uncomfortable exchange

  during a May 2010 briefing with ISI officials in Islamabad, I asked how their

  organization had changed since the return of civilian-led government in Islam-

  abad. An eager mid-level analyst jumped in to say, “One big shift is that we

  shut down the political wing.” He might have expounded upon this issue but

  his boss, one of the ISI’s most senior officers, cut him off quickly, stating, “Of

  course, you must understand, there never was a political wing of the ISI.”72

  The former head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, later contra-

  dicted both of these statements when he testified before Pakistan’s Supreme

  Court in May 2012 and explained that the ISI’s political cell was still ope-

  rational.73

  For all its political scheming and activities throughout Pakistan’s neighbor-

  hood, the ISI has earned quite a bit of attention and even more notoriety.

  Pakistani journalists tend to write about the agency in euphemistic terms, cit-

  ing it as a driving force in the “establishment” or the “deep state.” It is easy

  to get the impression that the ISI controls practically everything that moves

  in Pakistan (or for that matter, in Afghanistan). The ISI is powerful, but that

  power also has limits. If Pakistan’s spies were as omnipresent and all-seeing as

  the rumors suggest, the agency probably would have done a much better job

  at securing the country, or at least at securing its own personnel. In combating

  70 Saeed Shah, “Pakistani High Court Challenges Spy Agency over Payments,” McClatchy Newspapers, March 9, 2012, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/09/v-print/141344/pakistani-high-court-challenges.html.

  71 “Reforming Pakistan’s Electoral System,” International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 203, March 30, 2011, p. 6, http://www.crisisgroup.org/˜/media/Files/asia/southasia/pakistan/203

  %20Reforming%20Pakistans%20Electoral%20System.ashx.

  72 Author’s conversation, Islamabad, May 2010.

  73 Nasir Iqbal, “SC Asks Govt to Provide ISI Political Cell Notification,” Dawn, May 17, 2012, http://dawn.com/2012/05/18/sc-asks-govt-to-provide-isi-political-cell-notification/.

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  The Four Faces of Pakistan

  49

  the Pakistani Taliban, the ISI is said to have lost some seventy officers by the

  end of 2009.74 One glance at the ISI’s fortress-like compound in Islamabad

  suggests that even its own leaders doubt its omnipotence.

  It is safe to conclude, however, that the ISI is one essential element in a larger

  military machine that remains far and away Pakistan’s single most powerful

  institution. It is possible that over time Pakistan’s civilian leaders will wrest

  power from the generals, or simply chip away at it, bit by bit. But as long as the

  military continues to hold a deciding influence, Pakistan’s foreign and defense

  policies are more likely to be defined by continuity than by change.

  terrorist incubator

  Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, bequeathed his new nation a noble

  motto: “unity, faith and discipline.” Jinnah’s three words may ring a bell with

  anyone who has traveled to Islamabad from the airport, since they are mounted

  on a hilltop – sort of like the Hollywood sign above Los Angeles – under a

  huge illuminated profile of Jinnah himself. So it is noteworthy that Pakistan’s

  army now fights under the Arabic banner: “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah,”

  or “Faith, Piety, Struggle in the way of Allah,” a pointedly Islamic formulation

  assumed in the late 1970s during the harsh military rule of General Zia-ul-

  Haq. A motto need not have grave significance, but in Pakistan’s case it lays

  bare a central question of national identity: What is the role of Islam in the

  state?

  Debates still rage in Pakistan over how Jinnah answered this question. Lib-

  erals argue that the nation’s founder sought to protect the rights of all Pak-

  istani citizens, regardless of religious creed. For instance, in 2011, Dawn, the English-language daily newspaper, ran a series of seven large advertisements

  proclaiming Jinnah’s progressive views on women’s and minority rights, good

  governance, and education.75 Dawn cited Jinnah’s speech of August 11, 1947,

  in which he told the Pakistani constituent assembly:

  You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques

  or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any

  religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. . . . Now I think . . . you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus

  and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that

  is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.76

  74 Anatol Lieven, “Understanding Pakistan’s Military,” OpenDemocracy.Net, August 9, 2010, http://www.opendemocracy.net/anatol-lieven/understanding-pakistan%E2%80%99s-military.

  75 See Dawn’s half-page description of this ad campaign on May 23, 2012, p. 4.

  76 “Mr. Jinnah’s Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, August 11, 1947,”

  Dawn, Independence Day Supplement, August 14, 1999, http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/

  legislation/constituent address 11aug1947.html.

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  50

  No Exit from Pakistan

  On the other hand, Pakistan’s Islamists point out that Jinnah founded the

  state in explicit opposition to the Hindu-dominated politics of India.77 Under

  those circumstances, how could Pakistan not grant the primacy of Islamic law and practice? Of greater import than Jinnah’s view is the fact that Pakistan

  has evolved over time. The nation’s politics, rhetoric, and practices are more

  self-consciously “Islamic” than they were in Jinnah’s day. The political and

  social consequences of this shift are by no means straightforward.

  Islam under Attack

  The topic of blasphemy – speaking or acting in ways that are believed to defame

  Islam – has stirred great passion in Pakistan. In May 2011, as I hopped out of

  the car to have a quick lunch with a Pakistani colleague at an upscale market in

  Islamabad, he turned to me and pointed to a spot just to our left: “That’s where

  Salman Taseer was shot dead.” And so it was. Taseer, the outspoken liberal

  governor of Punjab province, had been killed by one of his own bodyguards,

  Mumtaz Qadri, who after firing several rounds into the back of the man he was

  sworn to protect, dropped his weapon and surrendered. The assassin’s motive?

  Salman Taseer had dared to question Pakistan’s law against blasphemy, which

  was at the time being used to prosecute a Christian woman for her alleged use

  of the prophet’s name in vain.

  The Taseer murder troubled Pakistanis, but
for a range of reasons. Among

  the high-living liberal elites, who commonly employ drivers, cooks, maids, and

  security guards, it sent a chilling message that their families were not safe. The

  political, social, or religious sympathies of their hired help could make them

  dangerous. For other moderates and minorities, especially Pakistan’s Christians

  and Hindus, the killing was another reminder of the difficulties of living in an

  increasingly intolerant society.

  Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the entire episode, however, was that

  mainstream religious leaders sat silently or openly blamed Taseer, the victim,

  for having questioned Pakistan’s blasphemy law in the first place. This was true

  for leaders of Pakistan’s Barelvi school of Islam, one followed by a majority

  of Pakistan’s Sunni Muslims and widely viewed as more “moderate” in its

  teachings.78 The Sunni Ittehad Council, a conglomerate of Barelvi groups,

  went so far as to call on Pakistan’s president to pardon Taseer’s assassin and

  declared it would celebrate January 4 as Mumtaz Qadri day.79 Later, when

  77 For an excellent study of Pakistan’s largest Islamist political party, see Syed Vali Reza Nasr, The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

  78 Salman Siddiqui, “Hardline Stance: Religious Bloc Condones Murder,” Express Tribune, January 5, 2011, http://tribune.com.pk/story/99313/hardline-stance-religious-bloc-condones-murder/.

  79 “SIC Demands Ban on Renamed Terrorist Groups,” Express Tribune, December 15, 2011, http://tribune.com.pk/story/306716/barelvi-parties-conference-sic-demands-ban-on-renamed-terrorist-groups/.

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  The Four Faces of Pakistan

  51

  Qadri showed up in court, a group of lawyers assembled in solidarity and

  showered him with rose petals.80

  The blasphemy issue touches a special chord for millions of Pakistanis, many

  of whom believe that Islam is under attack and must be defended from abuses

  of all sorts. Hamid Gul, who served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989,

  is today one of Pakistan’s most vocal champions of this mind-set. Like other

  retired senior officers, Gul lives in a comfortable home granted to him as part of

  his retirement package. He is surrounded by family, including his son Abdullah,

  who is following in his father’s footsteps to launch a national youth movement

  with a revolutionary, anti-Western agenda.81

  Gul was removed from his ISI job when civilians retook power in Islamabad

  from the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq who died in a mysterious plane crash.

  After leaving his office, the spy chief never fully abandoned the Taliban or

  the other violent extremists he had done so much to nurture. He has admit-

  ted to membership in a group that tried to share nuclear information with

  al-Qaeda prior to 9/11.82 An unabashed critic of the United States, Gul called

  the 9/11 attacks “a bloody hoax” and “an inside job.”83 He claimed that Osama

  bin Laden “has sworn to me [Gul] on the Koran it was not him [responsible

  for the attacks] and he is truthful to a fault.”84

  What separates Gul from other garden-variety anti-Americans or Pakistani

  nationalists is that he sees Pakistan’s Muslim identity as its defining feature. As

  Gul explained in a 2004 interview, he has long been “a proponent of the idea

  that all the Muslim countries, which are an endangered species, they must get

  together and sign a defense pact. . . . Forty-five percent of the world area can

  be described as Muslim land. So we have tremendous potential. But we have

  to understand that we are different in the definition of a nation than the other

  nations of the world. And this is called pan-Islamism. And people are afraid,

  the West is afraid of this spirit of pan-Islamism.”85 To another interviewer,

  80 “Lawyers Shower Roses for Governor’s Killer,” Associated Press, January 5, 2011, http://www

  .dawn.com/2011/01/05/lawyers-shower-roses-for-governors-killer.html.

  81 Author interview, Rawalpindi, May 16, 2012.

  82 The group, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S.

  government. UTN’s nuclear plotting with al-Qaeda never appears to have gotten past a very preliminary discussion, but it did worry the U.S. intelligence community. For more, see Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011), p. 125; David E. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (New York: Crown, 2011), pp. 206–212.

  83 Candace Rondeaux, “Former Pakistani Intelligence Official Denies Aiding Group Tied to Mumbai Seige,” Washington Post, December 9, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

  content/article/2008/12/08/AR2008120803612.html.

  84 Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Arnaud de Borchgrave’s Exclusive September 2001 Interview with Hamid Gul,” Washington Times, July 28, 2010, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/

  jul/28/deborchgrave-sept-2001-interview-hameed-gul/?page=all#pagebreak.

  85 “Voices from the Whirlwind: Assessing Musharraf’s Predicament,” PBS Frontline, March 2004, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/28/deborchgrave-sept-2001-interview-hameed-gul/?page=all#pagebreak.

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  52

  No Exit from Pakistan

  Gul argued, “The world needs a post-modern state system. . . . A global village

  under divine order, or we will have global bloodshed until good triumphs over

  evil.” The Taliban in Afghanistan, he observed, represented “Islam in its purest

  form so far . . . they had perfect law and order with no formal police force, only

  traffic cops without sidearms.”86

  Armed with conspiracy theories and vitriol, Gul stands at Pakistan’s nexus

  of the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamist political parties, international terror-

  ists, and the nation’s most bloodthirsty sectarian outfits. In late 2011, they

  all joined forces to launch the Defence of Pakistan Council (Difa-e-Pakistan,

  or DPC). The group held rallies in each of Pakistan’s major cities and pub-

  lished a polished website to proclaim its commitment to “defending Pakistan,

  the only ideological nation carved in the name of Islam with our wealth and

  lives.”87 Pakistan should begin, Gul believes, with a “soft revolution” that

  would “return” the country to its roots in Muslim law and do away with the

  current multiparty political system.88 Gul and the DPC hope to trigger that

  revolution through nonviolent protests against the United States, to translate

  anti-American fervor into anti-government action.

  As one brave Pakistani commentator put it, “Far from this [Defence of

  Pakistan] Council defending Pakistan, Pakistan needs to be defended in right

  earnest from this cast of characters.”89 One of the biggest draws for DPC

  events was Hafiz Saeed, the leader and principal ideologue of Jamaat-ud-Dawa

  (JuD), the charitable arm of LeT. If there is any single terrorist organ
ization in

  Pakistan most likely to provoke an all-out war with India, it is LeT.90

  Second to Saeed was Maulana Sami ul Haq, whose ties to the Afghan Tal-

  iban are legendary. His madrassa, the Darul Uloom Haqqania, is based along

  the Afghan border and trained many of the region’s most notorious Taliban

  leaders. The patriarch of the Haqqani network that has so threatened the

  NATO mission in Afghanistan, commander Jalaluddin Haqqani derives his

  name from this seminary where he studied many decades ago. The media often

  calls the seminary the “university of jihad.” Over decades, it has indoctri-

  nated thousands of Pakistanis, Afghans, and – before it was made illegal –

  young men from all over the world in a violent, anti-Western view of the

  world.

  In the decade after 9/11, Pakistan’s Taliban brought insurgency, suicide ter-

  rorism, and a campaign of assassinations to Pakistani soil. The attacks exposed

  the vulnerabilities of Pakistan’s security forces, both along the Afghan border

  86 de Borchgrave, “Arnaud de Borchgrave’s Exclusive September 2001 Interview with Hamid Gul.”

  87 Difa-e-Pakistan Homepage, http://www.difaepakistan.com/vision.html.

  88 Author interview, May 16, 2012.

  89 Ejaz Haider, “Is This a Joke?” Express Tribune, February 14, 2012, http://tribune.com.pk/

  story/336328/is-this-a-joke/.

  90 For an extended discussion of LeT, see Chapter 3.

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  The Four Faces of Pakistan

  53

  and, at times, in the country’s biggest cities. That said, Pakistan’s Taliban insur-

  gents have had little success in taking their violent conquests much beyond the

  frontier with Afghanistan. Pakistani Taliban (TTP) atrocities and the fact that

  the group is overwhelmingly Pashtun makes it foreign and deeply unappealing

  to the vast majority of Pakistan’s people who hail from other ethnic groups.

  A June 2012 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that only

  17 percent of Pakistanis supported the Pakistani Taliban while 52 percent of