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| Pak threatens US, meek Indian leadership surrendering | | Compromise on J&K -- I | | Rustam
JAMMU, Sept 25: On September 23, the United States turned heat on Pakistan's spy agency, the dreaded Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), and charged it with backing violence against the US targets in Afghanistan. In fact, Admiral Mike Mullen, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly termed the Haqqani militant network as a "veritable arm" of the ISI and accused Pakistan of providing support for the group's September 13 "brazen attack" on the US embassy in Kabul. "There has never been much doubt in Washington that the shadowy ISI plays a 'double game', supporting some militants to extend its influence in Afghanistan and counter India, while targeting others," he said. He pushed Pakistan into a tight corner and confronted Pakistan with a choice between "cleaning up" the powerful and unscrupulous agency and "facing the wrath" of superpower.
What was the reaction of Pakistan? Did it yield or did it assert its sovereign authority and challenged the mighty Americans? Islamabad didn't yield. It didn't kneel. Nor did it give any credence to what Mullen said. On the contrary, Pakistan asserted its sovereign authority and decided to take on the United States. According to reports, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said, "such pressures in relations with the international community could only be overcome through national unity and expressed the hope that all political parties would join hands to scuttle these" and that the "people, the armed forces and the government of Pakistan were on the same page on the issue". He also urged "joint action by all parties to meet the challenge".
As for Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, he reportedly said the "United States is an important country, but Pakistan wants to maintain relations with it on the basis of mutual respect as a sovereign country". He also said that "the US should refrain from sending wrong messages such as taking operational steps against the Haqqani network which are not acceptable to the people of Pakistan". "The sovereignty of the country cannot be compromised and it will be protected at all cost. The US should avoid threatening 180 million people of Pakistan because this will further deteriorate our mutual relations" and that "the US should realise that 'we need political space, particularly when Pakistan is not part of issue but part of solution. Both countries need each other and, therefore, should try to avoid sending threatening messages," he also said.
The Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik was no less candid, aggressive and assertive. Reacting to the US threat, Malik said, "Pakistan would not tolerate any incursion on its territory by the US forces targeting militant groups" and called for Washington to "provide the intelligence Islamabad needs to take them out itself". He also rejected out-of-hand the US allegations that "Pakistan's intelligence agency aids or has ties with the Taliban-allied Haqqani network". (Haqqani network is a powerful guerilla group that "straddles the mountainous border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.) "The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never. Our government is already cooperating with the US. ... but they also must respect our sovereignty," he told Reuters in an interview, insisting that "Islamabad wanted US intelligence, not troops, to root out insurgents inside Pakistan".
As expected, the newly-appointed Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Hina Rabbani Khar, was as aggressive as other Pakistani leaders. "You (US) will lose an ally (Pakistan)," Khar told a Pakistani television channel in New York. "You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan. You cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people. If you are choosing to do so, and if they are choosing to do so, it will be at their (the United States') own cost," she also roared.
Pakistani Army chief General Kiyani did not lag behind. He slammed the US allegations of White House and Pentagon leveled against Pakistan and the ISI. He said: "Admiral Mike Mullen statement after positive talks in Spain is deplorable; the allegations are baseless and nothing would come out by blaming Pakistan".
What does all this show? It shows that Pakistan, which is virtually on the brink of ruins and whose very existence has become quite untenable and which cannot survive even for a day without the financial help from foreign countries, especially the United States, has the necessary will and the courage to assert its sovereign authority and even to confront the Americans. It also shows that the entire Pakistani leadership as well as the Army, which actually plays the real shots and determine foreign policy of the country, are one as far as their belligerence towards the United States is concerned. And, it is not for the first time that Pakistan has asserted its sovereign authority and threatened that it would retaliate in case any foreign power dares to engineer an incursion on its soil. The sovereign states must act like Pakistan acted to establish that it is capable of defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity and defending and promoting further its geo-political interests in the region, including Afghanistan and India. That Pakistan has its evil eyes set on India and Afghanistan is not a secret. (To be continued) |
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