US-NATO Military Agenda: The Destabilization of Pakistan
Author’s note:
In an article published in December 2007, following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, I suggested that the US-NATO course for Pakistan consisted ”in fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan.”
Recent developments (including the aerial bombardments of Pakistani villages under the auspices of the “war on terrorism”) indelibly point to a broadening of the Afghan war theater, which now encompasses parts of Pakistan. The underlying tendency is towards an Afghan-Pakistani war.
Michel Chossudovsky, April 17, 2009
Excerpts of the December 2007 Article
Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan “in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan.” (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a “failed state” by 2015, “as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons”. (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005):
“Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi,” the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.
Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, “are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?” (Ibid)
Continuity, characterized by the dominant role of the Pakistani military and intelligence has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization. According to the NIC-CIA scenario, which Washington intends to carry out: “Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction,” (Ibid) .
This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.
The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
To read the complete December 2007 article, click here:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7705
Leave a Reply