WASHINGTON, May 11: Two senior US scholars, one of whom headed a White House review team, have urged the Obama administration to engage Pakistanis to protect their nuclear weapons instead of taking a unilateral action.
“A jihadist state in Pakistan is neither imminent nor inevitable, it may not be likely, but it is a real possibility,” says Bruce Riedel, who heads the White House team for reviewing the US policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institution, argues that the possibility of a Taliban takeover leads American policy-makers to the inevitable question: “What could we do if Pakistan collapsed and the security of its roughly 100 nuclear weapons could no longer be vouched for?” The answer, says Mr O’Hanlon, “in most scenarios, is that we could only usefully do what the Pakistanis themselves might ask us to do. Unilateral American action would probably be too little, too late”.
Mr Riedel warns that a jihadist Pakistan would be a strategic nightmare for America, South Asia and the world.
According to him, a jihadist Pakistan would provide Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups with the ultimate sanctuary in the worlds’ second largest Muslim state, protected by nuclear weapons, with a global diplomatic presence and Pakistani diaspora that could be used to support terror.
A jihadist takeover would also make the Nato mission in Afghanistan increasingly untenable. It would be a direct threat to both India and Iran, encouraging both to expand and accelerate their own nuclear programmes.”
The Brookings Institution, which arranged this debate, notes that the military offensive in Swat caused American officials and former officials to discuss what the American response should be to the heightened conflict.
Mr Riedel, who has served three US presidents as an adviser, recalls that just before her murder in December 2007 former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said, “I now think Al Qaeda can be marching on Islamabad in two to four years.”
“Today her prophecy seems all too real,” says the US scholar who worked for the CIA for 29 years before joining the Brookings as a senior scholar.
He identifies the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other extremists as Al Qaeda’s allies in Pakistan, noting that they are becoming increasingly powerful.
“They are no longer confined to the tribal belt along the Afghan border but have built strong bases of support in the nation’s heartland, the Punjab, and in the major cities.”
He says that the mayor of Karachi told him recently the Taliban alliance are now threatening to take over his city, the country’s only major port and Nato’s logistical supply line for the war in Afghanistan.
“Thus it is critical that the United States do what it can now to strengthen the Pakistani moderate centre which is resisting the jihadist Frankenstein,” he argues.
“Congress should pass the Kerry-Lugar legislation that triples economic aid and the Pentagon’s proposals for increasing counter-insurgency assistance to Pakistan with a minimum of conditionality.”
He warns: “Trying to legislate changes in Pakistani behaviour is a recipe for disaster — as the history of US-Pakistan relations demonstrates — now is the time to support Pakistanis who are ready to resist extremism and jihadism.”
Mr O’Hanlon notes that some in America believe Pakistani nuclear weapons are stored in easily identified sites that could be attacked with air power or special forces, and can be destroyed, if necessary.
“Such an option might be worth considering if the alternative were to allow nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of extremists,” he argues. “But the timing and the logistics would be challenging.”
Discussing the US dilemma whether to attack or not to attack the weapons, he points out: “We would not want to bomb sites that remained in government hands, even if Pakistani forces seemed to be gradually losing control of the situation. Yet if we waited even an hour or two after the sites were seized, the weapons could already have been removed.”
Mr O’Hanlon notes that the flight time for American bombers operating from the military base Diego Garcia might be too long, even if the aircraft had been pre-deployed and authorised to strike the sites. There is also the danger that US weapons would not penetrate the hardened facilities, mostly likely underground.
“Moreover, there could be weapons in sites we don’t know about, since the Pakistanis don’t trust us entirely and the locations of all their weapons are unlikely to be fully known.”
Mr O’Hanlon points out that American officials believe at least “some weapons could be in transit at a given moment, especially if the Pakistanis came to believe that the security of their nuclear bunkers was in jeopardy”.
The best possible solution, he says, would be for Pakistan and its leaders to ask for help to create secure perimeters around nuclear sites.
If requested, the United States could do a lot. “Such a joint mission would also be a useful deterrent against possible Indian actions against such sites. I doubt things will get this bad, but if they do, let’s hope Islamabad has the good sense to request our collaboration on the ground,” he concludes.