Pakistan: The Conspiracy Theory
There had to be one, and note how this author neatly ties up all the conflicting elements in the current drama: internal opposition to Musharraf; the Balochistan rebellion; Afghanistan, America and the GWOT; China and Gwadar; India and Kashmir.
The essence of the article is that the current situation is all the result of an American plan to instigate regime change in Pakistan to advance its own interests. Of course much of the report is to be roundly dismissed. I particularly enjoyed this paragraph (I used to work at Jane's):
This was the perfect timing for the launch of Military, Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, a book authored by Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a columnist for a Pakistani English-language paper and a correspondent for ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly’, a private intelligence service founded by experts close to the British intelligence.
But the point is that the Pakistan situation is not clear-cut in that all Pakistanis favour democracy and Benazir Bhutto, as the Western powers would have us believe. There are still deep veins of paranoia at work, and it's these that enable the continuing dominance of the military and security forces.
“We have indications of Indian involvement with anti-state elements in Pakistan,” declared the spokesman of the Pakistan Foreign Office in a regular briefing in October. The statement was terse and direct and the spokesman, Ms. Tasnim Aslam, quickly moved on to other issues.
This is how a Pakistani official explained Ms. Aslam’s statement: “What she was really saying is this: We know what the Indians are doing. They’ve sold the Americans on the idea that [the Indians] are an authority on Pakistan and can be helpful in Afghanistan. The Americans have bought the idea and are in on the plan, giving the Indians a free hand in Afghanistan. What the Americans don’t know is that we, too, know the Indians very well. Better still, we know Afghanistan very well. You can’t beat us at our own game.”
Mr. Bugti’s armed rebellion coincided with the Gwadar project entering its final stages. No coincidence here. Mr. Bugti’s real job was to scare the Chinese away and scuttle Chinese President Hu Jintao’s planned visit to Gwadar a few months later to formally launch the port city.
Gwadar is the pinnacle of Sino-Pakistani strategic cooperation. It’s a modern port city that is supposed to link Central Asia, western China, and Pakistan with markets in Mideast and Africa. It’s supposed to have roads stretching all the way to China. It’s no coincidence either that China has also earmarked millions of dollars to renovate the Karakoram Highway linking northern Pakistan to western China.
