Washington ProFile Interview
Anatol Lieven, Senior Associate,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Washington Profile: What do you think about a possibility of an Islamic overthrow in Pakistan?

Anatol Lieven: I don't think Pakistan is near an Iranian style of Islamic revolution, yet. The Sunni parties, the radical parties in Pakistan, never gained more than 6 percent of the vote — and that's all three of them put together, and they're deeply divided among themselves. The really radical protests to date have been restricted really to the Pashtun areas, on the Northwest frontier province, Belujistan, where there are very strong ethnic links to the Pashtuns of Afghanistan. And the [Islamic] party now being orchestrated, the JUI — "Jemya ul Islamye" — is essentially a Pashtun-based force.

But the face of Pakistan is decided in Punjab. It always has been. Punjab has 63 percent of the population. It has more than 75 percent of the army and the senior bureaucracy in the officer corps. And Punjab today is pretty quiet. One reason it's being quiet is that Punjabis are fixated on India. Because, of course, their capital, Lahor, is within five miles of the Indian border, and a very large number of northern Punjabis are descended from refugees [who arrived] in 1947 [after the creation of India as an independent state]. Enough of them … have been convinced by [Pakistan's] Army that Pakistan's national interest dictates the avoidance of an American-India alliance against Pakistan, which would be a mortal threat to the country.

Secondly, [Pakistani President Gen. Pervez] Musharraf has been able to convince [the Punjabis] of at least the prospect of greatly increased economic aid. As long as the Army remains solid, the protests can be, not suppressed, but kept within bounds… . That doesn't mean that the Pakistani government can stop volunteers crossing into Afghanistan; it can't, that border is far too porous. The tribal areas have never been under full control of the Pakistani state, they were never under full control of the British state, so there's no use hoping that this border can be completely closed. But Pakistan is not in danger of overthrow.

WP: What about in the long term?

AL: [I]f these protests spread, if the economic situation deteriorates — as it probably will, given the war and the fact we are in a global recession — and if Western economic aid is not enough to compensate, then I think it's quite possible that, in the course of the next year, the senior generals will go to Musharraf collectively and say, "General, you've done your best, but, I'm sorry, for the sake of the Army, you have to take the fall. You have to be the scapegoat." Musharraf is a very collective kind of guy. He's a very loyal officer, he's an institutional man. If that is the collective will of the Army, I think he will step down. And the Army will then try to seek an accommodation with the moderate Islamists, and it will cut back on its support for America and its campaign. It might well, for example, take an Iranian position [regarding the U.S. fight against terrorism], which is basically supportive but doesn't allow U.S. bases or over-flights, but does allow search and rescue missions.

Now, if we were sensible, we wouldn't actually regard that either as a catastrophe or as a really mortal threat. That doesn't amount to an Islamic revolution. Of course, however, if such a situation led to a radical reduction in U.S. aid, and if the economy went on disintegrating, and if India and Pakistan become involved in a new war over Kashmir, then, in the longer run, all this could lead to some form of Islamic revolution, or the collapse of the county into internal chaos followed by seizure of power by the Islamists. But we're a pretty long way away from that at the present.

WP: Is it possible that the Taliban or Osama bin Laden could gain control of the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan?

AL: No, not at the moment. [Pakistan's nuclear arsenal] is a military deterrent against India. It's under the pretty good control of the Pakistani armed forces, it's too important not to be. And look, the commander of the Pakistani armed forces, Musharraf, has a brother and a son in the United States. Several of the officers I talked to had children studying in the United States. These are good Muslims. They have grave criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, policy toward Israel, etc., but they are nonetheless part of the world establishment. These people are not Osama bin Ladens, they are not fanatics who wish to see their country destroyed for the sake of some international jihad.

However, of course, further down the line, if they get rid of Musharraf, and if this leads to divisions within the Army, and if the country gradually spirals down to chaos, then, at some point in the future, one could face this risk. Less, I think, of actual nuclear missiles or even warheads finding their way into the hands of the terrorists, because these are identifiable obviously, even a warhead would have a signature on it, which would be catastrophic for the country. What I would be much more afraid of would be nuclear materials, and above all, expertise finding its way into the hands of the terrorists. The sympathies of some of Pakistan's nuclear scientists … is worrying for the future. It's another reason why we've got to keep the Pakistani Army more or less on our side. We also mustn't overreact if the Pakastani Army feels it has to take a couple of steps back from this Afghan operation. If they do that, I can well imagine India will be, possibly Russia as well, using its influence and extremist elements in the U.S. establishment calling for various means of retaliation against Pakistan. [For example,] the possibility — which Seymour Hersch revealed in The New Yorker — of Special Forces raids on the Pakistani nuclear deterrent. That, in my opinion, would be a catastrophically dangerous move. Our best hope in that part of the world is a strong, united Pakistan Army which controls its own nuclear forces, and which basically holds the country together with some kind of pragmatic course. However, it's got to be a course that leads to Pakistani interests. No use asking Pakastini soldiers to shoot down their fellow countrymen in the name of purely U.S. interests.

WP: Let's talk about opposition to Taliban among Pashtuns. In your opinion, how good is the chance for people like Abdul Haq, who was recently executed in Afghanistan, or Kursai to build a serious opposition movement against the Taliban?

AL: Well, Abdul Haq and Kursai had to run away in an American helicopter. So, the answer is, obviously, not very. For various reasons. Look, on Sept. 10, I don't think any expert in the West would have attached any serious importance to any of these people, starting with the King. After all, they've all been defeated and thrown out. They collapsed in the face of the Taliban. I mean, the Northern Alliance, at least as of Sept. 11, was still fighting admittedly in fairly small corners of Afghanistan, but they were still fighting. Pashtun anti-Taliban resistance just disappeared, crushed, driven into exile. And the Taliban had succeeded, to a great extent, in mobilizing the Pashtun people on their side. Now, unfortunately, that has been strengthened still further by the U.S. bombing campaign, with everybody, including Abdul Haq and Musharraf, saying that the bombing was making it more difficult to rally support against the Taliban. And that's sad, of course.

The [United States] is going to be spending a lot of money trying to win over tribal elders, warlords, etc., but there are two [problems]:

One, this is a country that is being pulverized by 20 years of war. The old tribal structures are not nearly as powerful as they used to be. That's another reason why the Taliban has succeeded.

[Two], both the Soviet experience in Afghanistan and the British experience in Afghanistan [is disheartening]. For 100 years, we fought the Pashtuns. That 100 years in Afghanistan, in the tribal areas of Pakistan, suggests that the idea that you can simply bribe a Pashtun is greatly exaggerated. In some ways, it's a piece of patronizing Western and Russian arrogance. If they're so bloody easily bribable, why did they fight for 10 years against the Soviets and 100 years against the British? The fact of the matter is that it is actually quite difficult today, in terms of Pashtun pride, Pashtun self image. [I]t's very difficult to be seen to be appearing and acting as a stooge of the infidel Americans. What however, you can get a lot of people to do — and this is mostly what was the Soviets and British were doing — is not getting people actually to join your side, it's getting them to be neutral. To sit on their mountains, to sit on one side and do nothing. At best, perhaps your tribal chieftain or your local leader will send one of his sons to fight the Taliban, one of his sons and some local volunteers. But the whole tribe will actually sit there and not do very much. That, in my view, is probably the most we can hope for. And the problem is that it's not enough.

WP: So, what do we do?

AL: If we're going to overthrow the Taliban in their home areas, we have to have actual Pashtun forces, either from outside, from Pakistan, or from within the country or within the Taliban itself. Because otherwise, in the long run, we're faced with an appalling choice of either using the Northern Alliance to try to conquer the Pashtun areas, which in my view is a non-starter, or of using an army of our own, and I mean an army, not Special Forces. Some 300,000 men would be necessary.

Now, it may not be quite as hopeless as all that sounds, because if we can actually locate and destroy the top Taliban leadership, or even a large part of them ? this is a flat pyramid with a very small top, and the top Taliban leadership, the core, began as a posse, as a vigilante group back in 1994, so these people are very loyal to each other and you're not going to split them — then, as Dr. Haq said to me, "if they're not tied, then the commanders below may well start fighting among themselves," and it will be much easier to attract some of them to our side.

Then, as he said, you may get the situation where every Taliban soldier just picks up his Kalshnikov and his blanket and goes home. Of course, the Arabs have no choice but to fight to their death. Quite a lot of the time, the Taliban soldiers, too, as they'll have no life ahead of them but refugee camps. They will fight to their deaths, and that's a battle. But, that's the best hope for destroying the Taliban, to knock out their top leadership. Will we be able to do this? Quite probably. Ultimately, [this can be done] with the intelligence we can bring to bear, the technical intelligence, and a lot of money, and human intelligence on the ground. But I doubt that we'll succeed in doing this in the course of a few months.

While the Pashtuns obviously don't like the West, don't like America and what America is doing, at the same time a great many Pashtuns, even ones who support the Taliban, are very angry with the Arabs in al Qaeda. They have never liked these aliens in their country. Now, of course, these aliens have brought a new disaster to Afghanistan through their activity. So, I think from the intelligence point of view, there are quite hopeful possibilities of Afghans betraying al Qaeda, betraying bin Laden, informing on bin Laden to the West, and that that will help us to get bin Laden's top lieutenants. Frankly, I hope that if we could do that, kill or capture them, then we could reconsider the whole anti-Taliban campaign. … This war is about al Qaeda and, hopefully, driving the Taliban out of the minority areas where it has no business to be at all. But if we can get rid of al Qaeda, the idea of continuing this war, to storm Kandahar in hopes of getting rid of the Taliban, would be, in my view, absurd.

WP: So, can we say that the United States is following the strategy you are describing?

AL: Well, when they started, [the Americans] expected the Taliban to be like [Serbian leader Slobodan] Milosevic, just to crumble immediately under bombing. That wasn't a strategy; that was a fantasy based on a complete exaggeration of the impact of manpower, and a complete misinterpretation of the Pashtun character. Now, yes, they have a more sensible strategy, based partly on trying to destroy the Taliban forces in the field with the help of the Northern Alliance in Northern Afghanistan. And yes, going after the Taliban leadership in al Qaeda.

There are one or two problems. One is if the Taliban are sensible, they won't allow their forces to be destroyed in battles for Mazar-e Sharif and Herat. They'll pull back to the Pashtun areas, thereby facing us with the same dilemma: how do we invade the Pashtun areas? Secondly, the Taliban leadership is not sitting out in some village or military base sort of waving their hats and saying, 'Here we are, come and get us.' They are not, as was entirely predictable despite the expressions of surprise from the U.S. military leadership. And, of course, they have based themselves in the middle of towns, surrounded by the population, close to sensitive targets like mosques and hospitals. Which means that if we do go in and get them, well, two things: one, of course, is that they know these cities a hell of a lot better than we do ? they'll basically try to scoot out, as happened again and again in Mogadishu, [and exact casualties] exactly as happened in Mogadishu; [two], we could end up killing lots of civilians in the process, which, in the context of the wider views of the world, would be dangerous.

Nothing there is simple. … It would have been much better if we would have spent six months, say, spending a lot of money and a lot of political preparation for this war before actually beginning the military campaign.

WP: What sorts of parallels do you see between the conflict in Afghanistan and the conflict in Chechnya?

AL: One thing in common, of course, is the presence of these international mujahidin, mostly Arab: Osama and al Qaeda in Afghanistan; Khattab and his organization in Chechnya. This is the symmetry the Americans always deny, but it's true. Similarly, for the sake of the objective of both campaigns, but also for the sake of a settlement in the area is concerned, these groups have to be destroyed or driven out. But driven out where? Where can they go? Essentially, they have to be neutralized or annihilated.

Secondly, there's a risk from the problem of terrain in both countries. [T]he biggest problem is not the mountains [in Afghanistan], the biggest problem is the cities. This is because the higher the casualties, the worse the impact on world public opinion. This is a difficult military dilemma. For the Russians, this was evident by the battles in Grozny. In the case of Afghanistan, it will be the battles of Kabul and Kandahar if we come to that.

Although, obviously, hunting the Taliban and al Qaeda up in the mountains would be very difficult, it will be very straightforward. … The thing is, in the mountains, you don't have the international media watching you, you can destroy the leaders if you have to, and it's much easier. But fighting it out in the cities, just as with the Chechens and ruins of Grozny, is a horrible business. If the Taliban and al Qaeda decide to die to the last man in the ruins of Kandahar, it could be very bad.

WP: In your opinion, can we ultimately defeat terrorism?

AL: I don't think there is any final victory here.

Over time, we stand a good chance of killing or capturing bin Laden himself, and some of his top lieutenants. But he has a 'B' team, a 'C' team and a 'D' team. I mean, there will be people to take over, not just in Afghanistan, but elsewhere.

As far as the wider war against terrorism, where the world is concerned, this is sloppy use of language. Terrorism is not an ideology. Terrorism is not a political movement. Terrorism is just a weapon. There were terrorist movements backed by a lot of Americans in past, the Zionists, the IRA. Terrorism is used in one form or another by everybody — from the Tamils, the Irish and the Basques, to people in Latin America. It's just a weapon. Some terrorists use airplanes, some use cars and trucks. In that sense, we can never win.

The struggle against Muslim terrorism without a radical change of American policy towards Israel — which looks, at the moment, still pretty unlikely — [is probably unwinnable.] Even though the ultimate roots of terrorism go beyond Israel, in order to reduce its support among the Muslim population we need much greater support from the Muslim states, which is something they will give only if we change our Israeli policy. I don't think we're going to do that.

Dr. Nikolai V. Zlobin Editor-in-Chief, Washington ProFile nzlobin@washprofile.org

View Standard Version

BACK TO THE TOP    TERRORISM PROJECT HOME    LINKS    CDI HOME