West Must Excise Cancer Of Terrorism In #pakistan Or Brace For Grand Strategic Failure

A very disturbing news is resurfacing that Pakistan's infamous military Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) is killing every Taliban leader who dares to reach out to the Western-backed government in Kabul. Worse still, the spy agency encourages those Afghan Taliban who cross the border and launch deadly attacks on NATO and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

It is an undeniable fact that most of the Taliban leaders are living in Pakistan under ISI protection. Why are Taliban leaders in Pakistan? Following the collapse of the Taliban regime in Kabul in 2001, the ISI managed to beguile the key Taliban leaders and their families to find shelter in Pakistan. This was part of Pakistan's strategy to have the Taliban leadership under its control in order to retain the greatest capacity to influence Afghan internal politics. The Taliban one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar is now virtually a prisoner to the ISI and has no ability to act on his own.

The former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Salam Zaeef who is living in Kabul said recently that there are about 2,500 Taliban in Pakistani sepulchral prisons across the country. They are kept for future use in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's drumbeat of claims that every peace effort in Afghanistan will doom to failure without Pakistan's participation self-evidently explains the ISI enormous leverage on the Taliban.

ISI has already begun relocating Haqqani network. The Pakistani military might launch a few mock operations in north Waziristan as decoys to ensure the flow of the American cashout. This is Pakistani opus operandi, as Stephen P. Cohen writes in The Idea of Pakistan, "Pakistan's officials like Pakistani beggars, become alert when they see Americans approaching."

Pakistan's history offers an easy answer for this country has traditionally been an American regional tool to promote its global imperial ambitions. Since its creation in 1947, Pakistani state has been an Anglo-American regional espionage cathedral and military cantonment. Thus, the war in Afghanistan may be a side show of the real drama of saving Pakistan.

Right from the day one of its birth, Pakistan has been a basket case and without the American money it would have been very hard to survive.

Facts of Pakistan's underhanded way of dealing with the Taliban fly in the face of President Obama's recent statement "We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan...We also need to excise the cancer in Pakistan."

Western success in Afghanistan hinges on how soon we can excise the cancer from Pakistan. If the West fails to clear Pakistani soil of these terrorist networks and its relevant cancerous ideology, we have to be bracing for a grand strategic failure. Many Western commentators believe that Pakistan's core demand is to make Afghanistan free of India. However, in truth Pakistan wants to perpetuate its control over Afghanistan. By controlling Afghanistan, Pakistan essentially wants to control the Pashtuns, who like Baluchis see the Pakistani military as an occupying force. Pakistan has nuclear weapons to hedge against India, but the demise of Islamic militancy, which will spark Pashtun nationalism, could bring a real doomsday to Pakistan. This is Pakistan's empty nest syndrome.