It's becoming ever more apparent that the Mumbai attacks originated in Pakistan. But what does that mean, ultimately? Did the Pakistani state aid and abet the creation and sustenance of the group or groups behind this attack? Almost certainly yes, through its ISI intelligence agency and its military. Here's Steve Coll writing in the New Yorker:
It is important, of course, to assume nothing about where the evidence trail in these latest Mumbai attacks will lead; in a forensic and legal sense, only the evidence matters, and there isn't much of it available yet. Still, even if it turns out that the attackers were all rooted in India, and derived all of their training and supplies from mainland Indian sources (unlikely, but conceivable), this does not absolve Pakistan of responsibility for a foreign and intelligence policy, pursued relentlessly for twenty years, that deliberately sponsors and nurtures terrorist groups. India's Hindu chauvinists have done their share to stoke Muslim rage within India; it is difficult to imagine, however, that without the proxy war conceived and supplied by Pakistan's Army that scenes such as those now unfolding in Mumbai would have otherwise occurred.
The question is, though, to what extent should one hold the recently-elected government in Islamabad responsible for the violence? It's a critically important question when deciding how to respond to the attack. It would be a mistake to assume that they're in full control of the ISI and the army -- which, you'll note, has essentially lost control of the tribal regions of the country. This morning on This Week, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, tried to portray Pakistan as a "victim" -- his word -- of Islamist terrorists also. Meaning, in part, that the jihadist attacks on India are helping undermine his government too, and Pakistani democracy.
That point is harder to refute considering Amb. Haqqani's credentials as an anti-Islamist Muslim. Just over a year ago, I appeared with him at a one-day Hudson Institute conference on the Muslim Brotherhood. Dr. Haqqani spoke about the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration of US Muslim institutions (download the transcript here). I blogged here about Husain's speech at the time. Here's an excerpt from that entry:
These decades of MB [Muslim Brotherhood] influence [on US Islam] had four basic results for the American Muslim community, in Husain's view:1. Today, most leading figures in the US Muslim community are either MB members or fellow travelers, because the MB had the money and the influence to make this happen. The Muslim community in this country as a whole is diverse, but its leadership is not.
2. Most mosques and Muslim organizations are controlled by the MB.
3. The broader Muslim agenda ended up being defined by the MB, which cast the religion as an intensely political ideology.
4. This ended up marginalizing traditional Islam in American society.
This had significant impacts on the US mainstream too. For one, the American news media and American academia find it more convenient to approach Islam through the paradigm defined by the MB. This reinforces the MB worldview as normative for Islam. Moderate Muslims do not control the organizations that claim to speak on behalf of the US Muslim community. For another, new American converts to Islam are likely to be formed by radical Islamism -- to take it as normative. And third, even critics of radical Islam assume that the MB's version of Islam is standard.Husain went on to say that with regard to learning how to deal with radical Islam, the US is at the same point it was early in the Cold War re: learning how to deal with the Soviets. We're making a lot of clumsy moves, coming from our lack of clarity about the nature of the threat, which prevents us from figuring out who our real allies are. He called on academics and the news media to have a fuller and more open discussion about Islamism than we're currently doing (N.B., I spoke later in the day to someone who was trained as an Arabist at an Ivy League school, who said they were forbidden to discuss Islamism on the grounds that it might offend Muslim students who were part of the program.)
This is the man who is now the representative of the new government of Pakistan to the United States. Would a government that wants to feed the fires of Islamism choose such a stalwart anti-Islamist to hold one of its most important diplomatic posts? It took courage for Husain to speak out as he did against the Islamists in America.
I'm not sure what the US should do regarding Pakistan going forward post-Mumbai. But I do believe we should not leap to conclusions about the role Islamabad played in this attack. To clarify, I don't think we should deny that the Pakistani government, broadly speaking (that is, to include the army and intelligence services) had some role in this, however removed; but I think we should be careful not to assume that those holding the levers of civilian power approved of this. The more frightening thing, the thing that is probably closer to the truth, is that they deplore it, but are essentially powerless to stop elements in the army and the ISI that do support the jihadists.
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Although we hear most about Islamist attacks on Western targets, the primary victims of Islamism are Muslims. Sometimes the attacks are big--car bombs. Sometimes, they involve acid attacks on women. Sometimes they involve sexual assault. Sometimes it's just the day-to-day fear the Islamists instill in people (especially Muslim girls and women) who don't tow their line.
All too often, governments are not powerful enough to deal with Islamists. And in 2003, the US toppled one of the few governments with the power to keep the Islamists more-or-less in check (Let's hope that works out).
Simply demanding the weak Pakistan government take control of the situation is silly and pointless.
Hmm... Yes, bribery/incompetence at the lowest level is definitely a problem.
But, honestly with the knowledge of nukes floating about - I think it is only a matter of time before terrorists gain access to one.
Anyhow, on a lighter note, I just realised that this article is far too liberal for a self-professed "conservative" to write about.
:)
Progressive Revival has an excellent post on the complicated issue of Pakistani-Indian relations, and specifically the Hindu-Muslim-Christian conflicts over the years.
blog.beliefnet.com/progressiverevival/2008/11/terrorist-attack-on-mumbai-and.html
Simplistic answers will not work in this instance, and anything less than a full understanding of the entire picture only risks further inflammation of the already tragic situation there.
Arriving at a way to deal with the on-going (since 1949) situation in Kashmir would also be a helpful way to ease tensions. The problem(s): Kashmir is India's blind spot when it comes to their position as a democracy; and Pakistan has no particular need to work toward anything but a maximalist solution, as it serves as a safety valve to redirect passion and anger that might otherwise be aimed at the ruling government.
26/11 was the day when we heard that our Metro City Mumbai attacked by the terrorists. Even nobody believes that why they attacked on TAJ HOTEL. I think we have to think that what are the reason behind all the attacks and eventually the term comes to our mind is “PAKISTAN”.
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