ANALYSIS
Ever since the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1972, the country never looked as fragile as it seems to be at present.
Ever since the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1972, the country never looked as fragile as it seems to be at present. The blasphemous video clip, ‘Innocence of Muslims’, created furore all over the Muslim world; and the latest publication of Prophet’s insulting caricatures by a little-known French weekly has added fuel to the raging fire. Yet the mob fury in Pakistan, in which scores of rioters lost their lives and property worth billions was torched, presented such a scary scenario as if Pakistan is about to implode anytime soon. The way the protesters tried to breach every security cordon as if they were not only desperate to tear down every brick of American property but even prepared to kill each and every American stationed in Pakistan, normally seems to be out of ordinary. In a country where only 7 percent of the population believes America to be “Pakistan’s best friend” and on the contrary 49 percent regards ‘the United States to be Pakistan’s biggest enemy’, the display of overwhelming negative sentiment against America last week hardly comes as a surprise. Obviously, the blasphemous video proved to be only a trigger for the expression of the deep-rooted hatred for America.
Ironically, the day Pakistan exploded in anger against America, foreign minister Hina Rabani Khar, on a visit to America to repair the badly damaged diplomatic relationship between the two countries, was seen addressing the media at US state department along with the secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Incidentally, Clinton “thanked the Government of Pakistan for their efforts to protect the US embassy and the consulates in Pakistan”.
The sentiment of gratitude is hardly enough to provide any semblance of normality in the asymmetrical relationship between a superpower and a client state. For that matter, any length of American economic aid or supply of military hardware will never be able to assuage the deep-lurking fears of Pakistan that America is contemplating to redraw the geography of this region.
Whether Pakistan is unduly paranoid of America due to its inability to overcome many of its profound internal contradictions needs a thorough evaluation. Still irrespective of Pakistan’s many internal contradictions, America’s continued military occupation of Afghanistan for more than a decade now has proved to be highly disastrous for this entire region. For that matter, every American intervention after 9/11, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya or elsewhere in any Muslim nation, is reason for more strife than stability: “The invasion of Afghanistan more than a decade ago not only didn’t destroy al-Qaida, it spread it into Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and north Africa, and today the flags of its offshoots are flying across the Arab world”.
Earlier it was being propagated that the killing of American ambassador to Libya, a popular figure with the rebel groups — who helped to forge rebellion against Qaddafi regime beginning from Benghazi itself where eventually but unfortunately the ambassador got killed — was the handiwork of a mob protesting the derogative film produced on Prophet Muhammad. However, what actually transpired was that the ambassador, J Christopher Stevens, was killed by the group affiliated with al-Qaeda, incidentally on September the 11, the 11th anniversary of the 9/11.
Pankaj Mishra, in his latest article for the New York Times, writes that “the violent protests provoked by the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ will soon subside, and American embassies will return to normal business. But the symbolic import of the violence, which included a Taliban assault on one of the most highly secured American bases in Afghanistan, is unmistakable”. Mishra seems to be referring to the attack on Camp Bastion in southern Helmand, “Six US fighter jets were destroyed and two significantly damaged when insurgents stormed a heavily fortified Afghan base where Britain’s Prince Harry is deployed”.
Meanwhile, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran, has warned that an Israeli strike on Iran could “degenerate into the World War III”. Moreover, Iranian military believes that “by no means... the Zionist regime would initiate a war [against Iran] without the US support”. In such an inflamed situation and particularly when the hardline ideologies have gained strength, an attack on Iran, with or without American complicity, will surely unleash an unprecedented chaos. Iran-Israel conflict will certainly lead to the revival of the state support to Taliban, al-Qaeda and all other Islamic militant causes.
The threat of ‘World War III’ might be a case of pure sabre-rattling, yet the unforeseen scale of destructions and emergence of many new conflicts is undeniable.
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