All Things Iran

In the Daily Beast, Salman Rushdie lambasts Pakistan for knowingly harboring Bin Laden and other anti-western terrorists as well as anti-Indian jihadist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad.* He points out that Pakistan has been playing a double game for many years, largely because, “India, as always [is] Pakistan’s unhealthy obsession … Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India’s supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated.” All of this is true, if you interpret Pakistan’s actions as those of a monolithic government. But therein lies the rub. Unquestionably there are those in power in the Pakistan government who embrace and pursue just such an equation. But there are tidal opposing forces in Pakistan, and these hold sway throughout the government and the military and intelligence forces with much greater autonomy in Pakistan than do partisan allegiances in the United States. Put simply, we have friends there and we have foes. And it is because of the friends that the US should not give in to jingoistic calls for solutions like the ones Rushdie suggests, namely, “… declare [Pakistan] a terrorist state and expel it from the comity of nations.” This may sound cute and literary, as is Rushdie’s pointing out that Bin Laden died on “Walpurgisnacht, the night of black sabbaths and bonfires.” But this solution is naïve and much too pat. Rushdie doubtless compliments himself on his Machiavellian insights into Pakistan’s “double game;”  he would do better to apply those insights to the solution, not just the problem