While President Barack Obama gingerly navigates the minefields of Israeli security and the Arab spring, a potentially devastating crisis for American foreign policy and security is shaping up in Pakistan.
Even as I write this, a terrorist attack is reported underway in Pakistan against a major air force base and nearby naval base outside the southern city of Karachi. About 15-18 well-armed terrorists affiliated to al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban seem to have entered the bases. Early reports say several explosions have occurred and at least four people including a Chinese engineer have been killed as Pakistani soldiers stage gun battles to fend off the attackers. The main target of terrorists seems to be an aircraft on which some Americans were working.
The attack is revenge for Osama bin Laden’s elimination by US Navy Seals. The Taliban and al Qaeda do not believe the American incursion deep into Pakistani territory occurred without cooperation from the Pakistani military and intelligence services, despite loud denials.
However, the danger to American goals in the region does not emerge from such terrorist attacks. It comes from a clear tilt towards China by Pakistan, which has been a US military ally for half a century. This would not mean much had China not agreed to sell over 50 warplanes with advanced avionics to replace aircraft bought about 25 years ago from America.
This was announced during a visit to Beijing last week by the Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. A few days before the visit, Pakistan’s top generals and political leaders openly warned they would turn to China for succor if Washington continues to berate them for nurturing friendship with America’s enemies while absorbing over $20bln in US aid.
Obama will be caught in a double whammy if the Pakistan-China alliance grows while the current civilian government is eroded from the inside by terrorists and help to Washington for the global war on terror lapses.
The first signs are already visible and portend great troubles for India, America and other countries if Pakistan falls into Chinese hands or in those of Islamic fundamentalists. The Chinese arms sales to Islamabad and the warm atmosphere of Gilani’s visit to Beijing are ringing alarm bells in India. Having a Pakistan hostile to the US and India while covertly turning into a Chinese ally is a nightmare prospect. It means China would become the enabler allowing the Pakistani military to continue its obsession with India despite Obama’s exhortations that Delhi is a much lesser existential threat to Pakistan than Islamic radicalism.
The Chinese are cautious and will capture Pakistan gradually. But unlike the US, which is impatient and direct, China uses Confucian tactics of encircling and squeezing its opponents slowly but surely with minimal fuss or fanfare. Thus, the US may suddenly find itself squeezed out of the circle’s leadership, despite its heavy investments and dominance in the region for 60 years. A completely changed political situation is creeping upon it in South Asia responding to Beijing’s global ambitions.
Obama has stepped onto three patches of quicksand that could pull him under. He has stirred up the mother of all disputes with his insistence that Israel should seriously consider making peace with Palestinians along the 1967 borders with small adjustments. The Israeli Prime Minister seems determined to widen the fight with Obama by going over his head to the joint session of Congress later this week.
Obama has also jumped into the momentous street revolutions in several Arab countries with little more than moral support for democracy and human rights, judging from his Mideast policy speech last week. And his raid to get bin Laden has opened a Pandora’s Box in Pakistan’s tough civilian politics while humiliating its dangerously devious military rulers.
As a careful person, Obama must have thought through these three issues. But it is worth having another look.