President Gen Pervez Musharraf has decided to side with the Taliban against the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai because he believes the latter will collapse with waning US influence in coming years, according to noted columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave.De Borchgrave writes in the World Peace Herald: “For President Pervez Musharraf, America is a force for good. But most Pakistanis now see the Bush administration as evil. As much as Musharraf wanted to help President George W Bush wipe out the Taliban after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, he now concludes these young Muslim fanatics are the lesser of two evils next to the drug-fuelled corruption of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s inept ‘democratic’ government.”
De Borchgrave bases his views on a briefing by a Pakistani insider to the US intelligence community in March. “As much as he [Musharraf] wanted US victory in Iraq, he has long since concluded the United States has lost the hand to Iran. To recoup America’s loss before he leaves the White House in January 2009, Musharraf believes Bush will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities from air and sea. And this, in turn, will unite Sunnis and Shiites in Pakistan against all things American - and provoke a gigantic upheaval throughout the Middle East. With the whole world turning against Israel and the United States, he could not afford to continue his policy of ‘constructive ambiguity’ toward the Bush administration,” he writes.
Apart from the signs on war with Iran, Pakistani intelligence reports to Gen Musharraf that in Afghanistan, “NATO is losing ground to a resurgent and rejuvenated Taliban. ISI’s conclusion: the NATO consensus on Afghanistan will not long survive a US defeat in Iraq and/or US hostilities against Iran,” says the report.
De Borchgrave writes, “Musharraf’s various agreements with tribal elders and chiefs in FATA territories since last September were … designed, not to hamper the Taliban guerrillas’ movement across the Afghan border as advertised, but to encourage the tribes to kick out” foreign militants.
The “piece de resistance in Musharraf’s bipolar thinking”, he says, was the green light he gave Pakistani intelligence “to resume aiding a reconstituted Taliban in its campaign to oust President Karzai, a man he despises, a sentiment wholeheartedly reciprocated by the Afghan leader”.
De Borchgrave writes: “Musharraf has convinced himself that unless he could obtain another five years in power ... Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would be at risk of falling under the control of Islamist extremists. When Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry declined Musharraf’s request for a ‘five-year validation extension’, the president fired him…”
“While the Bush administration now has the benefit of Musharraf’s private thinking, as well as some of his still secret decisions about the Taliban, it has to pretend that nothing has changed ... President Bush is dealing with a Pakistani leader in deep denial about what he’s actually doing one day, and then explaining the next day to a visiting US official a ukase against Islamist extremists that was never issued.”