The Pakistan establishment has been denounced angrily for not providing adequate protection to Bhutto and the case of faulty electronic jammers given to her security entourage is being highlighted. It is evident that in the run-up to the January 8 elections, the opposition rallies addressed by Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have been more vulnerable to well-planned and premeditated attacks while the parties seen to be closer to Musharraf have been safe from such violence. This pattern has added to the many doubts that are being raised about who benefits from Bhutto’s demise.

The possibility that there are many elements within the Pakistan security and intelligence establishment who are deeply anti-US and hence anti-Musharraf is very real. This was most palpable after the Lal Masjid military operation in July and in the intervening months the developments in Swat and Waziristan point to the growing influence of the right wing — of whom Baitullah Mehsud is only one exemplar. It is well recognised that post General Zia and the long-drawn-out Afghan War, the Pakistan military had internalised the doctrine of jihad; and this was theologically and politically legitimised as being part of a ‘just war’. With the end of the Soviet occupation that culminated with the demise of the Cold War, these deep socio-religious forces were sought to be exploited by the Pakistan military — first against arch enemy India — and later in gaining strategic depth in Afghanistan.

In the early nineties, India was bled through many wounds of terrorism and low-intensity conflicts, both in Punjab and J&K, even as the Taliban came to power in Kabul. Both initiatives, although tactically innovative, were strategic blunders. Recent history indicates this. India was able to contain the scourge of state-sponsored religious radicalism and terrorism while Afghanistan paid the price for the enormity of 9/11. In the post 9/11 years it was these very socio-religious forces — nurtured in Afghanistan (the Osama bin Laden/Al-Qaida brand name) — acquired their own strategic depth right through Pakistan from Islamabad to Karachi on the Arabian Sea. Paradoxically, it is the same Pakistan military that had once nurtured these extremists which it is now seeking to contain — with limited success. Thus what we now witness is the transformation of a deep Islamist orientation within the Pakistan establishment into one of indignant jihadi militancy among some of its members. The only change is, for the former USSR, read the much-hated USA and, ironically, the persona of Musharraf.

... contd.