I feel the historiography given in Imtiaz Gul’s article is a bit problematic.
FAISALABAD: This is in response to Imtiaz Gul’s article, “Facing tough questions” (December 22). I feel the historiography given is a bit problematic. Until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom Gul has tried to rope into the ‘strategic depth’ bandwagon, the issue was to keep pressure on Kabul which had, once again, insisted on drumming up the border issue with Pakistan. Thus, Islamabad provided support to some Afghan warlords who were culturally and religiously conservative. This did not naturally tantamount to creating the Taliban. I would suggest you read the paper “The Gulf Crisis 1990”, a product of the fantastic imagination of Generals Hameed Gul, Mirza Aslam Beg and, I believe, Agha Masood. The basic conclusion was that the US will attack Iraq and fail. This will create a huge strategic vacuum to be filled by the only Muslim nuclear state, Pakistan. The paper built on strategic defiance of the US and developing links with the Afghan who were to be looked upon as an additional infantry battalion of the Pakistan Army ( to be deployed against India or whoever threatened the country.) This was far more lethal and systematic than one imagined during ZA Bhutto’s days. The problem with a linear presentation of historical facts is that it is disconnected from an analysis of the overall environment.
Sarmad Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, December 23rd, 2010.
