Early last year, I was discussing The Time Machine and its implications with a friend of mine, a retired officer from the Pakistan army. When I brought up the subject of Pakistan’s nuclear defences my friend did not wish to discuss the subject because of the sensitivity and after some shop talk we departed. The last thing he’d mentioned was “go and research Professor Chossudovsky”. We never met again because he passed away in January 2010 but his opinion that he’d whispered in my ears that Pakistan’s nuclear assets could serve as deterrents against the neo-con regime in Afghanistan interested me.
Recently, I began researching Professor Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economist, and came upon his very interesting 2-part publication titled “The Destabilization of Pakistan” (December 30, 2007 and January 8, 2008) which can be read on globalresearch.com Professor Chossudovsky underscored the following salient points:
• Pakistan’s extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Baluchistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory (sic).
• U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units” (William Arkin, Washington Post, December 2007) (sic).
• “Regime change” with a view to ensuring continuity under military rule is no longer the main thrust of US foreign policy. The regime of Pervez Musharraf cannot prevail. Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation (sic) (very interesting that the Professor wrote the article in December 2007 and Musharraf was removed in August 2008)
• It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of “economic mismanagement” as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization (sic). I’ll discuss this issue of “economic mismanagement” further.
• These various “terrorist” organizations were created as a result of CIA support. They are not the product of religion. The project to establish “a pan-Islamic Caliphate” is part of a carefully devised intelligence operation (sic). Religion has become a means to the end goal.
India is not the least interested in occupying Pakistan with a Muslim population of 170 million for to do so would mean that not only India’s Muslim population increase but also an unmageable ethnic mix. However Balkanization is intended for creating a free Baluchistan with vast natural resources and a coastline of 750 kms. The remaining coastline with Pakistan would be 250 kms. The warm waters have always been the great game objective.
Whether the political and the military establishments of India are aware or not, India’s role carved out by the US is critically important for Pakistan’s denuclearization. The time frame to achieve the goal seems somewhere between 2010 and 2012. The specifics and details of the US-NATO goal have been becoming evident over the past 10 years through political, economic and military manoeuvrings in the region.
The regime change in Pakistan in August 2008 was a strategy meant to put Pakistan’s economy in dire straits. Rumours were that Musharraf, stung by being outwitted by the US in September 2001, had been extracting stringent economic concessions from the US. US thus favoured removing Musharraf with a corrupt regime who would do its bidding. Since then Pakistan’s economy has been moving from bad to worse. Pakistan’s foreign debt has increased from $ 45 billion to $56 billion by mid-2010, an outrageous increase of 10% per annum. By January 2010, Pakistan’s annualized GDP growth had shrunk to a meagre inflation adjusted 2%.
India does comprehend very well that if Pakistan is balkanized and de-nuked, the power in Asia shifts in favour of India. Since China is a fast rising economic and military power, it is essential that the west develop India as an equal economic and military power to counter China. This balance between India and China cannot be maintained if Pakistan is to remains a N-power.
Economy plays a major role in wars. In Chossudovsky’s book “The Global Economic Crisis: The Great depression of the XXI Century”, Peter Dale Scott wrote America escaped from the depression of the 1890s with the Spanish-American War. It only escaped the Great Depression of the 1930s with the Second World War. There was even a recession in the late 1950s from which America only escaped with the Korean War. As we face the risk of major depression again, I believe we inevitably face the danger of a major war again. If this surmise is correct, the only two catalyzing factors would either be an aggravation of America’s war on terrorism or igniting the Korean peninsula. To the author, America has no intention of re-engaging in Southeast Asia.
The likeliest possibility of starting a major war exists in Pakistan’s FATA region involving US-NATO troops and India on the eastern border. Pakistan is already boxed in by having opted to be the front-line state for the war on terrorism in 2001. Its economy is in ruins, corruption among the leadership is rampant and outside of a divine intervention or the involvement of China or the threat of nuclear weapons, the US is set to balkanize Pakistan, at least in two parts. Though the success is doubtful due to various reasons and a heavily stretched military sphere of control, it does not preclude an attempt. If not a military subjugation of Pakistan, an economic debacle could well result in denuclearization terms being put on the table by US-NATO political and economic command. It is the author’s opinion that the US and NATO would be taking a risky gamble in the balkanization operation due to China which also has strategic interests in the region, both in Iran and Pakistan.
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