Pakistan has had plenty of genuine conspiracies. The assassinations of Liaquat Ali Khan, Gen Zia and Benazir Bhutto were all planned and plotted — and yet no one was brought to justice. Hidden hands have influenced elections and jihadis have been given secret funds. In such cases conspiracy theories seem entirely appropriate. Even so, there is a national tendency to explain just about any event by way of a conspiracy theory. With the dreary, and more often than not, unenlightening phrase ‘who benefits?’, people claim to be able to see the schemes behind the most mundane happenings.

Owen Bennett-Jones

But something new is happening in the world of conspiracy theories. They are becoming increasingly common in the West. True, there were always some Westerners willing to blame everything on communists or Catholics but for the most part they remained on the fringe.

Take, as a benchmark, the 9/11 attacks in New York. Many Pakistanis still believe, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that the attacks were a Jewish plot. It is a claim that flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence about who actually organised the attack and should not be given even momentary consideration. Yet millions believe it.

There’s something new in the world of conspiracy theories.

In the West too there were conspiracy theories concerning 9/11: by using misleading versions of contemporaneous reporting and spurious claims about pictures of what happened, a few fringe anti-establishment activists tried to claim that the CIA did it. Very few believe that.

Back in 2001 many would have explained the Westerners’ greater willingness to reject outlandish claims by reference to higher education levels. Because Western education puts greater emphasis on critical thinking, the argument went, people were in a better position to make up their own minds of the basis of evidence.

Today, the American president constantly tweets about so-called fake news. And many believe him. One of the many things President Trump has brought to politics is the insight that if you control the information bubbles in which people live, some people will believe just about anything. It’s partly about trust. With good reason, many Pakistanis have for many years had next to no trust in their political and legal institutions, not to mention their corrupt leaders.

But trust is now breaking down in the West too. When some judges in the UK handed down a verdict on Brexit that was not to the liking of those who want to leave the EU, they were denounced by one of the best-selling British newspapers as ‘enemies of the people’ with hidden pro-European agendas. Meanwhile, politicians are widely viewed as self-serving and dishonest; journalists are dismissed as biased and even doctors — who once enjoyed very high levels of trust — are suspected of making decisions based not on the best interests of their patients but rather on the inducements they receive from drugs companies.

As a sceptical journalist I have always thought that the public was too ready to believe the bland assurances of politicians that the world was a series of cock-ups rather than conspiracies. To take the most glaring of all examples, it is really not controversial to say that companies and individuals do not give money to political parties out of any sense of altruism as they claim but so as to curry favour with those in power.

But a reasoned, evidence-based scepticism about how the world works now seems somewhat archaic. Because today communities of activists loyal to their particular political tribe gorge themselves on the unending nonsense that turns up on their Twitter and Facebook feeds.

Many thought social media would be a democratising force that would challenge dictatorships. Instead, master manipulators have learnt how to use the new platforms to drive people deeper into ideological camps. The process has gone so far in the US that studies have shown significant problems in families when a Republican Party supporter marries into a Democratic Party family and vice versa. The new tribalism has enabled the most crackpot theories to be repeated ad nauseam until significant numbers of people believe them. The much-maligned mainstream media used to be believed by most people for good reason. For all its inaccuracies and failings, mainstream media outlets were — and still are — committed to trying to report on the world as it actually is.

So it is now the age of the conspiracy theories not just in Pakistan but in the West too. As public trust recedes and mutual suspicion increases, fantasists have an ever-greater chance to use social media to publish their ideas and ever greater numbers of like-minded people believe them.

The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Western countries Britain amongst them have a tendency to tell Pakistan what to do. For years the cry was `do more! against the Taliban. And when Pakistan did eventually do more, there came `more still! It sometimes seems as if the West has a view on each and every area of Pakistani life. `Close down radical madressahs! `Dismantle the hawala system!` `Build more schools!` `Introduce family planning! `Chuck the Afghan Taliban leadership out of Quetta!` And so on. Many of these ideas have merit. But what would happen if Pakistan responded in kind. What would it tell the British to do? For many Pakistanis, the most pressing demand would be for British action on the MQM. For years now, they complain, the MQM leader Altaf Hussain, secure in his London home, has yelled threats down the phone line to rallies and other events in Karachi.After decadesof Britishinactivity, the rising number of complaints from Pakistanis, many of whom directly contacted Scotland Yard, has resulted in a longrunning hate speech investigation as well as another into possible incitement to violence.

Owen Bennet-Jones

But the MQM is just one of many issues.

There are other people making threatening speeches from the UK. Last year, Tanveer Ahmed was jailed for at least 27 years for the murder of Glasgow-based Ahmadi shopkeeper Asad Shah. Despite his incarceration, Tanveer has sent a series of audio messages from his cell in Barlinnie prison in Scotland, some of which have been distributed byclericsin Lahore.

In one message, Tanveer Ahmed told cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi that people should eliminate all the enemies of Islam.

He also spoke in defence of Salmaan Taseer`s assassin, Mumtaz Qadri. `Anyone who disregards the respect and honour of Ghazi Mumtaz Qadri he is the one who announced his enmity with Islam openly,` Tanveer was heard saying. `Whoever calls the martyr an assassin, he is vicious, unclean and f alse.

And then, some Pakistanis grumble, there are the schools in Britain that teach extremist or, more often, isolationist ideas to their pupils. Although there has been a shif t in of ficial attitudes in the UK in recent months, some schools are still teaching children that it is best not to become too friendly with Christians.

To take a specific example, one school in Nottingham has a history of isolating children from mainstream British life and of enforcing strict rules such as no make-up, no radios, no music with instruments, no mobile phones, no newspapers and no TV. EvenHarry Potter being devoured by other children in the UK was banned. Even though the British authorities have now started taking measures against the school, for the moment, it is still functioning.

Next up: British visa policy. Even as middle-class Pakistani students wanting to study at leading British universities find their visas subject to long delays and in some cases rejection, many Pakistanis, including senior officials, complain that hard-line clerics from extremist madressahs seem to have no such problems.

In December last year, to take just one of many examples, Syed Muzaf f ar Shah Qadri.

described by the Pakistani authorities as `prejudicial to public safety and maintenance of public order` and banned from preaching in Pakistan, was allowed into the UK to speak at a number of English mosques.

There are also cases of the British state rewarding hard-line members of the antiAhmadi Khatm-i-Nabuwat. In 2009, ToahaQureshi a trustee of Stockwell Mosque in London was given an MBE Member of the British Empire for services to community relations. Yet leaflets found in Stockwell mosque last year called for Ahmadis to be killed.

It is not just in matters of religion thatthe UK is perceived by some to play an unhelpfulroleinPakistan.Indeed,London`s most effective way of undermining good governance in Pakistan is, in the view of many Pakistanis, the way it accepts the illgotten gains of businessman and politicians who want to park their money in a place where it will be safe and sound and beyond the reach of Pakistani law.

There is a saying the Bible. `First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother`s eye.` It is perhaps a little unf air to quote that in this context many Pakistanis, af ter all, might now agree that the West was right to urge Pakistan to confront the TTP. Some other pieces of Western advice might also serve Pakistan`s long-term interests. But perhaps a little more willingness to acknowledge the West`s own specks would help reassure those in Pakistan who wonder if the UK and others really practise what they preach.• The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Here — in alphabetical order — are six countries that have considerable involvement in Pakistan: Afghanistan, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.

Let us consider each country in turn.

Since 1947, an element of Indian society has believed Pakistan should not exist. In 1971 India made a big contribution to the loss of the then East Pakistan. India shells Pakistan positions in Siachen and occupies disputed territory in Kashmir. There is good reason to believe India’s RAW has over the years organised bomb attacks in Pakistan. According to numerous interrogations of MQM suspects who spoke with the confidence that comes with impunity, India has trained MQM fighters. Many believe it has also put money into the Baloch insurgency.

Pakistan can hardly consider itself to be the sole victim in all of this. Pakistan shells Indian positions in Siachen and also holds disputed Kashmiri territory. There is good reason to believe the ISI has planted bombs in India and a group with close links to Pakistan’s security establishment, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, has mounted attacks in India, including that on Mumbai.

But the point here is not to argue about which side is justified — it is rather to assess the level of threat India poses to Pakistan compared to the five other countries on the list.

Assess the number of Pakistanis whose deaths can be traced back to the countries on the list.

So, what of the United States? Looking back, the US helped the ISI create and train ‘jihadi’ forces that now threaten Pakistan. More recently Washington has directly attacked Pakistan. There have been hundreds of drone strikes. But some of these drone strikes were requested by Pakistan which, for many years, even provided an air base to facilitate the American activity.

It is also worth noting that since 9/11 the US has given over $25 billion to Pakistan. Most of it has gone to the army.

Next up, Afghanistan. It acts as a safe haven for fighters who want to attack targets in Pakistan (just as Pakistan has provided a safe haven for fighters who want to attack targets in Afghanistan). But the main threat posed by Afghanistan is long term. Successive Afghan governments have rejected the validity of the Durand Line but have been too weak to advance their claim. Should a strong Pakhtun-led government ever be established in Kabul, Pakistan should expect a challenge to its territorial integrity.

During the 1980s, the Saudis matched US spending on creating anti-Soviet ‘jihadis’. And Pakistan still suffers from the political dispensation under which the House of Saud enjoys clerics’ support so long as they are free to export their brand of Islam. It is widely accepted that Saudi Arabia has poured vast sums of money into Pakistani madressahs that have produced some of the fighters who have killed tens of thousands of people. Riyadh’s reluctance to accept Shia officers amongst the ranks of Pakistani army personnel deployed to Saudi Arabia undermines the tradition of harmonious inter-communal relations within the Pakistan army. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has for years provided Pakistan with cheap oil.

You could argue that neither the UK nor the UAE are powerful enough to merit inclusion on the list. Yet, both have played quite important, negative and enabling roles by providing a place of exile for corrupt politicians and coup leaders. The UK also provides a safe haven for the political

leadership of MQM, despite knowing that the organisation is involved in considerable levels of violence in Karachi. On the other hand the UK is spending quite considerable sums on education, especially in Punjab.

So is the military officer’s ranking of the relative threat posed by these countries correct? It is a difficult assessment. Should US aid and Saudi oil, for example, offset some of the harmful actions by those two countries? And are long-term threats more or less important than short-term ones?

One way of looking at it is to try to assess the number of Pakistanis whose violent deaths can be traced back to the countries on the list. One might compare, for example, the number of people being killed by US drones (bearing in mind that Pakistan facilitated most of them) with the numbers being killed by Saudi-funded Afghanistan-based militants. It is complicated because some of the sources of violence overlap in not very holy alliances. Still, a consideration of who the Pakistani victims might reasonably blame could result in the following ranking of threats: Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the US, India, the UK and the UAE.

The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.
Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

For many Americans and Brits the 2003 Iraq war is seen as not only a disaster for Iraq and its neighbours but also as a defeat of the US and UK forces. The recently published Chilcot inquiry lends its considerable weight to this view. It went so far as to describe the circumstances in which the British pulled out of Basra, after negotiating a deal with a local militia there, as “humiliating”.

The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.

Top Secret Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) documents declassified by Chilcot show just how little idea the British had that this would be the outcome. As is now well established, the British intelligence community’s first and most important error was to state that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. In September 2002, Britain’s intelligence agencies were telling Tony Blair: “Iraq has a chemical and biological capability”, before going on to predict: “Saddam would seek to use chemical and biological munitions against any internal uprising; intelligence indicates that he is prepared to deliberately target the Shia population.”

But that was just one mistake. There were others. In February 2003, just weeks before the invasion, the JIC stated that Iran was not likely to project its power into Iraq. “Iranian-inspired terrorist attacks on coalition forces are unlikely, unless the Iranians thought the US had decided to attack them after an Iraq campaign.” The JIC seemed so sure of Western military superiority that it believed Iran’s main concern would be to avoid anything that could be seen as provoking Washington.

Documents show how UK remained unprepared for Shia resistance.

A month after the invasion UK intelligence officers had had the chance to obtain better information from Iraqi Shias about Iran’s plans to protect itself by drawing the US into a prolonged conflict. “Of greatest concern are state-backed and terrorist groups. […] Iran […] would prefer that the coalition got bogged down inside Iraq….” Nevertheless, in the same document the JIC doggedly stuck by its pre-war view: “However, as we judged in [JIC assessment of Sept 17, 2002], Iran has limited leverage or influence in Iraq, even among the Shia.”

Six months later, the JIC was reporting that far from remaining quiescent “some elements” of the Iranian regime were supporting some Sunni groups including Al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq as well as Shia militia. “Iran and Lebanese [Hezbollah] are probably inciting violent anti-coalition protests and other disruptive activity. Any coalition attempt to disarm Shia militia groups, such as the Badr Corps (SCIRI’s armed wing) and militant cleric Muqtadah al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, could be a significant additional cause of friction,” the JIC said.

By the end of the same month it acknowledged that: “Any coalition attempt to disarm the Shia militia groups could be a flashpoint for trouble.”

Given these sobering assessments it is somewhat baffling to find that when, in April 2004, concerted Shia resistance did eventually come, the British were not ready for it: “The scale and extent of attacks mounted by the Mahdi Army and associated Shia militants have come as a surprise,” the JIC said.

The JIC assessments over the following years recorded the UK intelligence community’s increasing realisation that Iran, having seen off the threat of a US attack by drawing them into prolonged conflict in Iraq, was now training and arming Shia militias to attack coalition forces with a view to forcing the foreign forces out.

In November 2006, the JIC said: “We judge that Iran wants to speed MNF [multinational forces] withdrawal from the South and to make life as difficult for Coalition forces as long as they remain.”

In one of the last JIC assessments published by Chilcot from October 2007 came the view: “We judge that the Iranians want an Iraq led by a Shia-dominated government, susceptible to their influence which will never again pose a threat to them.” In other words, having seen off the US threat, Iran has shifted focus to shoring up its regional position as well.

The declassified top secret intelligence assessments released by the Chilcot inquiry are a great illustration of the law of unintended consequences. And while hindsight gives today’s observers an unfair advantage — and even though Iranian intentions developed over the course of the war — Tehran’s behaviour was consistently rational and designed to further its national interest.

The assessments made by British intelligence before the war— and even after it started — failed to predict that Iranian conduct. Britain may once have had an extraordinary knowledge of how the world works. It seems to have lost the knack.

The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.
Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

A British politician, Enoch Powell, once remarked all the political careers end in failure. Richard Nixon may have reached the White House but later, as he looked back on his life, his reputation lay in ruins. Margaret Thatcher may have vanquished all her opponents but eventually they forced her out. Powell was right in part because the politicians` promises are always so lavish they can never be kept.

Gen Musharraf was bound to fail the moment he promised to rid the country of corrupt politicians and to introduce `true` democracy instead whatever that is. He was vowing to accomplish more than he could deliver. And when, inevitably, he failed, the people wanted him to go. And even if Gen Musharraf has found it difficult to accept the popular verdict, the army learnt that those who hold power are held responsible for what happens.

Having taken that lesson on board, the post-Musharraf military adopted a new, subtler tactic. It decided to exercise power in all crucial areas while simultaneously allowing civilian rulers to hold office. Traditionally, the policy areas reserved for the army included the nuclear weapons programme and relations with the key foreign powers: India, Afghanistan and the United States. In the last few years, the list has expanded considerably. The establishment of apex committees, military courts and the military`s use of coercion to force the media onto the back foot means there is scarcely an area of public policy that the army is not seeking to influence or control.

You might think that it is an approach that has few downsides for the military. While they make the decisions, the civilians absorb the unpopularity that comes with the failure to deliver.

But there is a problem. The taste for power is insatiable. Its acquisition leads to the desire for more. It`s all a question of trends.

The relationship between the civilians and the army is not static. Either the army is in the ascendant or the civilians are. It is not a stable situation in which the status quo can be sustained over a long period of time.

There are always so many reasons for the military to persuade itself that it needs more power. Take the media. From the army`s point of view, Pakistan`s journalists should produce articles that show the country in a good light. And they should never criticise the army.

Journalists who challenge authority and focus attention on difficult social issues are being negative and unpatriotic. And yet despite all the pressure from the army some writers persist in delivering `negative` articles. And for some in the security establishment that is intolerable.And then there are the corrupt politicians.

As far as the army is concerned the old deal, whereby the politicians gave in to every military budget request and in return were allowed to fill their boots with loot, should no longer apply. The army wants to change the terms of that deal so that the politicians continue to give in to military demands but stop making the money.

Which brings us to Nawaz Sharif`s hospital bed in West London. Before the prime minister`s medical crisis the military`s calculation went like this: if Raheel Sharif does not get an extension then the gains made under his tenure might be lost.

Without his personal authority to keep the government in check, it could be a case of back to business as usual with corrupt politicians providing weak, ineffective central government and the army`s power on a downward trend.

And the situation, as the army sees it, is urgent because over the next few months Raheel Sharif will inevitably became weaker. Whether it is President Obama,David Cameron or Gen Sharif, it is an iron rule of politics that outgoing leaders become lame ducks. Their power slips away the moment colleagues and rivals start looking ahead to what will happen after the leader has gone.

And again, in the Pakistani context,David Cameron or Gen Sharif, it is an iron rule of politics that outgoing leaders become lame ducks. Their power slips away the moment colleagues and rivals start looking ahead to what will happen after the leader has gone.

And again, in the Pakistani context,that would set trends over the next few months that the army would find hard to tolerate.

It is possible that Nawaz Sharif`s medical difficulties could help calm the situation down. What more could the army ask for than a physically weakened prime minister? But there is another way of looking at it.

As each civilian government reaches its mid term the generals start casting around for a mechanism by which they can remove it. In the past the president would have been prevailed upon to force the prime minister out. With that option not available it has not been clear how the army should go about the business of removing Nawaz Sharif and putting someone more amenable in his place.

Until he became ill, that is. Because what easier argument could there be than it is inappropriate to have Pakistan governed from a sick bed?

The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan