Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Volte-Face
effort coordinated with the USA to locate and punish those involved in
that horrific act. President Bush responded to Musharraf’s message of
support by saying, ‘Now we’ll find out what that means. Won’t we?’
Pakistan’s support was important for the USA. Its geographic
proximity and its vast intelligence information on Afghanistan were
seen as crucial for any military action against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Pakistan was one of the three countries – the others were the United
Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – which had formally recognized
the conservative Afghan Islamic government and the only country
which had maintained diplomatic relations with Kabul. The American
demands, to which General Mahmood had agreed in next to no time,
required Pakistan to abandon its support for the Taliban regime and
provide logistic support to the American forces. After having spent the
past seven years helping the Taliban consolidate their rule, providing
them with military, political and financial support, Pakistan was now
being asked by the Bush administration to help the USA dislodge the
Islamic fundamentalist government.
The list was clearly only the first step in testing Pakistan’s resolve.
Washington had also asked for a comprehensive report from the ISI
about every detail it had on bin Laden, including his contacts with
Pakistani and other Islamic militant organizations. Pakistan eventually
negotiated with the USA that no combat missions would be carried out
from its territory and, instead of blanket over-flight rights, an air corridor
was assigned to US planes. Pakistan was ready to break diplomatic
relations with the Taliban government immediately, but the move
was delayed on American advice. The US Assistant Secretary of State,
Christina Rocca, told Ambassador Lodhi that Pakistan should keep
the diplomatic channel open with the Taliban until the US invasion
was completed. 10 Breaking off diplomatic relations at that point, in
Washington’s view, would have given a clear indication to the Taliban
about the exact timing of an impending US attack.
The turnaround was met with astonishment by the military. They
had been actively supporting the Pashtun Taliban regime, which,
according to them, provided Pakistan with ‘strategic depth’ against
any aggression from arch rival India. The Pakistani military feared that
they would lose their strategic depth in Kabul if they withdrew support
from the hardline Islamic regime.
Several efforts by the USA prior to 9/11 had failed to elicit Islamabad’s
cooperation in the expulsion of bin Laden from Afghanistan. Musharraf‘s
coming to power in October 1999 had reversed a secret mission plan