Pakistani British author Tariq Ali, author of the The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, reacts to the Pakistani government’s reinstatement of dismissed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry following massive public outcry. Ali also talks about what he calls President Obama’s “inexplicable” expansion of the US occupation of Afghanistan and reflects on the sixth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times reports President Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan beyond the tribal areas and deep into Baluchistan, around the area, the city, of Quetta.
To discuss all this and more, we’re joined now in our firehouse studio by the veteran journalist, activist, Pakistani British writer, Tariq Ali, born in Lahore, Pakistan, lives in London, written over a dozen books, frequent contributor to The Guardian, The Nation, the London Review of Books, on the editorial board of the New Left Review. His latest book, called The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
TARIQ ALI: Hi, Amy. Good to be with you.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this US war that is not exactly declared, not at all declared, on Pakistan.
TARIQ ALI: You know, what is quite staggering is that in order to sustain the occupation of Afghanistan, a country of 30 million people, the United States is now seriously considering destabilizing Pakistan, which is a country of 175 million people. And they don’t seem to understand that if they destabilize this country and if the Pakistani military begins to crack up and split, what we are seeing in Afghanistan will be absolutely nothing compared to what could happen in Pakistan. It’s a very serious business.
And it’s incredible that the Obama administration is going ahead with this, or appears to be going ahead with this, without any serious consideration of what the consequences are going to be in Pakistan. I mean, they imagine that the main problem in Pakistan is terrorism. That is their obsession. Well, this is not the view of large numbers of people who live in that country. For them, the main problem is malnutrition. For them, the main problem is large-scale unemployment, lack of education, lack of health and, as you’ve seen, the struggle of the people for democracy, restoring the chief justice. What has that got to do with terrorism? It’s a struggle for the separation of powers, wanting an independent judiciary. I mean, that is the Pakistan I know.
The longer the US stays in Afghanistan, the more it creates instability on the Afghan-Pakistan border, because it’s a porous border and it’s impossible to police it. So if they are now going to fire drones, which they’ve started doing—I mean, the same day the chief justice was restored and people were celebrating, a US drone killed nine civilians in a Pakistani village. So it’s a crazy situation, and I don’t think they understand the seriousness of it. And one was hoping that with a new administration in office in Washington with some serious advisers, they would warn them, “Don’t do it.”