In an interview on 9/11

Peter Bergen’s book is called The Osama bin Laden I Know. Does he know him?

Yes. This book is very comprehensive. It’s just about the best reference book in America when it comes to bin Laden, as far as the establishment is concerned. Bergen met bin Laden once – he was a producer for CNN and he arranged the meeting with local people who gave him access. He took along the correspondent, Peter Arnett, and they talked in some detail. The idea of the book is that he interviewed many people who knew bin Laden personally and who studied him and who followed him. It’s a personal account and it makes it more vivid for people and helps them to relate to it more.

I don’t think the average reader knows why bin Laden decided to leave life and the world and all that it offered, especially as he came from this famous, rich family, and why he decided to live off bread and water in a cold cave. Peter Bergen believes, even now that al Qaeda is dismantled, that bin Laden is very important. I agree that he is important, but I disagree in the sense that if you focus only on him then you miss the people on the ground like Mohammed Atta. Bergen thinks it’s the leadership, but I think that without Mohammed Atta 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. It’s the small people on the ground willing to die, but there are a lot of those. If they are willing to die and capable of pulling something together then you have a deadly combination. I don’t think al Qaeda recruited Mohammed Atta. I think Mohammed Atta recruited al Qaeda. It suited him and he needed an umbrella for his frustration. There is never a shortage of people who want to die, but al Qaeda was shopping for people of this kind of calibre.

When I met Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the real mastermind of 9/11, he said there was no shortage in what he called the department of martyrs – the problem he had was keeping a lid on them. What he needed but what he didn’t have was people who read and speak English, who know the lifestyle, who can integrate and are intelligent but frustrated perfectionists. Before they had Mohammed Atta they had these two Saudi guys in California who were referred to everywhere as Dumb and Dumber (Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi).

This book is a great reference when it comes to the mindset of al Qaeda.

What did motivate bin Laden to abandon his background for bread, water and terrorism?

Well, he started highlighting the problems of the ruling family in Saudi Arabia and he moved on to looking at corrupt Arab leaders who were supported by America. He found that you can’t get through to the corrupt leaders if America keeps interfering. He is not interested in hurting the US just for the sake of it. He’s a Caliphist – he’s interested in purifying Islam in his own way, going back to the early days of Islam, pure and free of corruption.

This book is a great insight into bin Laden and what he believes in, how he developed and how he came to express himself in the end. You will hardly come across anyone in the Arab world who would disagree with what, but you will hardly come across anyone who would agree with how.

In an interview on Reform in Pakistan

I understand you believe that Peter Bergen’s book, The Osama bin Laden I Know, offers some insight into why Bin Laden had such influence in Pakistan.

Peter Bergen is undoubtedly the world’s leading expert on Al-Qaeda and his three books on the subject have made a very significant contribution to the study of terrorism. The Osama bin Laden I Know is a very important study because it explains the nature of the network that Bin Laden created. Peter, from whom I have learnt a lot, interviewed dozens of individuals who have first-hand knowledge of Al-Qaeda ideology and Bin Laden’s mindset. It gives astounding and unparalleled access to knowledge that emanated from his fieldwork. Bin Laden’s network was operating worldwide but the book also explains how crisis in Afghanistan and instability in Pakistan’s northwest provided a space for this terror network to survive and even grow. This book should be a textbook for South Asia’s military, intelligence and police academies because it explains how terrorists think, recruit and operate in volatile environments.

So the book is relevant to Pakistan?

This book is very relevant to Pakistan because its law enforcement agencies and the military need to understand how terrorist organisations strategise and plan. Pakistan is faced with a growing terrorism challenge and clearly its security services have failed to understand the underlying dynamics of extremism and terrorism. Pakistan’s experts and journalists need to go out in the field and find out how leaders of other militant and terror organisations in Pakistan think and operate before they can expect to tackle them effectively. The approach adopted in this book could help them enormously in this effort.

I originally asked you to choose books on political reform in Pakistan. You said that in Pakistan we had to talk about reform more broadly, that it’s not just about politics. Can you explain?

I think the nature of the challenges faced by Pakistan today are such that without having a comprehensive approach, no reform in any one specific sector will work. These challenges are all so linked with one another. Political reform is inextricably linked with reform of the way religion is believed, perceived and practiced in the country. The same goes for education reform or healthcare reform. All of these are hugely dependent on political reform. But no political reform will work unless it provides some hope to the ordinary people in the shape of more economic opportunities.

But in political terms, what is the status of Pakistan now? Is it a functioning democracy?

Yes, it is. But there are serious limitations. One thing very few people know internationally is that Pakistan came into being as a democracy. Four days before Pakistan’s first day of independence, which was 14 August 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father, addressed the constituent assembly, the body that legislated for Pakistan. And he provided guiding principles for the nascent state. He argued that Pakistan was not going to be a theocracy. He was very clear that there is a difference between a Muslim state and an Islamic state, and he made the case that Pakistan was going to be a progressive, democratic, Muslim state.

Then Pakistan, in the last 62 years, went through several major stages. Four martial laws, first from 1958 to 1969, then from 1969 to 1971. The third one was from 1977 to 1988, and then the last one, Musharraf’s, was from 1999 to 2008. But inbetween these four periods of military rule – where the chief of army took over the country – there were democratic periods. And in all these four periods, it was public pressure that forced the military to stop governing. Currently, Pakistani democracy is not fully functional in a Western sense, but there is a lot of resilience in Pakistan to aspire to that democratic model.

The present status is that they have an elected president and an elected prime minister who, though not very popular, were elected through a proper democratic process. There’s a parliament, with an upper house and lower house, and with representatives from all minority communities including Christians and Hindus. Yes, the military has a dominant role, but primarily in the foreign policy arena. That can also change. We cannot expect the military to go back to their barracks, in the real sense of the word, so soon after military rule is over. It takes time. Pakistan is struggling. There are also strong non-democratic forces operating in the country, but Pakistan is moving through a step-by-step process towards vibrant democracy.

So with the rest of the books you’ve chosen, are they looking at ways to strengthen the democracy that the country is struggling towards?

Absolutely, yes. And the authors of these books also explain the different routes that reform could take in making Pakistan a progressive, functional state. They discuss whether Pakistan is a failed state or a failing state. I think it’s very clearly a weak state, a dysfunctional state. The next book I picked is by Benazir Bhutto.