Don't be beastly to the Pakistanis!

There was a fascinating interview overnight on the BBC featuring Professor C. Christine Fair. Unfortunately it also got a bit feisty when the BBC began to panic over Professor Fair's analysis and Philippa Thomas rallied to Pakistan's defence. Professor Fair was soon being talked over and eventually faded out and cut off. Here, unredacted, is the full interview, preserved for posterity: 

Philippa Thomas: Right, let's speak now to Christine Fair, Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University in Washington. Professor Fair, thank you very much for being with us. What you make of Faiz Hameed's visit to Kabul?

Christine Fair: First of all, thank you for having me. So I don't really make anything special out of this. I think for those of us that have been watching these affairs and Afghanistan evolve, not in the last 10 or 20 years, but actually the last, I mean, going back to 1973, this has been Pakistan's project. Without Pakistan the Taliban would be a nuisance, it wouldn't be the competent and capable terrorist organisation that is. So this is, in some ways for Pakistan, sealing the deal. You know, there are a lot of fissions across the different shuras of the Taliban, but the most important shura is the shura in Rawalpindi.

Philippa Thomas: Pakistan, of course, denies that it has created the Taliban or it supports it militarily behind the scenes in anyway. 

Christine Fair: Yeah, well, Pakistan gets away with lying largely because most people don't confront them. You know, various foreign ministers, various Pakistan army chiefs, presidents, prime ministers have come and gone before various shows like your own and they make these outrageous statements and most people are just too polite to question them. And then this just becomes part of their ossified fiction. But I've written an entire book on the Pakistan army using primary sources. And, you know, the Pakistanis first began the jihad in 1973. It didn't happen after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, as is popularly believed. It actually began under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. And even though the Pakistanis will make those claims, there's also those who very forthrightly admit it. MALIA LODI [spelling?], who has long been the amanuensis of the ISI with lipstick, you know, she'll very forthrightly say that the Taliban have long been supported by the Pakistanis...

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] So...what...

Christine Fair: The Pakistanis...

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] What...what then do you think is the interest of the Pakistan government, and the intelligence agencies, when it comes to IS fighters, when it comes to al-Qaeda? Do they have a joint interest maybe with the Taliban in suppressing these other groups? 

Christine Fair: So, first of all, I think one just has to understand what Pakistan's interest in Afghanistan is writ large, and Pakistan inherited this notion of strategic depth from the British. The Pakistan army is a product of the British army in India, and so from the earliest months of the Pakistani state it has had a continuation of interests in Afghanistan. And the Afghans themselves did not help their own position by denouncing the Durand  Line, by interfering in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province, so we cannot see this is something new. It is really important that we understand that this is part of...it's in Pakistan's strategic culture. So...

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] So I just want to...

Christine Fair: So the question that you have, the question that you have posed about Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. Right? 

Philippa Thomas: Yeah.

Christine Fair: So this is a complicated question because part of those organisations also advance Pakistan's interest. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about the Islamic State - Khorasan Province that somehow it's joined tightly at the hips of the organisation that al-Baghdadi built, and that really isn't true. There were some early communications between them, but the differences...

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] OK, sorry, I want in the time that we have I also want to say, so you have a great deal of historic knowledge of what has happened, and Pakistan and Afghanistan. Given where we are now presumably it's in Pakistan's interest that there is stability, that there is not continued fighting in Afghanistan, or do you see that differently?

Christine Fair: No, no, this is also another myth. What Pakistan has objected to over the last 20 years is the emergence of a stable Afghanistan that is opposed to Pakistan...

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] But an unstable Afghanistan...

Christine Fair: ...and is friendly to India.

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting]...surely means more refugees trying to get across the border to Pakistan. How is that in Pakistan's interests? 

Christine Fair: Yeah, right, so this is also a myth that I think Pakistan is very good at peddling. What Pakistan wants more than anything is an instability that it can manage, and also Pakistan will use the refugee story as a part of its usual rent-seeking strategy. You see, Pakistan likes to be thought of as the fire brigade when Pakistan is in fact the arsonist.

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] And Pakistan...

Christine Fair: Pakistan will monetise this. 

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting]...of course would absolutely deny that, 

Christine Fair: How do you...how do you...

Philippa Thomas: And I want to come back to your phrase...let me come back to your phrase...

Christine Fair: Yes.

Philippa Thomas: ...''an instability that it can manage''.

Christine Fair: Correct.

Philippa Thomas: Even if, even if...if that is the case that is an immensely risky strategy?

Christine Fair: Pakistan has always been risk-acceptant. There has never been a risk-averse Pakistan, whether you're looking at incredibly outrageous terror attacks in India or whether you are looking at the support for the Taliban in the 1990s and all that that brought about. Look, even the fact that Pakistan harbours virtual petting zoos of terrorists in its own country, with the hope that they will only...

Philippa Thomas: [interrupting] Christine, Christine Fair...

Christine Fair: ...only kill their neighbours is a risky strategy.

Philippa Thomas: As we cannot, as we cannot...We don't have a Pakistani diplomat or official to speak with us now, I'm going to say again...

Christine Fair: [interrupting] Well, thank goodness you don't...

Philippa Thomas: No, I'm going to say again....

Christine Fair: [interrupting] ...because he would pedal this fiction.

Philippa Thomas: ...that I know they firmly, they firmly deny that they have created the Taliban, and that they are the prime mover behind the Taliban...

Christine Fair: [interrupting] To be fair, to be fair...

Philippa Thomas: ...and we have given you space to put your point of view, and we are going to leave it now, but thank you for being with us and for putting your point of view...

Christine Fair: [interrupting] You are doing their propaganda...[faded out and cut off by the BBC]

Philippa Thomas: And there you go, and there is much more on what is happening in Afghanistan and the region and everything around that, on the BBC website of course.