The crisis prone US-Pakistan ties

Columnist M B NAQVI explores the emerging crisis between the two countries.

Last month’s (Dec 2002’s) visit of US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to Islamabad illustrated the continuing close cooperation between the US and Pakistan in the ongoing campaign to arrest the wanted Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements thought to be hiding in Pakistan. Only prominent cases hit the headlines in the press; the total number of arrests with the help of American spooks runs into hundreds. But the Pakistan-US relations are vitiated by too many vulnerabilities.
Pakistan and the US have throughout their history never saw eye-to-eye over a whole range of subjects. Even today any number of stories are being published in the western press, the source of which remains the US intelligence agencies, that paint in a gharish light from the US viewpoint. Some of the stories have described a long Pakistan-North Korea relationship in which Pakistan is supposed to have helped PyongYong’s nuclear programme and in exchange had obtained North Korean missiles and its technology. These stories have persisted. At one stage, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, had said in reply to a question that should it be proved that Pakistan-North Korean nuclear linkage has happened, there would be ‘consequences’ for Pakistan. The day after Christina Rocca assured Pakistanis that the US Administration will continue to be engaged with Pakistan, implying that whatever help is coming to Pakistan will continue.
There were other news items which linked Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and put them on a US watch list. Henceforth, if this writer and you dear reader, have for some reasons to go to the US, both will be treated separately from other passengers at any US airport or port. Both would be taken away, photographed and finger printed. In addition they will have to report to the INS centres and register themselves. It is not clear how many times does one have to report to an INS centre but the stamp of an undesirable would be clear on both of us. We would be less than wanted creatures in America and that the Americans have great doubt about our integrity and intentions. The kind of friendship and cooperation that has developed between Pakistan and the US —- Pakistan has given four bases to the US and the American intelligence agencies have virtually the free run of the country —- it would seem odd that all Pakistanis should be prime suspects in American eyes as possible terrorists. In view of the various trends that are emerging in the relationship, it is hard to say whether the Americans regard Pakistanis as friends or potential foes, as some American think tank experts have opined.
There is a certain condition that cannot be forgotten. Pakistan foreign policy concerns India intimately, more intimately than with the US. Pakistan’s genuine obsession with Kashmir —- the interest is deep-rooted and overpowering for most Pakistanis —- which colours all its purposes and actions, not excluding the perennial penchant of Pakistan’s pursuit of friendship with the US. The US has been a rich Uncle to most Pakistani governments, all of whom expected the Uncle to be generous and see them through various difficulties of the day. Although the Americans are annoyed by this persistent Pakistani desire for aid and other help, they have from time to time extended a lot of aid considering the size of Pakistan economy and the stature of the country in the international arena. But the Americans have never been able to suppress or hide their condescension not unmixed with contempt for Pakistanis who have tried to organise the whole Pakistan state on the basis of a continuing friendly relations with the US. Pakistani elites’ reliance on the US support is not a passing show; it has become deep rooted, although it has virtually no foundation in the affections and opinions of the people of Pakistan. It is the ruling elites of the country that have tied the Pakistani bullockcart to the shining aeroplane of the Americans — largely for their own purposes and profits.
The relationship between America and Pakistan has been crisis prone from almost the beginning. The only trouble free years were between 1953 and 1964, a decade or so. The US gave aid liberally and Pakistan more or less flourished. The fillipside of this was that the very Ayub regime’s stability undermined the foundations of Pakistan. Pakistan when it came into being in 1947 was based on the idea of Muslim brotherhood and Muslim solidarity; it was Indian Muslims as a whole who had struggled for Pakistan and it was to be a national home for all the Indian Muslims, the vagueness of the phrase helped Quaid-e-Azam clarify from the very start that the areas where Pakistan is established is the only Pakistan and people therein were the only Pakistanis; the Muslims remaining in India were to remain Indians and should be loyal to India. Ayub Khan’s regime immensely strengthened the fissures in the body politic that had originated from the Bengal-Punjab split at higher political levels from the word go. In times it percolated downward and a polarisation resulted in which the Third Estate showed that the whole Pakistani state is tilted in the direction of West Pakistan and that despite East Pakistan’s majority, its people are second-rate Pakistanis. They were discriminated against and their best interests were not served by the central governments of Pakistan.
That was the fundamental basis of east-west polarisation in Pakistan. It is also called the East Pakistan Crisis. It had originated much earlier than the Ayub regime, as noted. But it grew and flourished luxuriantly during Ayub Khan’s long regime. When Yahya Khan replaced him through another military coup d’etat, he was merely being carried along by the strong current of that polarisation. He represented West Pakistan and his crackdown on East Pakistan on March 25, 1971 was the ultimate straw that broke the camel’s back. Anyway, that is now a closed story. The point is that Pakistan-American relations by underwriting blindly the West Pakistan strongmen’s regimes, it helped strengthen the polarisation in Pakistan. The Pakistan-American relationship has described too many ups and downs. Thus not unnaturally the American role in Pakistan has always been controversial.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government in 1972 took the first major foreign policy decision to reactivate Pakistan’s membership in the CENTO in a big way and he started the policy of following the IMF advice in economic policies which began by wanting a hefty devaluation of the currency and promised plenty of aid after its resumption with US concurrence. It was during Mr. Bhutto’s period that the initial groundwork for the anti-Communist Jihad in Afghanistan was laid as a result of cooperation between Pakistan and American (and British) intelligence agencies. Indeed, the three sets of intelligence services were one in purpose in those days. Through the common membership of CENTO’s anti-subversion body which was no more than a collection of intelligence officials of all the member countries and were in fact led by the British intelligence.
The Americans soon became angry with Pakistan over its nuclear programme: the efforts to acquire a reprocessing plant. Although the Americans understood why Gen. Ziaul Haq overthrew Bhutto, did not really warmly welcome the newcomer. The relations were just correct between the US and Pakistan during the early part of Ziaul Haq’s rule. The nuclear question arose in 1979 again and in April of that year the Americans imposed sanctions on Pakistan, virtually freezing all aid to Pakistan. But a few months later in December 1979 the Russians moved into Afghanistan. That changed the strategic picture for the US. The US threw all caution to the winds and banked heavily on Pakistan to help fight its war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. That meant the American sanctions were lifted and aid packages began to be formulated.
In the first instance, a $ 3.2 billion six years package was signed and when its term ran out another package of $ 4.6 billion for another six years were signed, though this second package could not complete its life span. By 1989 the last Russian soldier had left Afghanistan and the Americans, it appears, lost interest in Afghanistan. They left the mess to be cleared by Pakistan, including the setting up of the government of its own choice in Kabul. By 1990 when there was a civilian government in Islamabad (Benazir Bhutto’s) the nuclear related sanctions were re-imposed. This meant no further economic aid. The situation remained more or less unchanged until 1998 when Pakistan, in reply to India, made six nuclear explosions by way of testing its weapons capability. Fresh sanctions were then imposed by the Americans. The Yankees had later looked askance at the Pakistani governments’ behaviour vis-a-vis Afghanistan. So long as there were pro-Pakistan governments of President Mujaddadi and President Rabbani, each of whom had in its own way shown anti-Pakistan bias in action, though not words, the Americans remained more or less complacent. But when Pakistan helped Taliban seize power between 1994-96, the American press took a dim view of Taliban though was not in an uproar. It told the American government that Taliban are a reactionary force and are a disgrace to civilians. They wanted the American government to do something about it but the American administrations did not move, perhaps because of informal promises to Pakistan that the US would leave Afghanistan to sort it out after the Russians left the scene.
It was only after 9/11 that the deep freeze in which the Pakistan-American relations were suddenly melted. On the assumption-cum-information that the US Administration came to the conclusion that the planning for 9/11 had been done in Afghanistan by the al-Qaeda that they decided to invade Afghanistan. That required Pakistan’s help again. Should Pakistan not have extended the required help that it readily did. Things might have been a lot more difficult for the US, though it would still have been possible to mount a successful campaign to topple Taliban and occupy Afghanistan without any direct assistance from Pakistan. Help from Pakistan greatly facilitated the American campaign and it could be really short and swift. The relationship flourished suddenly after 9/11.
The Americans removed all stops and began rewarding Pakistan with ad hoc aid and promised more. This time the Pakistanis complained that the Americans utilised Pakistan’s services but as soon as their immediate interests had been served, they would lose interest, abandon and turn back and go away. The Americans have been at pains as late as December 2002, to remove the Pakistani misgivings that soon the US would forget all about this contribution to their war. Christina Rocca, the Assistant Secretary of State, again allayed Pakistani fears that the American aid is a fair-weather bird and that it comes when it finds it necessary to utilise Pakistan’s services and it disappears when that immediate job has been done. The Americans continue to promise that America will remain engaged with Pakistan and it need not fear that once Afghanistan crisis is over or the al-Qaeda men have been taken care of. They promised they would still be interested in Pakistan and make their engagement a regular feature. Although any man with commonsense would know that a nation remains engaged with another only so long as its interests demand. The commitment of a platonic friendship is foreign to governments —- it should be clear even to the Pakistani governments.
There is a very serious fillipside to the relationship between Pakistan and the US. Right down to the last days of the year 2002 the American think tanks and some of the Administration’s Departments were quite explicit about the fact that the main American strategic interest lies in Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. Even a casual assessment will show that this kind of interests is none too friendly from a longer term viewpoint. Then there are many other vulnerabilities in the Pak-American relations. These matter. Pakistan is the only significant place where sympathisers of Taliban and al-Qaeda are ready to own up and say that they are for Islamic fundamentalism. National election in Pakistan have returned in October 2002 Muttaheda Majlis Amal —- an alliance of six religious parties —- in big strength in NWFP and as a significant force in the Balochistan Assembly. Even at the Centre they are a power to reckon with by their sheer numbers in the two Houses of the Parliament. This is a bad news from the American viewpoint and indeed for the liberal opinion in the country also. The reorganisation of Pakistan economy in accordance with the prescription given by the IMF and World Bank makes Americans very happy. But the latter knows that the cost of this reorganisation has heavy in terms of unemployment and accentuation of poverty. Indeed, poverty has grown by leaps and bounds in the years since 1999 to 2002. The new government is sorely tempted to adopt populist measures in order to remain tolerated by the people. That offends the true faith being propagated by both America and IFIs (international financial institutions). It is one of the big iffy issues in Pak-American relations whether the Bomb, poverty, MMA and al-Qaeda will not put these two nations at loggerheads.
There is another vulnerability in the Pak-American relations: it is India. The Indians have opted for America lock, stock and barrel. The Americans have warmly welcomed them and have seen India as a great boon for their strategic designs on Asia. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Indians are likely to be what Nixon’s regional influentials were meant to be. That is to say the Americans will depend on India for regional stability, assigning to it certain hegemonic duties vis-a-vis the smaller states in southern Asia —- not confined only to South Asia but to add to it all of Southeast Asia. Pakistan would be under the cloud, to be managed insofar as American vision of the future is concerned. To the ruling Pakistani establishment this is not a happy position and its acceptance of India’s role is unlikely to be articulated anytime soon by anyone. Pakistanis still regard themselves essentially as equals to India. It is worth recalling that Pakistan’s nuclear programme is a hurdle in a long-term relationship with America. They would like Pakistan to get rid of their nuclear programme somehow —- preferably in consultation with the Americans and the IAEA. Pakistanis so far have stuck to the position that they are world’s seventh nuclear power and mean to remain one. Insofar as Americans are concerned, they do not buy the Pakistani wish to acquire gravitas and influence on the basis of being a nuclear power. Indeed, in the American view, only six nuclear powers are legitimate (nuclear powers), the sixth being Israel. Even in the case of India, there are question marks in the American minds. There are more questions in the American minds with regard to Pakistan’s nuclear programme. So the issue is still wide open. And this means that the upshot can be almost anything.
A sort of eternal triangle has been in existence in South Asia. It comprises Pakistan, India and the US. Which political way would India go is the question? Right now there are possibilities that the recent victory of BJP in the Gujarat elections can embolden the party to repeat the experiment and use the methodology of Gujarat victory in the rest of India. It can scarcely be said that the chances of BJP sweeping all over India in 2004 are great. But the possibility is there. How would the Americans and the rest of the world see the Safronisation of all of India is an open question? Insofar as Pakistan is concerned, a broad Safronisation of India is very bad news and spells a very hard situation to contemplate. Insofar as the Indians are concerned, they have no problem whether it is secular or BJP-dominated India. Though both these countries can and probably will remain faithful to the American policies and accept their assigned role that the American vision lays down. That would meet with the Indians’ own wishes. Insofar as Pakistan is concerned, it has many hard decisions to take in the days to come.