Should Pakistan send troops to Iraq?

The New York Times, in its editorial on September 21, captioned "Pakistan, a troubled ally" advised the Bush administration that if Pakistani troops cannot be send to Iraq under the UN banner, then the administration should find ways and means to reduce its dependence on Gen Musharraf as fighting terrorism requires allies untainted by terror; and according to the paper, Gen. Musharraf has not severed his links with the international terrorism.

This is an interesting suggestion as Gen. Musharraf, despite being tainted by terrorism as discovered by the NYT, the cherished fount of America’s principled liberalism, is nevertheless acceptable as long as he manages to send the troops.

Almost at the time of this editorial, President Musharraf was interviewed by Ms. Felicity Barringer of the New York Times. In this interview the general pointed out that the idea of sending troops to Iraq, even under the UN authorization, will be extremely unpopular among the Pakistanis. He said that "domestic viewpoint" needs to be changed and then suggested that a request or a decision by the OIC or the Iraqi governing council can be helpful.

I have in the past argued that sending Pakistani troops to Iraq can be helpful for the region. I still believe that whereas the US occupation of Iraq was illegal and unjust, the continuing rot there will be disastrous for the region and the best antidote will be the presence of disciplined Muslim troops on the side of the US that can impart confidence. However, much depends on a judicious US approach: for instance, how quickly it will allow a real representative body to emerge? To what extent it will be prepared to accept input from another force working side by side? What will be its attitude towards Muslim soldiers and officers?

These issues in turn will impact on how Pakistanis at large will react or accept their government’s decision to send troops to Iraq; and whether this decision once taken can be sustained. Will this decision contribute to better relations and understanding between the US and Pakistan? From the tone and tenor and motivations of the New York Times editorial, it looks like a remote possibility but it needs to be examined in a broader and realistic context.

General Musharraf rightly admitted that the decision is bound to be extremely unpopular among Pakistanis. Why it is so? Is it due to their specific stand on Iraq or the Middle East or it has something to do with their attitude towards the US itself?

The US media, scholars and think tanks never tire of pointing out what they call the rising anti-Americanism in Pakistan. In the first week of September Dr. Nisar Chaudhry’s Pakistan-American League (PAL) organized a round table at the Brookings Centre in Washington. At this conference the known US expert on South Asia, Stephen Cohen, took the ’inventive step’ of declaring Pakistan as the most anti-American country in the world.

I am an ardent fan of Cohen; he is a brilliant scholar. His recent policy paper, "Jihadist threat to Pakistan" reflects a very intimate understanding of the politics of religion in Pakistan, and its impact on the Pakistani state. But like most other US scholars he also fails to appreciate that the so-called anti-Americanism in Pakistan does not flow from the Islamists and has steadily grown as a "top-down" rather than "bottom-up" phenomenon.

Pakistani attitude towards the US is explained less by the modernity and anti-modernity debate - often cited by American policy makers - and more by their national and regional insecurities. It is the secular westernized Pakistani elite that has remained confused, insecure and paranoid about the US role in this region and has over the decades successfully disseminated its fears to those sections of society whose fears take the form of slogans. This pattern has repeated itself since 9/11.

The New York Times editorial in question claims that after 9/11 a new beginning was expected between Pakistan and the US but both sides failed to meet each other’s expectations. In specific terms whereas the US failed to open up its markets to Pakistani textile products the latter’s supposed links with international terrorism have more to do with Kashmir than anything else. This line of reasoning, however flawed or simplistic, resonates well with the US media and think tank community and this explains why a typical US columnist fails to understand as to why Pakistanis have felt deeply betrayed in the aftermath of 9/11.

Pakistanis might vent out their anger on issues related to Iraq or Palestine but when it comes to their attitudes towards the US, since 9/11, three events and related issues are key to understanding the general popular reluctance to help out the US once again. They are: dynamics related to the fall of Kabul, sequence of events that followed the attack on Indian parliament and the treatment meted out to the Pakistani diasporas in the United States.

Few now remember, thanks to the US media, that in the run-up to war against the Taliban the US and Britain had assured an insecure Pakistan that Northern Alliance warlords would not be allowed to control Kabul, and that Pakistan’s interests would be preserved. However, when the crunch came it was the US inability to commit ground troops that negated that understanding. This is not to blame the US for a situation on which it had little control because its strategy that relied exclusively on air power. This failure had two important consequences for Pakistan.

One, it found itself sandwiched between a hostile India in the east and a less than friendly Afghanistan in the west - a scenario which haunted it in the last five decades and explained all its interest in Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion in 1979.

Second, the US complacency in allowing a government in Kabul that marginalized the Pushtun majority in power-sharing in Kabul and created awkwardness for Islamabad in the Pushtun belts in the NWFP and Balochistan, and significantly helped in the rise of a Pushtun nationalism. Later, religious parties dashed in on this aggrieved Pushtun nationalism to gain their first ever electoral victory in the NWFP and Balochistan.

Secondly, after the mysterious attacks on the parliament in Delhi, in December 2001, India took the unusual step of ordering a general troop mobilization against Pakistan. This looked even stranger to all students of strategic studies because the US forces were still operating from three different bases within Pakistan.

This development was totally confusing as to the ambiguity of the US role in this crisis. Most saw a tacit US approval - if not active collusion - of India’s coercive strategy. Opinion makers, though from different streams of Pakistani politics, shared a common worry regarding US intentions, and potential attitude towards Pakistani strategic assets.

This fear was compounded by the extreme hostility that was displayed by the mainstream US print and electronic media towards Pakistan, in certain instances; the so-called South Asia experts asked the US to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent ability.

Ironically, these ’unusually friendly sentiments’ towards a small ally were expressed at a time when Pakistan was a host to US forces on its soil, had opened two-thirds of its air and naval space to US forces and its various agencies were working in close collaboration with their US counterparts.

Then, at a time when Musharraf government was proudly harping on the theme of "frontline ally against global terrorism" Pakistanis in America emerged as the main target of new immigration and homeland security policy. More than 15,000 resident of Pakistani origin, men and women, had to leave New York and thousands left other parts of United States for Canada. Hundreds more were imprisoned and deported to Pakistan, none of them had anything to do with Al Qaeda or terrorism.

The ironic part of this saga was that most had their applications pending for months or years with the INS; many had US-born children or US spouses or sponsoring employers but the policy of sudden arrests and detention so frightened the people that they just left wherever they could. Midtown area of New York that once had a sizable Pakistani community now looks deserted from that point of view.

Given the possibility that the emerging international order would remain US-centric for the greater part of the 21st century and the fate of most nations will be decided by the perceptions created by the media, this shrinkage of diaspora and academic links with the US will have strategic implications for Pakistan. Pakistan’s relations with the US, and its media, have always been difficult but given Pakistan’s geo-strategic location and the US role as an international regulator, there will always be space to manoeuvre.

The Musharraf government operates in a complex domestic, regional and international scenario and has its limitations. However, as it continues to explore ways and means to send Pakistani troops to Iraq, it must not fail to understand that the Middle Eastern issues merely provide a cosmetic uniting factor for Pakistan and the US. If it needs to change the "domestic viewpoint" then it must be able to communicate something to Pakistanis that assures them on their national or regional concerns.