Unsettling Precedents for Pakistan

While the US is in the business of intimidating existing regimes with military force and destabilizing them under the pretense of ‘democratization’, it is imperative for the Pakistani policy makers to rethink their priorities.

From the ‘success’ in Iraq, it appears that launching preemptive strikes with overpowering force can vanquish enemies without appreciable collateral damage. And if such use of force can produce quick victory and the other desired results, who needs peaceful resolution of international disputes? Who needs the ineffectual United Nations? Apparently only the weak patronize the UN, indulge in old-fashioned diplomacy while the powerful settle their disputes with the application of force. These precedents carry significant implications for a country like Pakistan, which has suffered incessantly from a vague and directionless foreign policy. Specifically regarding its inert Kashmir policy, an insecure relationship with India and a subservient one with the US.

Pakistan will certainly not face a US invasion like Iraq. Pakistan does not have oil. Therefore, it does not carry any economic significance for the underwriters of the US wars. However Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are perceived as ticking time bombs against the security of US, not because Pakistan intends to attack US by any stretch of imagination but because the Americans don’t believe in taking chances in the post-Sept 11 world. Whether the immediate next US target is North Korea, Iran or Syria, there is no doubt that Pakistan would be ‘dealt with’. Simply because a nuclear Pakistan does not fit in the equation of the ‘Global Pax-Americana’. Most people in Pakistan are unaware of the role of the ‘think tanks’ working in Washington who are mainly funded by rightwing individuals, endowments, corporations and defense contractors. This influential lobby has enough power to convince the US policy makers that Pakistani nuclear facilities could be a threat to the American interests, inspite of Pakistan Army’s ‘unstinted support’ to the US.

Add to that the awkward allegations of Pakistan’s nuclear collaboration with Al-Qaeda, North Korea and Iran. Pakistan’s vehement denial of such activity has fallen short of convincing international opinion. Primarily because of its failure to provide persuasive counter-arguments to assertions made by influential reporters like Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post or Bill Keller in the New York Times, who claim that ‘If suspicions are justified, then Pakistan, which lives at the busiest crossroads of Islamic terror, is the first nation to have bartered away nuclear weapons technology on the black market’. But even if Pakistan does not share its weapons with terrorists, a nuclear extremist-led Pakistan has been providing sanctuary to terrorists and in an overtly anti-American environment, where emotional temperatures can rise when patriotism is tied up with national or religious identity, that spells imminent danger for the US government.

Although the Bush Administration has publicly lauded ‘Pakistan’s role as a valuable partner’, the resolution passed by the U.S. House International Committee earlier this year with it’s Pakistan specific amendment ‘Section 708 – Report on Action Taken by Pakistan’, which is ominously reminiscent of the Pressler Amendment, indicates notable wariness in the US against Pakistan. Prominent American scholars like Stephen P. Cohen, Michael Krepon and Robert G. Wirsing have recently indicated in different statements that the volatile situation in South Asia, is ‘pushing the Bush Doctrine to disproportionate and dangerous lengths’ and ‘could force the unwilling involvement of the United States’. These analysts have circumspectly conjured possible scenarios of the US saving the world from ‘the horrors of a nuclear war by taking out Pakistan’s nuclear facilities and assets’ in case it ever decides to use it against India.

But who is to say that India might not follow the US example someday? The Americans have just fought a war that was overtly a coercive campaign to disarm a country with nuclear ambitions, which it considered a threat and a haven for terrorists. India already considers itself a regional power and conducts itself as if South Asia is its imperial domain. The much-celebrated thaw in Indo-Pak relations has not led India to change its attitude towards its rigid stance on Kashmir. Infact the recent blasts in Bombay have incited scathing statements from Indian politicians like L K. Advani, saying that ‘terrorism in India is an outgrowth of Pakistan’s frustration at its own lack of progress’. A catastrophic ‘terrorist attack’ in India could lead to a pre-emptive Indian strike against Pakistan, with the confident understanding that the U.S. would take care of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. And UN Resolutions could be easily bypassed if India manages to persuade itself and a handful of other influential countries of an immediate threat to its national security, like the U.S. did in Iraq.

Already intensive Indian lobbying has been more than successful in equating Pakistan’s support for militant extremists in Kashmir with global terrorism in the international media and academia. A report published by the Henry L Stimson Center says, ‘Pakistan must cease supporting the violence perpetuated by militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir. It is difficult to envision how Kashmiris will be free to go about living their lives in dignity and peace as long as infiltration facilitated by the Pakistan Army and security forces continues. And as long as infiltration and acts of terror carried out by militant groups that have a safe haven in Pakistan continue’. A New York Times editorial recently said, ‘Despite promises by Pakistan’s President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to curb such terrorism, Pakistan-based militants have continued to claim responsibility for attacks in Kashmir. Pakistan is to blame for not keeping a tighter grip on violent Kashmiri militants. Continued complicity with Kashmiri terrorism could again make Pakistan an international pariah, as it was when it recklessly backed the Taliban in Afghanistan.’

The New York Times also says, ‘Pakistan’s army and secret service are allowing the Taliban to operate in Pakistan, and even protecting them. Further, the local government, now dominated by an alliance of religious parties sympathetic to the Taliban, provides them with legitimacy by association’. While another article in Asia Times quotes the US troop commander General Frank Hagenbeck in Afghanistan as saying, ‘The Taliban and its allies have regrouped in Pakistan and are recruiting fighters from religious schools in Quetta in a campaign funded by drug trafficking. Al-Qaeda commanders, who are establishing new cells and sponsoring the attempted capture of American troops, have joined these forces.’ The article also mentions the US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad for having gone on record to say that ‘the Taliban and al-Qaeda are being nurtured in Quetta, where the Pakistan Army and the ISI have a major presence’.

Although we have ‘officially’ managed to distance ourselves from the Al-Qaeda and Taliban stigma, it will take much more than official rhetoric to facilitate the transition of Pakistan’s image from an ally of Islamist extremists to a tolerant Muslim state. General Musharraf has recently said that ‘a handful of extremists are holding the majority of the educated, liberal Muslims hostage, and it was about time the educated and moderate Muslims stood up and be counted’. Unfortunately while the current reign of the Islamists in the country allows the General to vindicate his power as the only barrier to the ‘Talibanization’ of a nuclear-armed state, it also encourages the deleterious, fundamentalist ideology that he seeks to eradicate. As the Pakistan military fortifies itself with the keen US support, it regrettably chooses to ignore that fact this mindset will only serve to weaken national institutions by channeling significant government resources to restrain their frenzied upsurge. And a weak Pakistan will not only be left dependent on super powers and vulnerable between two hostile borders, it will never be able to pursue independent, prolific policies.

Pakistan must revise and reinvent its decadent foreign policy. A fresh, pragmatic approach towards Kashmir has to be initiated, one that does not support guerrilla like warfare by ‘freedom fighters’. Not only has our blind endorsement of such a cause destroyed our credibility as a nation, it has nearly killed all the international support for our morally just stand on Kashmir. Although Pakistan must have absolute respect for the UN resolutions on Kashmir, it must also recognize the futility of relying primarily on them to solve the Kashmir dispute. While continuing to assiduously support the Kashmir cause, Pakistan must also strive for normalization of relations with India. A hostile relationship with India will only consign Pakistan to further dependency on the US. And if there are any lessons to be learnt from history, the current honeymoon phase with the US will not last forever and should not be taken for granted. Obviously the Bush Administration deems to overlook some of Pakistan’s dubious policies because it finds it advantageous to do so, not because its policies are dictated by some high moral principles of friendship.

Keeping that in mind, Pakistan must get its act together. Rather than pledging their unconditional servitude to the US, our policymakers need to take up initiatives to create independent, progressive policies that will foster a self-sustaining and productive environment for Pakistan to exist in. For starters, instead of consolidating the military’s political pre-eminence, the current regime should allow room for a ‘real’ democracy that actually reflects the will of a majority of people in Pakistan who want peace and stability in their country.