GENERAL Musharraf’s visit to Washington is indeed the first serious interaction between the United States and Pakistan at the highest level in years. The last time a serious one-to-one meeting between the heads of the US and Pakistan governments took place was in July 1999 for post-Kargil defusement which by all accounts was a one-sided affair in which the Pakistani PM caved in to the US demand for a pull-out of the Mujahideeen from the Kargil slopes occupied by them.

In that respect, therefore, Gene Musharraf’s visit has a somewhat healthy backdrop of the massive help and support that was rendered by Pakistan to the US-led coalition’s anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan. One reads in the western press acknowledgements about the enormous risks taken by Pakistan in providing that level of support to the coalition, considering the fact that the whole process involved the reversal of a 20-year old policy on Afghanistan.

It has also been widely noted that in leading Pakistan into a new policy stance on Afghanistan Gen Musharraf has made things a lot harder for himself and may well be walking since then on rather thin ice in his own country. The stage could therefore be right for a meeting of minds between the US and Pakistan to work out a future blueprint for peace, harmony and stability in South Asia but also for a prosperous, stable and democratic Pakistan.

The crux of the matter however is whether or not the United States has philosophically arrived at a point where it believes in the permanence of Pakistan. What are the major US think tanks advising it in this context? There was a time when only the Democratic Party in the US could be accused of being pro-India and very much so at the cost of Pakistan. With the toll of the years the Republican Party in the United States which used to be strongly pro-Pakistan, has also moved a lot closer to India.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Muslim voters in the last US presidential election turned out heavily for Bush and the Republicans, the pro-India slant has continued despite the change from a Democratic Party government to a Republican dispensation. President Bush does have quite a few Pakistani friends mostly from Houston and other parts of Texas but what more than neutralizes this is a very strong lobby of Indians who operate in unison from Texas and elsewhere in the US to further Indian interests. The trouble with the US is that it tends to be quite easily dazzled by the huge prospects of business with India. As against India, Pakistan has obviously a lot less of business to offer. Furthermore it is a fact of life that for quite some time the US governments have abdicated their responsibility to formulate policies and this role has in fact passed into the hands of think tanks and lobbies and lower formations of government like the FBI, the CIA, the FDH and the likes which, by and large, are given to their internal turf wars and seek enhancement of their respective outreaches. After years of US war and confrontation with China in 1971 we were the ones who facilitated the Americans in establishing their first contacts with what was then fearfully known as Red China.

I was then posted as deputy commissioner in Rawalpindi and I witnessed the euphoria that prevailed at that time among some of the senior officials of the government over their achievement of getting Dr Henry Kissinger secretly into China, which in turn led to the opening up of China to the Americans.

But what did Pakistan get in return for the services rendered in achieving this breakthrough? We got practically nothing because our relationship with the US had all along been a one-way relationship of a client state. Not surprisingly later that same year we lost East Pakistan and the US government and people stood idly by watching an Indian invasion of East Pakistan and conveniently accepted Indian occupation of half our country as a fait accompli.

Today we are in the year 2002 and we are having to deal with an altogether new generation of leadership in the US. Recriminations in themselves will not help us in overcoming the challenge of recasting and rediscovering the heights that once were of the US-Pakistan relationship. But Washington will also have to understand that the situation in which Afghanistan had landed itself and into which Pakistan was fast sliding was in some measure the doing of the US itself. Its walking out of Afghanistan and the expedient treatment meted out to Pakistan at all international levels once the Soviet Union had collapsed is typical of State Department and Pentagon functionaries’ short-sighted priorities.

If President Bush is to really win over the Pakistanis’ hearts and minds he will have to do much more than was done by earlier US presidents. He will have to go far beyond the restoration of the military-to-military relations between the two countries. The time has passed when a single-strain relationship would suffice. The quantum of economic support will have to be raised far above the life-supporting drips that we have received during the last decade or from the World Bank, the IMF and the Asian Development Bank doing most of this ‘hospitalisation chores’. After the Soviets had been soundly beaten and pushed out of Afghanistan by 1989, the manner in which the Americans dropped both Pakistan and Afghanistan for greener pastures was indeed quite strange and contrary to their past behaviour. After all, they had had the wisdom and the graciousness to have injected enough resources for the post World War II recovery of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan.

Even Japan (a non-European, non-Christian country) was adequately supported to come out of the dumps and re-establish its economic prosperity and extend its economic dominance over the Pacific and the Far East (which the Japanese had claimed before World War II as their Asian Co-Prosperity Zone). So what can be the cause of the hesitation in extending the same treatment to Pakistan in making itself into a viable and economically stable country?

If there was any double-mindedness in this respect, the recent round of Afghanistan happenings ought to have dispelled it without any trace. It may be pertinent to quote a bit of history for the convenience of our American friends. In the 1946-47 run-up to the Indian Independence Act 1947 the support of Sir Winston Churchill, then leader of the Conservative opposition (a statesman who is highly admired across the Atlantic for his wisdom, courage and statesmanship) could only be obtained after the then British government had agreed to concede to Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah the Muslim homeland of Pakistan.

The terse reason given by Churchill was that the Muslims of undivided India had stood by the Allies in two world wars and that they had sacrificed their blood for the free world. That was a time when the Hindu community led by Gandhi and Nehru were in their usual two minds whether to side with Nazi Germany or with the Allies.

The choices and options lie entirely and squarely with President Bush in the context of the talks currently underway in Washington with President Bush. He is the leader of the developed world and elected president of the sole superpower in the world. This is indeed a ‘make or break’ situation for Pakistan. But this is also a poignant moment for the US in that friends in need are friends indeed. Pakistan has more than once proved its constancy by deeds in America’s difficult moments.

There was no one better than Winston Churchill in sizing up of situation in 1947 in what was then undivided India — the need for a Muslim homeland in the subcontinent. This indeed is a decisive moment. Pakistan has always delivered and is therefore credible beyond doubt. In return, it needs a helping hand from America.

If the US wants to stay effectively in the affairs of this part of the world, there is indeed permanence for Pakistan playing an effective role. The US president in the interest of America needs to seize the situation by deciding to bolster Pakistan to the fullest degree. It is, if anything, time for a genuine quid pro quo from the US to Pakistan but with a caveat that Pakistan will return to unfaltering democracy.

The contrary to this will be too terrible to comprehend because that would mean the return to the danger of Talibanization of an even more virulent form in a borderless Islam with all its frightful consequences for the world and this region. In that event even the US would have more than its hands full. Granted that it has the fire power and the technology to overpower its adversaries, it still has a marked vulnerability to a long and sustained conflict in both economic and political terms, and has moreover to contend with public opinion that is still not quite ready to stomach heavy casualties.

PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf’s current visit to Washington is sure to provide an opportunity for Pakistan to press for a US initiative in reducing heightened tensions between India and Pakistan.

The matter is not specifically mentioned in the agenda for the president’s talks in Washington. But the State Department spokesman has pointedly referred to the fact that he did not want anybody “to think the situation (in the region) is not tense and that there are still issues that India and Pakistan need to look at.” With Gen Musharraf’s talks at the highest level in Washington, the American leadership can be expected to have a clearer understanding of Pakistan’s concern over the military stand-off along the country’s eastern border.

The Pakistan embassy in Washington has described the visit as marking the opening of “a new chapter” in US-Pakistan relations. Sources also say that an agreement on the revival of the bilateral defence policy group will form part of the agenda of the Washington talks.

Referring to the US secretary of state Colin Powell’s consultations with President Musharraf and the Indian foreign minister last Wednesday, a State Department official has also acknowledged that the US felt encouraged by the willingness of both Pakistan and India to resolve the on-going military stand-off between them “ politically and diplomatically.” In any case, talks at the highest level has a better chance of proving productive if there is a prior agreement on the broad outlines of the issues of bilateral and common concern. This, one hopes, is already in place.

While Pakistan has more than once proposed the resumption of a bilateral dialogue to India and the phased withdrawal of the forces massed on the two sides of the border, New Delhi has chosen to stick to its hardline posture. It has also indicated that its forces are engaged in a major exercise which would go on for some weeks. Considering that the forces of the two countries are already in a state of confrontation, this is sure to heighten tension with all the attendant risks of a flare-up resulting from a deliberate act of provocation or one triggered by a misjudged move.

Unfortunately, apart from massing its troops along its border with Pakistan and the Line of Control in Kashmir, India is doing all it can to intensify military pressure on Pakistan. It has been engaging in test-firing of missiles which are designed to carry nuclear warheads. It has also strengthened its defence cooperation with Russia and decided to jointly work for the development of a fifth generation fighter aircraft as well as a global satellite surveillance system. If the US is genuinely interested in a tension-free and peaceful and stable South Asia as it claims, it simply cannot remain indifferent to these disturbing developments.

However, if, on the basis of its experience of its strategic relationship with the US in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Pakistan remains somewhat sceptical about the prospects of a serious US initiative for peace and normalization in the subcontinent, it should not be a matter of surprise. To quote just one instance, it may be recalled that during President Eisenhower’s visit to the subcontinent in December 1959, Ayub Khan had warned him that it would be “fatal” for India and Pakistan to continue to be “enemies”. He particularly called upon the US President to use his good offices to help resolve the festering Kashmir dispute. However, to quote an eminent South Asian expert, Dennis Kux, Eisenhower, did little more than “urge Nehru to get together with Pakistan to work out the problem.”

Ayub Khan had gone to the extent of suggesting that if a plebiscite in Kashmir was not acceptable to India, he was “willing to consider any alternative” that ensured for Pakistan, India and the people of Kashmir “a stake in the area.” However, President Eisenhower did no more than make a token gesture in raising the issue with the Indian prime minister.

In the present context, too, the US seems to be putting more pressure on Pakistan than on India — an approach that would place Pakistan at a disadvantage vis-a-vis India. This asymmetry could also come in the way of Washington wanting to establish “a long-term and enduring relationship” with Pakistan.

The western nations in general and the US in particular must realize that for the success of the current campaign against terrorism, it is important for Pakistan not only to play an effective role but also to cleanse itself of pockets of religious extremism with deep roots within the country. For this the series of steps taken by the government to rein in the forces of religious extremism have not only to be carried on but strengthened as the process goes on. This calls for effective political and economic support from major coalition partners, notably the US, and carefully avoiding any policy stance or moves that are likely to be exploited by extremist elements to cause public disaffection and anger to obstruct the ongoing process to contain them.

President Bush has to understand that while Pakistan is committed to the international campaign against terrorism, his plans to move against what he calls the “axis of evil” meaning thereby Iran, Iraq and North Korea are sure to cause strong misgivings in Pakistan and among other coalition partners, especially in the Muslim World.

The same holds true of any US political or strategic “tilt” in favour of India in the prevailing context of tension and conflicts characterizing India-Pakistan relations. Ideally, instead of playing “favourites’ in the context of the India-Pakistan politics, it would be more advisable for Washington to work towards creating an environment of trust between the two countries. By implying a parallel between the forces being fought in Afghanistan and those supposedly behind the unrest, in held Kashmir, the US policy-makers lend indirect support to New Delhi’s arrogant refusal to talk to Pakistan on Kashmir but to seek a solution of the problem on its own terms. This hardly helps the cause of peace and normalization in the subcontinent.

Whether President Musharraf’s talks in Washington would give the US leadership a better appreciation of the subcontinental realities and help it play a more meaningful role is the only flicker of hope that is there in an otherwise bleak scenario.

I HAVE always wondered what our governments — successive governments, both federal and provincial — do with the other eye. Is it kept in reserve for crises, or has it become unserviceable for lack of use? Or are the two eyes used turn by turn?

No, I am not raving. These questions have arisen in my mind because the present government recently announced (as all governments have been doing every three months or so) that it is keeping a strict watch and a vigilant eye on the prices of commodities of everyday use. Since this vigilant eye has always been kept on prices, it means that it must be permanently earmarked (or should it be “eye-marked?”) for that purpose.

And so long as it is reserved for prices I don’t think it can be turned on anything else, not even on the antics of Mr. Lal Krishan Advani. Prices are an unpredictable entity. If the government were to relax its vigilance over them, and turn that eye on something else, you never know they might fall that very instant. Then where would we all be?

It is because of the fixed function of the government eye that I have sometimes spent hours ruminating on what the other eye has been doing all these years. Now please don’t ask me which eye it is: the left eye or the right eye. So far as prices are concerned they don’t mind which of the two is devoted to them as long as it does not stop them from rising. Or is it to keep prices from falling, as stated above?

This eye business has made me realise that we are an ungrateful people. Has anyone of us ever given a thought to the years upon years of vigil that our governments have maintained on prices without blinking an eyelid? It is not an easy thing to do at the best of times. And in times of crisis (which is a permanent feature of our national life) it is doubly difficult.

Actually it was my little joke, asking what the other eye has been doing. I was merely being facetious. We all know that the entire business of the state is conducted with that eye. Whether it is day-to-day administration or international affairs or defence against a hostile neighbour or (sometimes) the general good of the people, the entire burden of these matters falls on that one single eye. Just imagine the range and sweep of its duties. With the other eye fixed permanently on prices, it’s a wonder that this overworked eye has not conked out altogether, being busy all the year round, 24 hours a day, with no rest even on Sundays and gazetted holidays. The only rest that this eye gets is when it is not required to keep a watch over certain features of our national and social life. These features are not so important in themselves and the nation can afford to let them have their way. You all know them — corruption, a lazy and selfish bureaucracy, the traffic in narcotics, sectarian killings and the general law and order situation are just some of them.

They don’t do much harm to the common man anyway. On the other hand they do a lot of good to the uncommon man, and I am sure the common man does not grudge this. He has always been tolerant and sporting about the privileged classes. So, in respect of these trivial matters governments can afford to turn a blind eye. (Is that another eye? A third one?) Or you can say they shut their eyes to what’s going on in these fields.

It is not the governments alone which remain worried about prices of eatables and other things that people need and use everyday to keep body and soul together. The business and trading community is equally concerned. Maybe the community too keeps a vigilant eye on the subject.

I have before me a report from a Lahore daily of a couple of weeks ago. It describes how that awam-loving community has vowed that only a nominal profit would be charged on articles of daily use and that none of its members would indulge in profiteering as that would be contrary to the spirit of Islam and the ideology of Pakistan. God bless those thoughtful souls!

One quality that distinguishes our traders from those of advanced countries is their generosity and complete absence of greed. I found the newspaper report extremely reassuring and spent half a day convincing my daughter who runs the house about the sincerity of Lahore’s business community whose noble example is sure to be followed by shopkeepers in other parts of the country.

The trouble is that my daughter reads the newspapers and accepts whatever they say as gospel truth, though I have warned her against it. For instance, at the end of the half a day mentioned above she pointed to a number of reports from various dailies saying the prices are not going to come down because of the recession and unstable economic conditions. she dismissed my warning with un-filial disregard for my superior knowledge.

Another problem with my daughter and her housewife friends is that they seriously think the government’s vigilant eye is meant to keep the prices down and that the eye is not doing its duty properly. I wonder where they got that idea from. It is commonsense that if such were the purpose of the eye it would have shown some results after all these long years of vigilance. Let us not forget that it’s the eye of a nuclear power and not yours or mine that it will start roving and neglecting its function. Aren’t our government leaders themselves tired of this vigilant eye business? When they trot out this expression every now and then, do they really think the public will swallow it? If they do then they must have a very poor opinion of the people — as poor as the people have of them. It is the most overdone gimmick in the national propaganda armoury of any regime, and is employed as if it was for the very first time in Pakistan’s history that a watchful eye was being kept on prices. A watchful eye, yes. But just to watch. Nothing beyond that.

WHEN President George Bush called for a ‘crusade’ against terrorism last fall, flustered aides quickly claimed he had misspoken and really didn’t mean to invoke the medieval Christian invasions of Muslim nations.

But in his bellicose State of the Union speech recently, evangelical Christian George Bush left no doubt that a crusade was exactly what he had meant. Better a crusade than facing the spreading Enron scandal or explaining away a looming deficit brought on by reckless spending.

Or explaining the mess made by the Administration in Afghanistan: spreading chaos and warfare; Russia’s takeover of the north in alliance with old Afghan communists; full force resumption of heroin exports to the US, thanks to the overthrow of Taliban; 5,000-plus civilians killed by punitive US bombing; murder or inhumane treatment of captured enemy fighters; and, of course, the escape of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership.

No matter. Afghanistan, trumpets the White House, was a great military victory that will be duplicated against other Muslim malefactors who resist America’s will.

Bush proclaimed in Churchillian tones that an ‘axis of evil’ composed of ‘terrorist nations’ Iraq, Iran, and North Korea threatened the US and the world. This silly, simplistic reduction of complex foreign policy issues into comic book terms, and Bush’s threats of more military action around the world, made good political theatre in the US, where war hysteria has been stoked to fever pitch by the White House and the all too accommodating American media. The State Department was apparently not consulted about Bush’s saber-rattling speech, leaving Secretary of State Colin Powell out in the cold.

Interestingly, the most-wanted on America’s new hit list — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — just happen also to be top enemies of Israel. (North Korea supplies missile components and technology to Israel’s Arab foes.)

A near unanimity of policy and views has developed between the Bush administration’s super-hawks and Israel’s hard right Likud government led by Ariel Sharon. Both are intent on liquidating any Muslims who resist, both have declared war on the PLO and its chief, Yasser Arafat, both view resistance by Muslims as ‘terrorism, ‘ and both routinely disregard international law and UN resolutions. In short, Gen. Sharon’s iron-fisted policies have become those of George Bush. Bush’s speech made disturbingly clear that the US has become the enemy of the Muslim world. Muslims nations must either bow to American diktat or be deemed hostile.

White House claims that Iran is a mortal danger to the US because: (a) it supports Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, and (b) is trying to develop limited strategic weapons. This shows how disconnected from reality the administration has become, and how much its policies are being shaped by parties who do not always place America’s interests first.

Hezbollah waged a long, dirty guerilla war against Israel’s long occupation of southern Lebanon. Israel and its media supporters branded Hezbollah ‘terrorists.’ But most nations regarded Hezbollah as a legitimate national resistance movement fighting to free Lebanon from Israeli occupation, which was repeatedly ruled illegal by the UN and in violation of international law.

Iran helped arm and finance Hezbollah, whose guerrillas were to Iran what the Nicaraguan Contras and Afghan ‘freedom fighters’ were to America. To brand Iran a ‘terrorist state’ because of its support of a legitimate resistance movement is mendacious and Orwellian.

Iran has opposed US hegemony in the Mideast, sometimes by covert operations. But bombings of US military bases long blamed on Iran was done by the Al Qaeda group. Before damning Iran, look at America’s own record.

During WWII, the US, Britain, and the USSR invaded Iran, an independent nation. In 1953, the US and Britain overthrew Iran’s government when it sought to gain control of its own oil resources. The US put Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi on the throne and kept his outrageously corrupt, kleptomaniac regime in power through the army and the dreaded US and Israel-trained secret police, SAVAK, which tortured and killed tens of thousands of Iranians.

After the Shah was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution, the US sent Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to invade Iran and crush its Islamic government. The US secretly supplied Iraq with money, arms, intelligence, and chemical and biological weapons. The US shot down an Iranian civilian airliner and waged a naval war against Iran in the Gulf. Iraq’s invasion cost Iran 250,000-500,000 dead. —Copyright Eric S. Margolis, 2002.