PAKISTAN’s relationship with America, which is central to its foreign policy goals, has undergone a dramatic change since its involvement as a frontline state in the war on terrorism. The anti-terror campaign, combined with the new American global agenda and Pakistan’s own internal and external compulsions, have provided the two nations a solid framework for cooperation.

President Musharraf’s visit to the US did help in further consolidating this new-found relationship in symbolic as well as substantive terms. Apart from enhancing General Musharraf’s domestic and international standing, it has helped regain some of Pakistan’s lost prestige and bring immediate gains as well as improve long-term prospects for US-Pakistan relationship.

The economic package providing for debt retirement equivalent to over a billion dollars, economic and military assistance and trade concessions may be insufficient to offset the full economic costs of the Afghan war in terms of a drop in GDP and a fall in exports and investment. But the earlier suspension of nuclear and democracy-related sanctions, along with the new economic incentives, indicates a clear desire on the part of the US of cooperating with Pakistan in its efforts to promote economic and political stability in Pakistan.

Equally significant is the long-term security relationship that the two countries are embarking upon. For this they have agreed to revive the defence consultative group with an expanded role for it. Pakistan is now described as a “strategic partner”, in sharp contrast to the pariah and “failed state” categorization of yesteryear. True, for the time being it would not mean the release of F-16s or any major weapons systems for sale. But eventually it could lead to that provided Pakistan’s policies continue to evolve in a direction that does not run counter to important US interests and also if its economy is robust enough to afford such purchases.

Good relations with the US are an important factor in countervailing Indian hegemony. American presence in Central and South Asia can be a stabilizing force in the region and could serve Pakistan’s interests at least in the short and medium terms as it needs quite a years of peace to address its major domestic problems and to concentrate on development. By accepting a relatively benign American dominant role in the region, Pakistan expects to benefit in the form of a cheek on Indian pressure, cooperation in certain defence fields, lifting of sanctions, economic assistance, freer access for Pakistani exports and better prospects of investment. Today, the United States is in an extraordinary position of power and influence and has become an indispensable player in efforts to solve the regional problems be they in Afghanistan, Central Asia or between India and Pakistan.

India is somewhat uneasy about the American presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It perceives it as a threat to its own hegemonic designs because it will inhibit the promotion of its own distinctive interests in the region. Apart from the fact that it wants America to keep pressure on Islamabad to stop support for the Mujahideen in Kashmir, it wants no other regional role for Washington. But the question is: will the US want to counter the spread of Indian power? No doubt, in the past the US worked with secondary powers such as Ukraine and some Eastern European countries to contain the Russian power, but then the objective conditions in the two regions are very different as the US is developing a close political and strategic relationship with India. Furthermore, even if it adopts a balance of power approach, it would still want to have good relations with both India and Pakistan though for a different set of reasons, which are not mutually exclusive.

With limited investment of resources Washington has already been able to leverage its position in the region. It has a military presence in both Central and as South Asia and is well positioned to minimize or counter potential hegemonic tendencies of the major regional players if it chooses to do so. Besides, it can pursue its national interests being so close now to the strategic oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. Probably already sensing these moves by the US, India has developed its own counter-strategy by expanding its military and nuclear power and getting closer to the Russians as a strategic ally to offset the probably US dominance in the region. Pakistan too could muster additional strength by seeking extra-regional support, say from China.

Although Beijing currently is in no mood to be distracted from its unflinching commitment to internal economic and social development and wants to steer clear of Indo-Pakistan rivalry. Ironically, its foreign policy in some ways appears to reflect an awareness of America’s growing presence in South and Central Asia. It wants to develop good relations with the two South Asian rivals to maximize its own influence even if it means overlooking India’s aspirations to emerge as a major rival and a countervailing force in the context of Asia.

Pakistan’s apprehension in the past that the US in its romanticized liason with India may allow the region to evolve on its own, meaning thereby that India would be left free to dominate it, seems an unlikely prospect in the present circumstances. Undoubtedly, India’s democracy and its secular political system and ambience are congruent with western norms and values. Then there is the recognition of the fact that India is on its way to becoming a major Asian power and in the context of the China factor it is supposed to be the only equalizer. All this leads to the decoupling of India and Pakistan to some extent in US-policy making.

Washington, however, realizes that the risk inherent in this approach is that once India acquires an elevated power base and an unchallenged regional status it may pursue policies which may even be incompatible with America’s long term interests. In any case, Washington perceives its foreign relations not as a zero-sum game in the Pak-India context, as our gains are not necessarily India’s losses and vice versa. In this web of conflicting and sometimes overlapping requirements, US policy of South Asia is likely to be heavily influenced both by extra-regional considerations and the intrinsic strength and stability of the regional actors. Success of economic reforms, development of democratic institutions and the emergence of a vibrant civil society in Pakistan thus acquire even greater significance in the light of these considerations.

There are other factors which could influence US-Pakistan relations. For instance, the public here would be very critical of the US if it were to use force against Iraq or Iran in its unilateral drive to punish these states. Undoubtedly, Washington is in a mood of being interventionist and unilateralist applying double standards where it suits its purpose, but hopefully it will not continue it be so for fear of losing the support of its allies and polarizing the world.

We should, however, expect that America would continue aggressively to contain and confront militant Islam from wherever it emanates. The scars of 9/11 are too fresh in the American psyche to make a clear distinction between terrorism and freedom struggle or to address the root causes of conflicts.

Ultimately, durable relations among nations are based on shared values and political principles. If Pakistan can return to democracy on a sound institutional basis and is able to combat extremism within its body politic, it will command greater acceptability and respect in the US policy-making circles.

America is today defining its worldview more in practical and less in moral terms as complex global trends are shaping the world. We must make a sobre assessment of these developments. The United States enjoys a pre-eminent position in today’s unipolar world. Its military power is overwhelming and its economic strength unmatched.

We have to realize that that US policy in South Asia possesses competing and contradictory objectives and it is important to evaluate these in order to make a more informed judgment.

The United States and for that matter the other members of the western world and also China and Japan have a substantial interest in helping Pakistan to overcome its current economic, political and social difficulties. They are interested in a “transformed” Pakistan so that it ceases to be a threat as a militant society and would help itself in the fields of education, economy and the development of a sound democratic system. Washington would like a reduction of tensions between India and Pakistan even if it cannot help in finding a solution to the Kashmir dispute, because they realize that the country’s domestic life is badly distorted by overmilitarization.

Even if we cannot move forward for a settlement of the Kashmir problem, it may be important for Pakistan, for reasons of self-interest and current compulsions, to lesson tensions with India to free up resources for more productive purposes. The current US role of pacifying the two South Asian rivals can have a stabilising effect on the region. The best that we can expect of the US is that it will protect us from Indian hegemony and provide enough space for us to grapple with our acute internal political and socio-economic problems and challenges.

The writer is a retired lieutenant-general of the Pakistan army.

I CAN’T help crying. As soon as I see a person on TV telling the heart-rendering story of the tragic fate of their loved-one in the World Trade Centre disaster, I can’t control my tears.

But then I wonder why didn’t I cry when our troops wiped out some 5,000 poor people in Panama’s El Chorillo neighbourhood on the excuse of looking for Noriega. Our leaders knew he was hiding elsewhere but we destroyed El Chorillo because the folks living there were nationalists who wanted the US out of Panama completely.

Worse still, why didn’t I cry when we killed two million Vietnamese, mostly innocent peasants, in a war which its main architect, Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, knew we could not win? When I went to give blood the other day, I spotted a Cambodian doing the same, three up in the line, and that reminded me: Why didn’t I cry when we helped Pol Pot butcher another million by giving him arms and money, because he was opposed to “our enemy” (who eventually stopped the killing fields)?

To stay up but not cry that evening, I decided to go to a movie. I chose Lumumba, at the Film Forum, and again I realized that I hadn’t cried when our government arranged for the murder of the Congo’s only decent leader, to be replaced by General Mobutu, a greedy, vicious, murdering dictator. Nor did I cry when the CIA arranged for the overthrow of Indonesia’s Soekarno, who had fought the Japanese World War II invaders and established a free independent country, and then replaced him by another general, Suharto, who had collaborated with the Japanese and who proceeded to execute at least half a million “Marxists” (in a country where, if folks had ever heard of Marx, it was at best Groucho)?

I watched TV again last night and cried again at the picture of that wonderful now-missing father playing with his two-month old child. Yet when I remembered the slaughter of thousands of Salvadorans, so graphically described in the Times by Ray Bonner, or the rape and murder of those American nuns and lay sisters there, all perpetrated by CIA trained and paid agents, I never shed a tear.

I even cried when I heard how brave had been Barbara Olson, wife of the solicitor-general, whose political views I detested. But I didn’t cry when the US invaded that wonderful tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada and killed innocent citizens who hoped to get a better life by building a tourist airfield, which my government called proof of a Russian base, but then finished building once the island was secure in the US camp again.

Why didn’t I cry when Ariel Sharon, now Israel’s prime minister, planned, then ordered, the massacre of two thousand poor Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, the same Sharon who, with such other Irgun and Stern Gang terrorists become prime ministers as Begin and Shamir, killed the wives and children of British officers by blowing up the King David hotel where they were billeted?

I guess one cries only for one’s own. But is that a reason to demand vengeance on anyone who might disagree with us? That’s what Americans seem to want. Certainly our government does, and so too most of our media. Do we really believe that we have a right to exploit the poor folk of the world for our benefit, because we claim we are free and they are not?

We are certainly entitled to go after those who killed so many of our innocent brothers and sisters. And we’ll win, of course. Against Osama bin Laden. Against Taliban. Against Iraq. Against whoever and whatever. In the process we’ll kill a few innocent children again. Children who have no clothes for the winter. No houses to shelter them. And no schools to learn why they are guilty, at two or four or six years old. Maybe Evangelists Farwell and Robertson will claim their death is good because they weren’t Christians, and maybe some State Department spokesperson will tell the world that they were so poor that they’re now better off.

And then what? Will we now be able to run the world the way we want to? With all the new legislation establishing massive surveillance of you and me, our CEOs will certainly be pleased that the folks demonstrating against globalization will now be cowed for ever. No more riots in Seattle, Quebec or Genoa. Peace at last.

Until next time. Who will it be then? A child grown-up who survived our massacre of his innocent parents in El Chorillo? A Nicaraguan girl who learned that her doctor mother and father were murdered by a bunch of gangsters we called democratic contras who read in the CIA handbook that the best way to destroy the only government which was trying to give the country’s poor a better lot was to kill its teachers, health personnel and government farm workers? Or maybe it will be a bitter Chilean who is convinced that his whole family was wiped out on order of Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who could never tell the difference between a communist and a democratic socialist or even a nationalist.

When will we Americans learn that as long as we keep trying to run the world for the sake of the bottom line, we will suffer someone’s revenge? No war will ever stop terrorism as long as we use terror to have our way. So I stopped crying because I stopped watching TV. I went for a walk. Just four houses from mine. There, a crowd had congregated to lay flowers and lit candles in front of our local firehouse. It was closed. It had been closed since long because the firemen, a wonderful bunch of friendly guys who always greeted neighbourhood folks with smiles and good cheer, had rushed so fast to save the victims of the first tower that they perished with them when it collapsed. And I cried again.

So I said to myself when I wrote this, don’t send it; some of your students, colleagues, neighbours will hate you, maybe even harm you. But then I put on the TV again, and there was Secretary of State Powell telling me that it will be okay to go to war against these children, these poor folks, these US-haters, because we are civilized and they are not. So I decided to risk it. Maybe, reading this, one more person will ask: Why are so many people in the world ready to die to give us a taste of what we give them?

The writer is Professor of Political Science, Queen’s College and the Graduate Centre, CUNY, US.

THE large number of foreign delegates to the regional meeting of the International Chamber of Commerce in Karachi for two days came to have a good idea of the investment climate in Pakistan and the country’s economic prospects in the medium term.

Government officials led by commerce minister Razak Dawood and finance minister Shaukat Aziz explained the policies of the government, their readiness to help the investors all the way, and the government’s expectations from them. Minister for Petroleum Usman Ameenuddin spoke of the possible need for importing oil for over eight million dollars by the year 2010-11 instead of 3 billion dollars as at present. That means there is plenty of scope for investing in the oil and gas sectors which are giving good dividends to the investors. And the Minister for Privatization Altaf Saleem sketched out the government’s mega privatization programme which is to be given a big boost in the coming months and years.

Internationally Pakistan now presents a far better economic picture than before the September 11 terrorist attack in the US with its political fallout around the world. The debt burden has been considerably lightened, and instead of rising by 19 per cent as it did in 1990 to 1999 it increased by only 0.4 per cent in the last two years, says the finance minister. And the deal with the Paris Club has reduced the debt liabilities by 2.7 billion dollars.

Outflow of funds from the country has eased a great deal, while the inflow has increased. The foreign exchange reserves now exceed five billion dollars, inclusive of the privately held reserves in banks, and the exchange rate of the rupee has stabilized around 60 to a dollar instead of racing towards 70 to a dollar. The rate of inflation growth is also low compared to the double-digit inflation of the 1990s, due to both external and internal factors.

Of course, there are setbacks in the area of revenue collection, budget deficit and fall in exports due to the global recession. But those deficits are manageable due to sizable external assistance, lower cost of debt servicing and the swaps being negotiated to exchange debt repayments for funding the social sector.

In spite of such obvious developments not much of foreign investment may come in the immediate future. The reasons are many. And they made the secretary-general of the ICC Maria Cattaui say investors’ confidence in Pakistan remains weak which should be addressed. She also warned the conference of the high social cost incurred in implementing the economic reforms programme.

The finance minister gave details of reforms in all the sectors relevant to foreign investment or overall investment. He said President Musharraf was setting up a cabinet committee to suggest modalities for eliminating irritants and red tape, and the opportunities for corruption created by such procedures.

The federal law minister Shahida Jameel spoke of the measures the government was taking to protect copyright and intellectual property rights which has been the long standing demand of foreign companies. After hearing such ministerial commitments and assurances one of the delegates said it would be interesting to explore large scale investment prospects in Pakistan after the promised reforms are carried out, and many of the irritants and uncertainties were removed.

The uncertainties are not all economic or fiscal. To begin with violence breaks out in Afghanistan frequently and the US is forced to bomb the country from time to time. And that has its fallout in Pakistan. The tension with India which has massed its forces on our borders has not eased. India clearly wants to hurt Pakistan economically and negate its recent economic gains as much as possible. Then there is the law and order problem in Pakistan highlighted now by the kidnapping of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. To add to that, there is the political uncertainty.

The delegates to the ICC meeting were told that Gen. Musharraf would be around guiding the country after the October elections as well. But the foreign investors are not sure about the workability of the new political set-up and whether the new government would stick to the reforms and assurances of the military rulers. The investors want to ensure safety and a reasonable return on their investment in a developing country with all its hazards.

The infrastructure is inadequate for large scale foreign investment, except in the petroleum sector, where the interest is pretty good and rewarding. There is shortage of power and water. Additional investment has to be made to produce one’s own power. Roads are a major problem. And poor roads discourage investors going into the distant countryside for investment and exposing themselves to criminals and kidnappers.

Taxation continues to be a major problem for foreign investors. While the domestic investors are able to get around the heavy taxation through devious means, foreign investors are reluctant to adopt such tactics. And that includes Pakistani executives of foreign companies as well.

The Central Board of Revenue continues to be viewed by investors as a dragon. Taxation officers tell executives of the multinational companies that they are rich enough to pay the large revenues demanded of them. And that outrages these companies. The CBR is to be reformed or thoroughly overhauled following the recommendations of the Taxation Reforms Committee headed by Shahid Husain, former vice-president of the World Bank, but the reform process is too slow and resistance from the CBR too strong.

The Labour laws are still pretty primitive or crude and the reform attempts are too slow. Hence companies are taking in new employees very slowly and too cautiously. Employers have been clamouring for the right to hire and fire for long. As the employees federations resisted that, the employers have been resorting to devious means to do both and hurting the interests of the employees. The government ought to move fast in this area and the employees have to become more realistic and give employment expansion as much importance as preservation of existing jobs on existing terms.

The legal system of the country has to become good enough to decide commercial disputes quick whether they be between the companies and the government or between the companies themselves instead of taking a very long time. The judges too should not play a partisan role in disputes between foreign companies and Pakistanis. Instead they should come to fair decisions quick and get them enforced.

The government is reported to be processing several legal measures in this area. But what matters is not only the law but also its execution for which the government and the judiciary have to take special steps.

Foreign investors also find it tough to get the rich Pakistani partners. Now they find too many of the possible partners are large defaulters of bank loans. Pakistani partners tend to think in terms of short term gains instead of long term partnerships. Most Pakistani investors are accustomed to managing their own business under family management and are not accustomed to corporate management. That approach has to give way to modern management styles.

When it came to the taxes which are too many Shaukat Aziz said the solution lay in reducing the federal taxes to three — income tax, sales tax and customs revenues in a country which has about 102 taxes, federal provincial and local. But the government is too slow to move in that direction, while the province are dragging their feet in reducing the number of their taxes which earlier was 27.

Governor Mohammadmian Soomro is delighted by the foreign food outlets which are opening in the country and expanding. There are franchises of about 10 American, British and even Mexican companies. He is happy Pakistanis are flocking to such food outlets, and he even gave a special award for Pizza Hut, Clifton, for record sales around the world.

But what the country needs is large scale manufacturing units which provide large scale employment, help expand exports and provide for import substitution. We need introduction of new technology. We need a revolution in our manufacturing methods to face the challenges of globalization and conform to the demands of the World Trade Organization.

AMERICAN policy-makers are in real trouble. They do not know how to convince the Muslim world of what they believe to be their concept of the current war against terrorism. And they will continue to remain confused unless they recognize that they have to change their policies, particularly in relation to the Palestine-Israel issue.

This was the stark message that came out of a discussion on ‘Talking With the Islamic World: Is the Message Getting Through?’ at the Georgetown University on Tuesday.

Whichever way the speakers or the questioners turned, this was the proposition that kept cropping up. Even Christopher Ross, one of the US government’s top Middle East specialists and currently senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs (the highfalutin title adopted for the new public outreach effort), admitted that during a recent tour of the region, the uniformity of views he got was quite remarkable.

He was told that if he wanted to find out how the American image could be improved, he would not be able to do anything unless he could change American policy, especially on the question of Palestine. He said the refrain he heard was that the US was practising double standards.

The overriding impression from what was said at the seminar, which was arranged by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy as the first of a three-part series, was that American credibility, despite whatever support the Bush administration may be getting from assorted leaders in Muslim countries, is low.

One questioner stood up to ask why, if the US wanted peace, it did not publicly, simply and directly declare that it accepted a Palestine state within the pre-1967 borders and that it stood for an end to occupation of land captured since 1967. That is stated policy, Mr Ross said: how we get to that point is the point. The Bush administration, he said, had gone beyond previous governments in outlining a vision for the future and in recognizing the need for a Palestinian state. There was a failure of leadership in the region, “and we cannot help that”.

But where is the harm in spelling out in clear terms what the questioner suggested? In this context, one of the panelists pointed out that a couple of months ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell had presented the US view of the region by underlining the need for the creation of an independent Palestine state and an end to occupation. But then pro-Israel groups had moved into top gear, and a deliberate effort was made by Israel to undercut the Powell statement.

The Israeli occupation, and the cost it is extracting in terms of people killed and the subjugation of Palestinians to a status of virtual serfdom, is so dominant that other problems are being pushed into the background. Mr Ross told the seminar that what did not come out in his discussions with his interlocutors in the Middle East was a keenness to discuss Afghanistan or attitudes towards Islam, and there was general acceptance of the fact that America’s current campaign was not seen as directed against Islam as a religion. This, if Mr Ross probes further, may turn out to be a merely regional reaction, confined, moreover, to a certain class of enlightened and educated Arabs.

If Mr Ross went to Pakistan, he might encounter different nuances. He might find that while there’s not much passion for the Palestinian cause, there’s great indignation against the US support for Israel, and that at the heart of this indignation is the common perception of the US campaign against Afghanistan as drifting, as Akbar S. Ahmad, who holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and was one of the panelists at Tuesday’s discussion, pointed out, into a situation of the US vs the Muslim world. Dr Akbar Ahmad also, pertinently, drew everyone’s attention to the fact that Arabs constitute only about 20 per cent of the world’s Muslim population.

The “axis of evil” phrase coined by President George Bush or his speechwriters also inevitably raised its head in the discussion. Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent of the London-based Arabic Al Hayat, was forthright in saying that as long as Israel was allowed to keep its weapons of mass destruction, no one in the Arab world was going to accept the US charge against Iraq that the country needed to be punished because it was acquiring similar weapons.

Nor, she said, would the accusation hold water that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator as long as Washington continued to support Ariel Sharon. She referred to UN resolutions on Iraq, and said these nowhere mentioned a regime change in Baghdad, although the removal of Saddam Hussein now appeared to be the overriding concern of the US administration.

It was a good and an open discussion, carried out in a spirit of inquiry, and was indicative of one of the strengths of American polity, its readiness to discuss and debate, but whether it will prove of more than academic interest in the present atmosphere of bashing “rogue” states and groups must remain a moot point. Americans ask why do the Arabs hate us, Dr James Zogby of the Arab American Institute said, but they should remember that the Arabs are also asking the same question: Why do the Americans seem to hate us so much?