MORE than four years after a US-led invasion force delivered to Afghanistan the gifts of freedom and democracy, the man behind the enterprise finally plucked up the courage for a quick trip to Kabul.

Four hours, more or less, and undertaken in a semi-surreptitious manner, in an unavoidable nod to reality: the fact that the patient has suffered a relapse of sorts. There was time enough, of course, for Hamid Karzai to be favoured with a pat on the back, and for a resurrection of the all-but-forgotten vow that Osama bin Laden’s capture is a question of when, not if. But not much else.

Pakistan has been copping much of the blame for the Taliban resurgence in certain Afghan provinces, and George W. Bush was evidently urged to reiterate this “nonsense” — as General Pervez Musharraf has categorized it — during his day trip to Islamabad. Kabul views the long, porous border between the two countries as a source of subversion and instability. In itself, that is not a particularly contentious stance. But there are two sides to every border, and while Afghanistan may not have much of an army, it hosts a fairly large number of American and Nato troops. Why, then, should border protection exclusively be deemed Pakistan’s responsibility?

It’s not clear whether this topic came up in talks between Bush and Musharraf, and the latter is unlikely to have raised the matter of the Predator attacks that claimed a number of civilian lives on the Pakistan side of the border in January. Perhaps the most extraordinary facet of the Damadola missile strike was that Pakistan’s official reaction consisted of token protests as well as purported justifications for the American action. It is perfectly possible that Ayman Al Zawahiri was indeed the intended target, but the aftermath of the incident had the whiff of a cover-up about it — and the Pakistani authorities were suspected of being less than frank about their foreknowledge of the attack.

By the same token, it is difficult to dispel the suspicion that the recent warfare in North Waziristan was at least timed, if not designed, for the American visitor’s edification. Bush was anyhow going to hail Musharraf as an invaluable partner in the “long war” (previously known as the “war on terror”), but — someone might have thought — why not give him a bit of live action to chew upon? On the other hand, if the sketchy reports of scores of deaths in Miramshah and its environs are credible and the casualties are indeed terrorists or extremists, wouldn’t that suggest that the four-year drive against such forces has been a less than resounding success?

Not all Americans share their president’s enthusiasm for Musharraf: The Washington Post, for instance, has lately been consistently scathing in its assessments. In January it accused “this meretricious military ruler” of “avoiding an all-out campaign against the Islamic extremists in his country” and advised the US government to attack targets in Pakistan with impunity. Last week it editorialised: It’s time for the United States to stop banking on this unreliable general and start planning for the democratic government that should succeed him.”

Lamentably, there is no democratic government on the horizon, but it’s the people of Pakistan who need to start planning for it, not the US government. Pakistan could do with democracy, but not of the Iraqi or Afghan variety. Bush appears to take at face value Musharraf’s promises of progress towards representative rule, but that’s likely to be no more than a convenient stance.

Notwithstanding all the rhetoric about democracy, the US has traditionally been more than comfortable with the idea of autocrats or dictators as long as they toe the line. And one of the theories currently being propounded on the neo-conservative fringes of the American intelligentsia is that some countries require a strong pair of hands at the helm. It’s a rehashed version of the old falsehood that meaningful electoral politics simply doesn’t suit the genius of certain nations.

The intellectual handwringing is mostly related to Iraq, which did not rate a mention during Bush’s subcontinental jaunt, except in protesters’ slogans. Nearly three years after it was invaded, the country is far more of a shambles than it was under Saddam Hussein’s rule. Efforts of precipitating a sectarian war almost met with success last month, amid hundreds of deaths. According to at least one prominent supporter of the invasion, Daniel Pipes — a particularly insidious instance of the nexus between neo-conservatism and Zionism — a civil war wouldn’t be a strategic disaster for the US, because if Iraqis get caught up in killing each other, their interest in targeting Americans would wane.

It is unlikely that cynicism of this variety carries much weight with most Americans. They can recognize a disaster when they see one. An opinion poll on the eve of Bush’s trip found that his popularity had slipped to an all-time low of 34 per cent (which still makes him almost twice as popular as Dick Cheney). His handling of the economy is not unrelated to this dire rating, but Iraq is a large part of the mix. Meanwhile, a poll among American troops in Iraq revealed that 72 per cent of them favour a pullout this year, and a third of those are keen on an immediate withdrawal — despite continued evidence of brainwashing: no less than 86 per cent of the troops believe they are in Iraq “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks.”

It was chiefly on account of his role as the conqueror of Iraq that Bush attracted the attention of tens of thousands of demonstrators in India. Furthermore, the prospect of hecklers persuaded the Indian government against arranging an address to parliament. And the Red Fort was considered a security risk, so the American visitor had to make a speech from the Purana Qila to — as Arundhati Roy put it — “an approved list of caged human beings who in India go under the category of ‘eminent persons’. They’re mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.”

That comes across as a pretty accurate description of the sort of people Bush and his ilk prefer to mingle with. He noted shortly before his visit: “India’s middle class is now estimated at 300 million people .... That’s greater than the entire population of the United States. India’s middle class is buying air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and washing machines, and a lot of them from American companies such as GE and Whirlpool.”

Going by the way he puts it, much of this is a revelation to the US president: India isn’t one of his notorious “dark corners of the globe” awaiting enlightenment but a thriving if noisy capitalist democracy. A huge market. An only partially exploited source of cheap skilled labour. And a potential counterbalance to China. Hence the wooing of India, primarily with a nuclear deal that effectively legitimizes its status as nuclear power.

This deal could face resistance in the US Congress, even though the administration says there are no double standards involved: India is being rewarded and Iran threatened with sanctions or worse because the former is “our” kind of democracy. Besides, Tehran is accused of violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while India (like Pakistan) never signed it. According to John Bolton, the profoundly conservative and instinctively belligerent US ambassador to the UN, India and Pakistan developed their nuclear weapons “legitimately”, while Iran could face military action for violating its international obligations. Bolton did not bring up Israel’s nuclear armoury, but chances are he had it in mind.

But what if Iran opted out of the NPT? And what if other nations that are not signatories to the NPT decided to follow the Indo-Pak example? The Bush administration might not have thought through the implications of its exceptionalism, but Congress could take a different view. Which would probably please Pakistan, which is somewhat miffed at not having been offered the same deal as India. There is a valid reason for this discrimination, and it goes by the name of A.Q. Khan. It is also not very difficult to understand why Bush courted Manmohan Singh while taking Musharraf and Karzai for granted. Unlike the nuclear deal with India, the strategic framework signed with Pakistan means precious little: the unequal partnership that it exalts has existed since the 1950s. For India, on the other hand, close ties with the US are something of a novelty. And India clearly has the clout to prevent the relationship from lapsing into one of automatic subservience. Whether it has the nous to exercise that clout is a different matter.

Bush aficionados in Pakistan (yes, they do exist) may draw some comfort from the fact that he chose our soil — well, almost — to demonstrate his interest in cricket. However, as Stephen Moss pointed out in The Guardian on Monday, it might have helped if he’s spent more time trying to understand cricketing concepts, such as the idea of a draw. “No one,” he says, “who truly appreciates cricket’s narrative complexities and its suspicion of ‘closure’ would wage anything so unwinnable as a war on terror. Back to the nets, Mr President, and get that front foot forward, or you’re sure to be caught at silly point.”

Howzat?!

Email: mahirali1@gmail.com