As far as Pak-US relationship is concerned, everything seems hunky-dory. But is it really true?

PAKISTAN is in the bad books of oft-quoted western think tanks that give it pathetic ratings in their yearly auditing. Having its name dragged through the mud hardly causes the present military rulers any more heartburn than the preceding zombies occupying the seat of power. Many a bad report is biting the dust around Islamabad secretariats. Tossed into that damning heap will be these ones.

So what else is new?

Here’s what is new: since Bush became “tight” with Musharraf and opened up his dollar pipeline, his favourite foundation is finding plenty wrong with Islamabad, especially the way it does business, both domestic and international.

The Washington-based powerhouse called the Heritage Foundation is universally acknowledged as America’s “shadow government”. Apart from sitting on sack loads of money, it’s a Masonic society of neo-conservatives, dubbed neo-cons — a cult that has become a household dread since George W’s ascension to power.

While Heritage Foundation folks have not yet raised any flaming red flags against Pakistan, they have nevertheless put out warnings for Americans and Europeans ‘stupid’ enough to do business with Islamabad.

America’s champion of “policy research and analysis”, the Heritage Foundation, over a decade has expertly expanded into the arena of world economics, becoming the godfather of “Economic Freedom” assigning itself the head examiner’s role of measuring the economic performance of all countries around the world “as a tool for policymakers and investors”.

Assisting the foundation with its economic global gerrymandering is The Wall Street Journal, the shameless promoter of neo-cons’ agenda. For years, the journal’s editorial page has advocated America’s continuous meddling in foreign affairs so as to create an international business climate favourable to its large multinational corporations.

“The journal has often published commentary pieces indicating that the US is in a war with Islam and that it needs to gain a foothold in the Middle East to squelch radical Islam and promote a secularized Islam in order to assure the expansion of its version of American democracy and capitalism (really fascism) to every corner of the planet,” writes economist Jim Grichar, once a government insider. Their latest “Economic Freedom Index” puts Pakistan in 133 position out of 161 countries. The index clearly says that the country’s performance has worsened.

“The economy has been hampered by heavy state involvement, widespread corruption, political instability, chronic tensions with India, and low levels of foreign investment.”

Statistics from the World Bank, the IMF, the Economist Intelligence Unit and the US Trade Representative are tossed around freely by the authors of this index to lend it credence.

Variables like trade policy, fiscal burden, government intervention, monetary policy, banking and finance, wages and price, property rights, regulation and informal markets (black markets) in Pakistan’s case reflect a poor showing.

The worst is the foreign investment variable, the bulk of which comes in the shape of an indictment from the US Department of Commerce, which like the sod’s law believes that anything that can go wrong will go wrong: “Reasons for low [foreign direct investment] inflows include significant security threats to foreign interests in Pakistan; concerns about political instability; inadequate infrastructure; delays in the privatization of state-owned enterprises; past protracted disputes between foreign investors and the government; piracy of intellectual property; arbitrary and non-transparent application of government regulations; and resistance to the adoption of new policies by some elements of federal and provincial bureaucracies who have not yet fully adjusted to the new, more open economic environment ...”

If you think this is a mouthful, wait, there’s more to follow.

“Foreign investors in Pakistan have complained of being subject to a confusing array of federal and provincial taxes and controls. Their application, with considerable administrative discretion, has been a source of inefficiency and corruption.”

Is this not a frontal attack by America on Pakistan? Actually, the best people to answer this question are PM Shaukat Aziz and his wannabe PM and commerce minister Humayun Akhtar.

Both the smarts ooze confidence and charisma.

Messrs Aziz and Akhtar need to jiggle their act and not just attend foreign junkets as solo singers of their economy or hymning to domestic herds on how great they are and what a good job their man in uniform has done in winning friends and influencing business abroad.

Different strokes for different folks has long been the axiom. When Nawaz Sharif froze our foreign accounts in the dark of night, do you honestly believe that the Sharifs and their gluttonous party men too got their dollars frozen?

If so, my response is: that’s a load of poppycock.

Ask the general who squealed about foreman Saifur Rehman and brother Mujib — the chemists from Ichra chowk, Lahore — who overnight transferred huge tranche of foreign exchange abroad but were poker-faced about it.

Nawaz’s Jeeves and jailbird, oops! I mean the principal secretary sacked the poor general for opening his ‘big mouth’ to the press. But I digress, let’s return to the present regime — the chip of the old bloc, would you not say?

Agreed that the country’s economy is heading south; agreed that its leadership is in the hands of serial incompetent and corrupt civilians and army men, but here’s a zinger: the hawks at the Heritage Foundation are no angels either. Unravelling the foundation’s interest in running an Islamic country like Pakistan down may prove telling.

The creation of the influential heritage was probably the “single most important event in the development of a national network of conservative policy-oriented institutions”. Founded in 1973 by the “anti-labour, racist, homophobic brewery magnate Joseph Coors together and funded by corporations like Gulf Oil, Hyundai, Exxon, Phillip Morris, United Parcel Service Foundation. In seven short years it had bagged “87 top corporations” as its supporters. By the turn of the century, it had an annual budget of $50 million.

The idea behind this power packed foundation is to wield maximum influence on policymakers by presenting them policy recommendations called “Mandate for Leadership”, thus becoming the “gargantuan feeding trough for the military-industrial complex”. Envisioning a world in which America is the unchallenged superpower, the neo-cons, mostly Jewish and pro-Israel bigots, believe that the US has a responsibility to act as a “benevolent global hegemon.”

They want the US to create “democratic, economically liberal governments in place of ‘failed states’ or oppressive regimes they deem threatening to the US or its interests.” Hence the “Economic Freedom Index”.

The Economist has aired views of “some critics” who say that the “index judges countries against a specious list of ‘ideal’ economic and fiscal policies, which reflect the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal’s own laissez-faire and fiscal policy ideas more than they do a substantive concept of economic freedom.”

It’s “simply a promotional tool for laissez-faire policy, rather than a meaningful index of economically free countries”. Is the heritage, then, pandering more ideology than solid research? Its own president answers the question: “We don’t just stress credibility ... We stress an efficient, effective delivery system. Production is one side; marketing is equally important,” says Edwin J. Feulner.

Heritage vice-president of government relations, David Mason, goes a step further when he says “we come up with the ideas and then provide the research and analysis to people who will champion those ideas in the political arena.”

To complete the picture of how analysis is conducted, here’s a quote from a critic who insists that the foundation has “hired dozens of relatively inexperienced policy analysts who are largely told what to write and how to write it. In this way, the foundation has been able to run with current events and issues, feeding ideas to Congressional sympathizers while exerting constant pressure on more liberal lawmakers via lobbying and media manipulation.”

So what’s the answer for concerned Pakistanis?

“The popular answer is that foreign powers are screwing you,” writes correspondent of REASON, Michael Lynch, but “the correct answer is that your own political powers are screwing you. And that things won’t get better until that’s fixed”.

Do you agree?