A patron-client relationship

WHEN we began our journey as an independent, “sovereign” state, the cold war was setting in, and the East-West division would soon become fairly rigid and inclusive. At that time our politicians and higher civil servants tended to look to Britain for clues to the course of action they might adopt, and since the British were allied with the United States, we assumed a generally pro-American posture. Nobody forced us to go this way; we did so of our own accord.

This was also the time when we had fought a war with India in Kashmir to our disadvantage, and our relations with that country was tense. The state of our military preparedness and that of our economy left much to be desired. We needed help and we saw a source from which it might come — that is, the United States. We figured also that the Soviet Union, being in rather modest economic circumstances and already leaning towards India, would not want to do very much for us.

NATO had been formed in 1949. With the inauguration of the Eisenhower administration in January 1953 and an inconclusive end of the war in Korea, America was looking for anti-communist alliances in the Middle East and South-east Asia for containing the Soviet Union and China, and for suppressing domestic communist movements within friendly countries. Notwithstanding the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case (in which a dozen or so intellectuals, poets, leftist activists, and former military officers were implicated), no communist movement worth the name operated in Pakistan during the 1950s.

Pretending that it faced a grave communist threat, the government of Pakistan enlisted in the American-sponsored Baghdad Pact (later renamed CENTO) and SEATO, despite the fact that Pakistan belonged neither to the Middle East nor to South-east Asia. It is noteworthy also that no Arab country other than Iraq (which later withdrew) joined the Baghdad Pact, and no South-east Asian country, other than Thailand and the Philippines, joined SEATO. Pakistan also concluded a bilateral pact of mutual defence assistance with the United States. It should be emphasized that none of these alliances committed either the United States or any other treaty member to come to Pakistan’s aid in case it went to war against India.

Pakistan is said to have received about $2.5 billion in American military and economic aid between 1955 and 1965 of which $1.5 billion belonged to the military category, consisting of modern weapons (aircraft, tanks, artillery, APCs, etc.). The military aid during this period was provided without any cost to Pakistan. It was suspended with the start of the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. It is noteworthy that the United States had never given Pakistan ammunition that would last more than three weeks of a full-scale war. As the ammunition stockpiles depleted after seventeen days of fighting, Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire without achieving its objectives. The American suspension of military supplies has been viewed in Pakistan as an act of “betrayal,” as a stab in the back.

Before examining this reaction, it may be useful to recall a somewhat similar situation. Britain and France — major western powers and members of NATO — colluded with Israel (a virtual ally of the United States) to invade Egypt in 1956 without the prior approval, or even knowledge, of the American administration. So intensely disapproving was the United States of this action that, for the first time in many years, it joined hands with the Soviet Union in denouncing Britain, France and Israel as aggressors, and in calling upon them to withdraw to their pre-invasion positions, which they did.

As compared to Britain and France, Pakistan was a small and passive actor in world politics. Its relationship with the United States was called an alliance only as a figure of speech. In actual fact it was nothing more than a traditional patron-client relationship; Pakistan being the client or, worse still, a “vassal” of the United States. Little wonder then that Pakistan’s decision to go to war against India without the prior consent or knowledge of the United States evoked the latter’s strong disapproval and annoyance. In this connection, it is well to bear in mind also that during this ten-year period (1955-65), Pakistan had not used its American weapons in any anti-communist military enterprise.

The events leading to the civil was in East Pakistan were those of our own making. Nor did any external power instigate India’s opportunistic intervention in that war or its extension to West Pakistan. While President Nixon made some gestures of a “tilt” towards Pakistan, no one expected the United States to invade India to extricate Pakistan from the messy situation in which it had landed itself.

Let us now consider a case in which Pakistan “cooperated” with the United States, and with regard to which the latter’s conduct is now widely cited as blameworthy. This refers to the role Pakistan played in the 1980s as an agent for the disbursement of American money and weapons to the Afghans who were fighting to drive the Soviet invading forces out of their country. The United States wanted to see the Soviets thrown out. So did Pakistan. But this coincidence of interests should not be construed to mean that the United States and Pakistan had, once again, become allies.

The United States government wanted a job done, offered a portion of that job to Pakistan, and named the compensation it would pay. Ziaul Haq dismissed the American figure (proposed by Jimmy Carter) as “peanuts,” bargained with Carter’s successor (Ronald Reagan), and the two sides reached a mutually satisfactory agreement. By all accounts, the compensation Pakistan received was substantial. That the role Pakistan played would produce “side effects” (guns, drugs, Afghan migrants, Taliban) should have been anticipated and measures taken to forestall or mitigate them.

After fighting a hugely debilitating war for nearly eight years, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988. Their mission accomplished, the Americans did the same. As one might have expected, and as is normally the case in contractual arrangements, Pakistan’s “assignment” also came to an end, as did the compensation that had gone with it. Confusing our service role in a specific project with an “alliance,” and beyond that with “friendship,” we have once again been moaning and groaning that America “used” us for its own purposes, and then left us alone to deal with the aftermath (much of which had been created by our own decisions and doings). Americans were fickle, we say.

Turning to our involvement with America’s current operation in Afghanistan, we know that it demanded certain types of assistance from Pakistan and received assurances that the same would be forthcoming. The majority opinion appears to be that General Musharraf had no option other than that of accepting the American demands. Some distinguished columnists in this newspaper have been lamenting that he threw our national dignity and honour in the mud by yielding much too hastily, instead of asking for time to consider the matter and discuss the terms on which our assistance would be provided. Not only did he humiliate us, he sold us cheap.

Even if the lament is justified, the point to be emphasized, once again, is that this venture of cooperation with the United States is not to be confused with an alliance. It is still another instance of interaction between a patron and his client or, if you will, between an overlord and his vassal. We are being asked to do a job for which we will be paid: the specifics will be worked out as the project proceeds. It may be that we did actually have the capacity to act other than as a vassal, but our ruling elite did not think so.

An additional word about “friendships” and “alliances” in international politics may be useful. First, friendship denotes a relationship between individuals who know each other. It does not exist between collectivities. Individual Iranians can be friends with individual Pakistanis, but Iran and Pakistan, as nations or as countries, cannot be. When we say they are friends, we are speaking figuratively and imprecisely. It follows that ideas of loyalty, steadfastness, affection, and a whole variety of mutual obligations associated with friendship should not be applied to relations between nations.

Historically and normally, alliances have been agreements between two or more rulers (or governments) to overcome or resist an actual or potential opponent or combination of opponents. They were an essential component of the balance of power system that functioned in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Temporariness, and the shifting nature, of these alliances were deemed to be essential to the system’s effectiveness. It was well understood that an ally of today might be an adversary a year or two later.

NATO is the only long-term, open-ended alliance in our time that still exists, but we can leave it alone since it is irrelevant to our concerns here. The present cooperative relationship between the United States and Pakistan, if it is to be called an “alliance” at all, belongs to the more conventional category of which, as mentioned above, temporariness is a major characteristic. Note also that “alliances” between unequal powers are essentially hegemonic systems in which the strong direct the weak. It may then be unwise to expect a continuing flow of large-scale American, or American sponsored, assistance to Pakistan once the American mission in Afghanistan has been accomplished or abandoned.

A different kind of crisis

ON the brink or at the crossroads, that is how the existence of Pakistan has been described for the best part of its 54 years. If at any time the danger or dilemma of the phrase was just conjured up or exaggerated, the present is not that time.

The last time the country stood on the brink and at a crossroad, 30 years ago, it split up. Will it fare better this time? The uneasy thought is that the military and militancy held the field then. So it is now. The comforting development is that the two have parted company just in time. The people’s elected representatives were not on the scene then nor are they now.

Messrs. Bush and Blair in a choreographed rhetoric on Thursday gave a chilling message: the war in Afghanistan to undo the Taliban will be long, and won for whatever it takes. That done, the process will be carried to wherever the terrorists are bred or sheltered. The implications of this message for Pakistan deserve a response far more well considered than the burning of effigies on streets by small enraged crowds or President Musharraf’s daily renewed appeals for a pause in bombing during the month of fasting.

The proposition that needs to be debated by the government and people alike is whether the nation would be able to withstand the tragedy and turbulence of a long war in Afghanistan, the tussle for power which is bound to follow once the Taliban have been dislodged and the impact on Pakistan of the next theatre of war chosen by the US and its allies in pursuit of terrorism.

The catastrophe inherent in each of these three situations could be averted by cohesive national thinking and a firm administration. Both are lacking at the moment. Wheel-jam strikes, whatever their intensity, and armed volunteers, whatever their number, sent to fight alongside the Taliban would not make the slightest difference.

Most crises can be resolved by changing the government but not this one, for here Pakistan is held hostage twice over - to its own past policies and the strategic and economic interests of the world powers. This government is in no position to extricate the country out of this tangle nor would be any other which might succeed it. United and acting pragmatically, we can turn the situation to our advantage. Divided, as we are, and acting impetuously, we would be left mauled.

The government and the political parties alike are seeking to gain grounds for themselves instead of reaching a compromise to face the external threats which are expected to last long and multiply. The two largest political parties endorse the government’s stand and yet wouldn’t extend support to it unless they win some reprieve for their leaders suffering punishment, prosecution or exile. The PPP and the Muslim League both thus remain impassive. The government on its part is also making no effort to mobilize the support of the regional or nationalist parties though all of them blame the Taliban for the misfortunes of Afghanistan.

It is a strange contradiction of the situation in which the mainstream political parties, though agreeing with the government, refuse to support it for it lacks representative credentials and yet has excluded them from public life. The result is that the politics of terrorism, with the anger and grief over reckless bombing added to it, is left to be exploited by the religious groups alone.

The agitation by some religious groups has created an impression round the world that the people of Pakistan support the Taliban regime and the terrorists it hosts. That impression is reinforced by the utterances and edicts of their leaders. It casts Pakistan in the image of Afghanistan which is one of intolerance, repression and summary executions, not seen anywhere else in the world of today.

Here is a sample from a recent interview of Maulana Samiul Haq, head of one of the largest madressahs and, along with Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the most ardent defender of the cause and mission of the Taliban: America having attacked Afghanistan is now a Dar-ul-harb or an enemy country of infidels where war can be waged. The Muslims living there either have to migrate or arrange for their own safety. This edict or advice surely will be disputed or altogether ignored by a million or more Pakistani and other Muslims who live in America in peace and affluence.

That recalls the view expressed by an equally eminent cleric of the previous generation of the same school of thought when India became a Dar-ul-harb for being at war with Pakistan. His decree was that in that circumstance the Indian Muslims could not remain loyal to their own country and should migrate. Asked where would they go, for Pakistan could not possibly accommodate all of them, his terse reply was that he had stated a principle; it was left to the administrators to find a way to implement it.

Maulana Samiul Haq further says that were he the president of Pakistan he would have resisted the American invasion of Afghanistan and used even the atom bomb if necessary; after all, it was made to fire not to eat.

Such is the romance divorced from reality that marks the attitude of some of the religious groups here towards the horrendous tragedy that has befallen the Afghan people. In driving out the Russians a million of them died and another five million became refugees living on dole in foreign lands — only to begin a longer internecine war which has reduced their country into a global metaphor for poverty and oppression.

Looking back, they must be wondering whether settling the score with the Russians through diplomats rather than the warlords wouldn’t have been a better proposition. The same thought should haunt them at the end of the current cycle of fighting the foreign invaders and then among themselves.

The Pakhtoons, Tajiks, Hazaras, Turkomans all share a common bond and a common land in poverty. Now they stand to share the wealth of Central Asia of which their country is a part. That only the people of Afghanistan themselves can bring about, not the Americans, nor Osama bin Laden nor the clerics of Pakistan. They should take their destiny in their own hands.

Due process is absent

THE nationwide dragnet begun after the Sept. 11 attacks has now landed 1,147 people in jail. For most of those, the government won’t disclose even the most basic information: their names, why they are being held or where they are jailed.

Late last month, federal officials announced that a 55-year-old Pakistani had died, apparently of an heart attack, in his New Jersey jail cell after six weeks in detention. His death seems to have forced the government to reveal that the man, picked up on a tip to the FBI, had been held for overstaying his visitor’s visa.

The FBI had quickly ruled him out as having any information useful to the investigation. When he came before an immigration judge, he agreed to return to Pakistan, a transfer that was supposed to occur promptly. But eight days later he remained jailed.

A Saudi radiologist spent 13 days in custody, mostly in solitary confinement, unaware he had been mistakenly identified as a material witness in the terrorist attacks. He has since been released.

The Justice Department says most of those in custody are being held on federal, state and local criminal charges, like outstanding traffic tickets, unrelated to Sept. 11. Immigration violations have been found in 185 cases, and a few people are being held as material witnesses, meaning they are suspected of having special information about the attacks.

Late last week, perhaps as a result of mounting pressure from civil rights groups to disclose the nature of the charges against these individuals, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that investigators believe that three men picked up in Detroit had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 hijackings.

But what about the rest? There are wives who can’t confirm that their husbands are in custody or learn where they are being held. In many cases family members who know a detained relative’s location have had trouble getting in to visit.

A coalition of 20 civil rights organizations last week filed a request with the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act seeking basic information about the detainees. If this reasonable request is rejected, the coalition intends to bring a federal lawsuit to force release of the information. —Los Angeles Times

Can B52s actually win any victories? : NOTES FROM DELHI

IF ignorance were truly bliss the front page of every newspaper would be bubbling with laughter. Here we are in the middle of what is supposed to be the war of centuries, the war of civilizations, the war of destinies, the war of continents, and most certainly the war of hyperboles, and no one has a clue about where the America-led coalition’s offensive against the Taliban has reached, where it is headed or how to reach a destination.

It is ironic that nearly a month into the war, Associated Press has reached Babar’s tomb in Kabul before the United States. We have pictures from AP of scenes next to the tomb, but no evidence yet of either the marines or the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance, to judge by the evidence so far, is living up to its name. It is sticking to the North.

The ignorance is not about territory; in fact there should be no ignorance at all about ground level. Half the satellites in the sky are almost certainly gazing very hard at Afghanistan at the moment, and since they are capable of picking up an individual in a crowd they should, theoretically, be transmitting enough information back to the backroom boys in Washington. But it is apparent that the Americans are unsure about the mind and the ethos of the Taliban.

The great debate over the American bombing during Ramazan was started by President Pervez Musharraf and continues to flutter through news columns and airwaves. President Musharraf took the lead and, in an increasingly familiar pattern, led the retreat. He wanted the Americans to end their campaign before the start of the “holy month”, but has been now persuaded that a few B52s with payloads do not really disturb the daylong fast. Ramazan has not become any less holy than it used to be; it is only the American calendar for victory that has gone a bit out of date. President Musharraf is a good soldier. He knows how to follow orders.

The fact is that the “holy month” was always a non-issue. In fact, if I were in the Pentagon I would be worried about Ramazan, but in a different context. It is perfectly true that Ramazan is the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. The thirty days of fasting constitute one of the five pillars of the faith, and burn away your sins; the gates of Heaven are open during Ramazan; this is the month with the “night of power” when the Quran was first sent down. The faithful eat and drink only between sunset and that moment when they see a white thread on the horizon in the darkness before dawn. However, there is no mention anywhere in the scriptures that war is forbidden during Ramazan. The four months during which war is avoided are Rajab, and the three adjoining months of Zul-Qadah, Hijjah and Muharram. And this injunction did not prevent the tragedy of Qarbala from taking place during Muharram.

On the other hand, the faithful will remember that the historic battle of Badr was fought on the 17th of Ramazan and marked the first great victory of Islamic arms, under the leadership of the Prophet (PBUH) himself. Badr was the classic Muslim victory; the Prophet had only about 300 men under him, facing more than a thousand of the Quraysh, whose sole purpose was to kill him and end Islam. The Muslims were helped by the kind of miracle that Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar are surely praying for at this moment as they stand alone against the odds. The Taliban may actually choose to send a sharp message to America on the 17th of Ramazan rather than negotiate for a ceasefire.

The point that President Musharraf might have raised to better effect is whether B52s actually win any victories. These birds of prey can destroy at will, but there is one response, which can leave them helpless: nationalism. Till the American bombing began the Taliban had no sympathy from anyone, least of all from Muslims. The version of Islam, whether it was the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas or the treatment of Afghan women, was abhorrent to most Muslims; only Pakistan, as sugar daddy of the Taliban, Saudi Arabia and the UAE recognized the Kabul government. The Taliban were isolated, and deservedly so. It was a government with some support at home, but no credibility either at home or abroad. But if they begin to represent Afghan nationalism against a superpower, then the Americans will have only succeeded in strengthening those they wish to destroy.

President Musharraf was wrong about Ramazan but he was and is right about an assessment he now hesitates to make in public. For American strategy to succeed, it must succeed quickly. Time is on the side of the Taliban. They have recovered from their initial nervousness, and are confident enough now to take journalists (including, presumably, the AP photographer who sent us pictures from Babar’s tomb) to report the civilian casualties that a war from the air inevitably inflicts.

The first American targets, understandably, are the symbols of power: the cities of Kabul, the capital, Kandahar, the home of Mulla Omar, and Mazar-i-Sharif, the most important town of the north. The Taliban’s strength lies in the classic Maoist proposition: they are fish in the water. They are not an army in the conventional sense of structured units under rigid command.

If their commitment does not waver, they can keep the countryside and caves long after they have lost the cities. Afghanistan is countryside and caves. Criticism is easy; what is the answer? It surely cannot be the conversion of the Taliban into heroes, irrespective of the merits of American B52s.

Washington is currently in single-drive mode, when it needs a parallel route map towards the causes of terrorism. Maybe that is the way George Bush works; that is not the way the world will work. The argument that the more complex response can wait while the simpler one solves an immediate problem is fallacious. As we have seen, short is not as short as the Pentagon might have projected. Plus, the impulses generated by something as emotive as war can only make the longer journey much more difficult. But George Bush is hardly alone in his limited approach to the problem. Everyone is guilty. President Musharraf probably does not dare think beyond the immediate.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is making his first trip abroad after September 11; terrorism was already high on his agenda, and he must be relieved to note that the subject has risen on the agenda of his hosts on this trip as well. You cannot get a better audience than Moscow, Washington and London.

The prime minister will of course be a statesman abroad. This would have been more sustainable if his party and his home minister, Mr L.K. Advani, had not simultaneously launched the legislative equivalent of B52s at the problem of terrorism in India. All democratic countries have to place civil liberties and tough legislation against a lawless enemy on either side of the balance of justice. Washington has just pushed through laws that restore to the FBI rights of tapping and interception that it once possessed, for instance. But the awkward acronym, POTO, represents a frame of mind that is authoritarian, not democratic. Pundits are not renowned for reading what they write about. I have actually read the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance. The powers that have been granted to the executive are so excessively arbitrary that they will not be approved even by members of the ruling alliance, let alone the full Parliament.

Some brainy insiders actually argue that POTO is only a political trick; that the BJP knows it will not pass but wants to wear a tough mantle before the Uttar Pradesh elections. I hope that is not the reasoning at the higher echelons of the ruling part, but if it is, a story will serve. I was covering the elections in Pakistan in which Nawaz Sharif hit Benazir Bhutto with a landslide (those, of course, were the last elections to be held by our neighbour).

During the final phase of the campaign, as Benazir Bhutto saw power slip out, she began to raise the temperature on Kashmir, promising jihad or whatever she thought Pakistanis wanted in order to vote her back to power. Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, was campaigning for better relations with India. Speaking to a voter in Lahore, I asked why he was so determined to throw out Benazir. Didn’t he want the state of Kashmir? The voter’s reply remains firmly embedded: the state of the drain across my street, he said, is more important to me than the state of Kashmir. Voters do not confuse issues. No amount of terror-rhetoric is going to save the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

This is a moment for Mr Vajpayee to place policy above politics. A dialogue involving India, Russia, the United States and Britain is the perfect point in the search of parallel options as the world addresses itself seriously to a problem that might begin with the vagaries of an individual but could end with the destruction of nations.

Mr Vajpayee should carry one thought with him on his travels: Asia, from Israel to China, via Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan and Russia, is sitting on a pile of nuclear weapons. The tremors of this region are interlined by the tensions of history and the provocations of contemporary passion. Who knows where Chechnya begins and where it will end? The anger of Palestine boils over in Kabul and Peshawar. Fragility in Islamabad creates seismic convulsions in Kashmir. A message from Kandahar raises heartbeats in the North East. Dhaka is always ready to burst.

We need an honest dialogue of nations to prevent the havoc that an unknown trigger can create. The clash of confusion is harsher than a clash of civilizations.