SARDAR Manmohan Singh of Gah’s visit to Washington and the purported upgradation of Indo-American ties it points to — nuclear deal hot on the heels of a ten-year defence arrangement — has the Pakistani establishment shell-shocked, its think-tankers — the sorry figures who pass for strategic experts — desperate to figure out what this flowering of passion means for Pakistan.
There are few flakier things on the planet than the Pakistani establishment. Long on exaggerated hope, short on considered judgment, building castles in the air at the slightest hint of interest from Washington, confidence completely shattered if a cold breeze blows from that quarter, this is less a relationship than an on/off sickness lasting now for 58 years.
Why should Pakistan get a cold sweat if Delhi and Washington are moving closer to each other? If we have our wits about us, this is cause for rejoicing not despair, the best news for Pakistan in years.
The Washington connection has done more harm than good to Pakistan. Far from being a source of strength it is partly responsible for the foolish adventures Pakistan has indulged in over the years. There was no compelling reason why we should have been members of SEATO and Cento, none for lending Badaber to the Americans as a spying base against the erstwhile Soviet Union, none for being such a ready instrument of American policy in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
True, the post-September 11 situation demanded that we be accommodating to American wishes — the call of wisdom, so to speak. Had we missed our cue, the great republic of India, panting in the wings to clamber aboard America’s wagon, would have been only too happy to take our place. But to say yes on the basis of a single telephone call and without negotiating any details with the Americans? This was carrying accommodativeness too far, our alacrity in jumping to attention taking even our American friends by surprise.
There should be a law forbidding the use of the word ‘strategic’ in Pakistan, its indiscriminate use causing much avoidable harm. There is nothing strategic — never was — in Pakistan’s ties with the US. Whatever exaggerated hopes we might have invested in them, for the US it was always a short-term arrangement geared to specific goals. Those goals achieved, the US, quite rightly, moved on whereas we remained rooted to the same spot, muttering dark words about betrayal. America has never betrayed Pakistan. It has acted in its self-interest. If we haven’t done that always, if our perception of the national interest has often been blinkered, how is America to blame?
America didn’t say it would help with our Kashmir policy when we signed up with it after September 11. That was the meaning we chose to read into our hop-step-and-jump, for good measure Gen Musharraf brandishing a fist in India’s direction and saying, “Lay off”. Brave words soon to be eaten when India, a few months later, massed troops on the border and America pressured Pakistan to get serious about “religious extremism” and “cross-border terrorism”. Far from protecting Kashmir policy, the American alliance was helping unravel it.
That a rethink on Kashmir might have been a good thing in itself is beside the point. This is not what Musharraf and coterie expected when they pledged faith with America.
America was very clear about what it wanted: over-flight rights, military bases, logistics support for the attack on Afghanistan. Less clear-headed, our military bosses substituted wishfulness for realism. Or perhaps they calculated that American support for the Musharraf regime was enough recompense for the pains Pakistan was taking in the first of George Bush’s ‘terror wars’. Pakistan’s old problem: self-interest overriding other considerations.
The path since taken — friendship with India, “enlightened moderation” et al — is not something our generals chose for themselves. Circumstances — above all, the logic of the American connection — steered them in this direction.
It can be argued that a good thing is a good thing no matter whence it comes. Yes and no. Because this rapprochement was American-inspired instead of being homegrown, it hasn’t taken us very far. While Pakistan has shown all the flexibility on matters of substance, India has shown none. Buoyed by his Washington trip, the Indian prime minister has even reverted to some familiar charges against Pakistan — cross-border terrorism, the danger of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling in the wrong hands, etc. Against the backdrop of these developments, the euphoria generated by Musharraf’s trip to India earlier this year already seems a distant memory.
The Americans wanted the guns to fall silent along the Line of Control. They remain silent. Beyond that they aren’t about to lose much sleep if things aren’t moving the way Pakistan expected.
A psychology of dependence is what the American connection has fostered above all. This explains the high profile the American embassy has always enjoyed in Pakistan and also the deeply-held belief cherished by Pakistani politicos that the road to Islamabad runs through Washington.
Powell or Rice picking up the telephone and talking not to their counterparts in the foreign office but directly to the president, an assistant secretary of state getting amazing VVIP treatment here, Centcom chiefs visiting Pakistan and being received like overlords, are examples of the same syndrome.
The latest is America announcing the dispatch of two aging F-16s to Pakistan and Pakistani authorities reacting as if manna has dropped from heaven. This is not even funny, it’s beyond ridicule. There’s not much strategic about two first-generation F-16s. Sure, more are set to follow but the deal will be a noose round our neck, putting us in hock to the US for years to come.
Are we preparing for war with India? Doesn’t the bomb and the ability to deliver it give us enough of a deterrent? Vietnam doesn’t have F-16s, yet it is able to face China, its traditional enemy. China doesn’t have F-16s, yet it is able to face the world. Why are we intent on bleeding national resources in order to afford a luxury which is not likely to be used and is probably destined for the scrapheap in 20 years’ time? Let’s plough the same money into health and education and see what a difference that makes.
Time the PAF outgrew its infantile delusions and learnt to do more with less. With a huge army, bigger than is good for us, and nuclear capability, what more do we want for national defence? Commissions from arms deals? A reasonable desire — but a point must come when self-interest is balanced against what the country can afford.
We must be good friends with America, no doubt about this, with American-bashing no part of our rhetorical armour. But to behave as if security and life depend upon America is to misrepresent America and insult ourselves.
Barring religious firebrands fed on a diet of Al Qaeda-inspired anti-Americanism, Pakistanis in the mass are not anti-American. They are just Americo-sceptic, finding little to cheer in what America is up to in Iraq and Palestine.
Even so, having long dined at the table of American approval, and with nothing much to show for it, let us not be frightened if, in a reversal of roles, India, the parvenu power of the subcontinent, counts it as a blessing to follow where we once led. Inasmuch as this enables us to get out of the old ruts of national thinking and explore fresh options, looking to our neighbourhood and China and distant Russia, this should be counted a blessing, not a curse.
Only question is: are our generals and defence mandarins at all capable of entering this brave new world? Are they capable of fresh thinking? The signs are not propitious. If these guys can’t get a simple thing like the Mukhtaran Mai case straight, it takes an effort of the will to imagine them mastering anything more complicated.