Shouldn’t Pakistan have bargained for more before the start of this one-way journey? Is it possible to tell US to go away, if things are not done the way Pakistan want them to be, to its satisfaction? Or, in other words do they have any choice in this matter.
Pakistan-US engagement: The un-addressed questions
Nasim Zehra
This is how the government of Pakistan responded when a US F-16 fighter jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on Pakistan’s territory – no response, a haphazard one marked by contradictions and finally ‘its all been taken care of’. The United States, whose officer who radioed airpower to drop a bomb on Pakistani territory, responded differently. First a verbal offensive through a mid-level Bagram-based US spokeswoman was launched, who categorically stated that the US government retains the right to hot pursuit. As usual the United States government was out with their version of the incident first. Marked by the chronic problem of lack of coordination among national security institutions, principally the armed forces, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Interior, different ministries of the government of Pakistan sent out different signals. A Pakistani spokesman was instructed to even refute the fact that Pakistani territory was bombed – a fact which contradicted the US announcement that a madrassa on the Pakistani territory was in fact bombed.
The Pakistan government’s approach to information management, a critical tool for policy formulation, conduct and projection, is very hard to understand. Holding back information unless pushed to bring it to the open is the principle it follows. For example, it was only 48 hours after President General Pervez Musharraf spoke to the US Secretary of State about the Durand Line incident that the contents of the conversation were made public. The decision to make it public was made after the Pakistani press began carrying reports on the tension the incident had created in the mid-level Pakistan-US ranks involved in the anti-terrorist operations.
Even then only partial information was conveyed to the Pakistani public. Reportedly, Powell told the President that the statement by the US Defence Department spokesperson regarding the right to hot pursuit was highly regrettable. Issues of success and failure and inter-institutional rivalry linked to the anti-terrorist operation do exist within the US government. CENTCOM has not delivered. Of the 60 ‘top al-Qaeda and Talibaan wanted men’, only two have been apprehended. There is dissatisfaction within sections of the US administration with CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks. However, as the lead man in the future Iraq operation, his position is secure.
However, none of these issues become newsworthy. Only name-calling, the anti-Pakistan blame game and the irresponsible attacking rhetoric qualify as headline news. US, the more confident, the one with an institutionalised approach and the one that is more accountable at home, launches the offensive. In Pakistan, we tend to derive comfort from telephone calls alone, from personalised assurances and apologies. This is an erroneous approach. Pakistan should have demanded a public apology for the bomb attack. Private apologies do not sustain national pride nor do private assurances enhance national dignity.
“You Pakistanis should learn to stand up and say no, you should say thus far and no more,” or “you reduce yourselves to a back pocket wallet of the Americans, they reach out for you when they need you, always on their own terms,” is how a former senior State Department official and Congressional researcher laid down the problem with Pakistan in its relationship with the US.
These are our follies because they take us towards a derivative mindset, one that makes us believe that we can guarantee Pakistan’s security, to some extent, as a loyal partner of the US. After all the support that Pakistan has extended to the United States at this juncture is unprecedented in the history of Pakistan-US relations. Indeed even when we were labelled as the most ‘allied ally’ of the US in the fifties, when we were signatories to the anti-Communist SEATO and CENTO Pacts, not one tenth of this active support to the US was given.
Today Pakistan has made its personnel, air, land and sea available for the US operation. Around 70,000 Pakistani troops have been deployed in the tribal belt to facilitate the US-led operation to capture al-Qaeda and Taliban men. Today US forces, almost 800 troops, are located in four Pakistani bases including Jacobabad and Pasni. Over 443, mostly foreigners, have been captured from the Pakistani territory. Afghan-based missile-armed UAVs enter the Pakistani territory to monitor supposedly al-Qaeda movement and to target potential ‘enemy’.
Ironically, the quid pro quo was more solid then than what it is now. It was the era of the cold war and Pakistan did get military and economic support. Let us see what all was denied to us in this round. Pakistan is not a trusted ally hence no military sales can be made to it. General Musharraf was advised to not even raise this issue with the US President. US loan not written off and market access to the Pakistani textile industry was not granted. These denials contrasted with the confidence certain key officials in Pakistan had regarding the quid pro quo that Washington would deliver once Pakistan joins Washington’s anti-terrorist coalition.
The issue is not of engaging with the US. That we should have. Only we sold ourselves cheap right from the start. Our prompt agreement, in less than twenty four hours, to the US ‘request’ for military and intelligence support in the post 9/11 phase and subsequently the non-institutional approach adopted while negotiating the quid pro quo package with the US, ensured that we will subsequently be faced with today’s situation. The terms of engagement between the US and Pakistan were never clearly enunciated. Yes, detailed systems of checks and control for the military aspect of the operation were put into place but was the political message of ‘thus far and no further’ was even given to the United States. No, not in clear terms.
In Pakistan, the armed forces have remained the prime and the most powerful constituency of the US. For historical reasons it has been in the forefront of national security policy formulation. Today a well coordinated and thought-through policy for engaging with the US and indeed other states is essential. It is unbecoming of a 140 million strong, nuclear-armed and strategically located Pakistan to not generate the intellectual power required to formulate viable policies. Neither name calling the US nor a military-oriented uni-dimensional relationship with it will help promote Pakistan’s security on a durable basis.
There are after all national security issues relating to intangibles like national sovereignty, dignity and honour that are important. What is happening in Lahore --twice in the last eight weeks? After Dr Amir Aziz, another doctor and his family members picked up by FBI in a dacoit-kind of operation. There are compulsions of cooperation that a state may have to opt for at a given time but NEVER at the cost of the rule of law or undermining the security of its own citizens. We must examine the contrasting approach that the US has adopted – it is making its own domestic laws stringent, almost humiliating for foreigners, now including our own citizens on INS registration. This, the US believes, will enhance the security of its own citizens.
Meanwhile in Pakistan the extension of security-searching for US citizens translates into lack of security, lack of dignity and psychological vulnerability of Pakistani citizens. There are issues admittedly related to international security matters that have spun off from the anti-Soviet covert-overt war that was authored and executed by US-led western powers and Pakistan. However, there has to be a correct, mutually acceptable way of dealing with the problem. Uni-lateralism of the US extends to the lack of dignity, breach of human rights of Pakistanis and undermining of national dignity and sovereignty. This should not be acceptable. A proper system should be put in place to conduct such operations.