sad state of affairs that pakistan is in. how do we brea this dependency on the USA? will a time come when they say jump, we wil say no?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4926404.stm
Pakistan’s rocky relationship with US
By Ahmed Rashid
Guest journalist and writer Ahmed Rashid reflects on tensions between
Pakistan and the US.
Gen Musharraf and George W Bush
Musharraf ‘needs to strike a new deal with the US to retain its
support’
Relations between the US and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s
government have reached their lowest point since September 2001 when
President George W Bush first embraced Pakistan as a critical ally in
the war against terrorism.
Gen Musharraf’s future political survival depends primarily on finding
agreement with Pakistan’s disenfranchised secular political opposition
before scheduled elections in 2007.
However over the past five years as his popularity has dwindled, Gen
Musharraf has also come to depend on support from the US.
Now he needs to strike a new deal with the US if he wants to retain
Washington’s support to remain as president until 2012.
Musharraf’s future political survival depends primarily on finding
agreement with Pakistan’s disenfranchised secular political
opposition, before the scheduled elections in 2007
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It was clear after the brief 4 March stopover in Islamabad by
President Bush that the Americans were not happy and had made several
tough approaches to Gen Musharraf.
Those became public on 5 April, when on his first visit to Islamabad,
Richard Boucher, the new US Assistant Secretary of State for South
Asia delivered some stinging demands.
Mr Boucher firmly stressed the need for free and fair elections in
2007.
But he went much further than any other US official when he stressed
that the US strongly favoured civilian rule and civilian control over
the armed forces.
He said that for Gen Musharraf to continue to be both president and
army chief negated democracy.
He also refused to offer any sop to appease Pakistan’s concerns about
the recent civilian nuclear cooperation deal between the US and India.
And he said the US wanted more cooperation from Pakistan’s rogue
nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is under house arrest in
Islamabad.
Finally, Mr Boucher insisted that the US would not declare the
Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which has led the nationalist
insurgency in Balochistan province, a terrorist group.
An earlier US messenger, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman had told the
government on 13 March that the situation in Balochistan was “an
impediment” to investment in Pakistan.
And just in case the generals may have thought Mr Bucher too junior to
make such criticisms, the next day National Security Adviser Stephen
Hadley repeated the same message during a speech in Washington.
Stunned
The military and the government were stunned because the Bush
administration had now - in public - committed itself to contradicting
almost every facet of US support for military rule that the army has
depended upon since 11 September 2001.
An angry Islamabad responded by banning the BLA as a terrorist group
on 9 April. It complained that Washington had not informed it properly
about the US - India nuclear deal. And it blamed Afghanistan - another
key US ally - for stirring the pot in Balochistan and Waziristan,
where the Pakistani army is combating Pakistani and Afghan Taleban.
At the same time Islamabad has decided to test Washington’s true
intentions towards Pakistan, by placing an order for 77 American built
F-16 fighter aircraft at a cost of $3.5bn. Such a huge order has to be
passed by the administration and Congress.
Marri tribal fighter
An ‘angry Islamabad has banned the BLA as a terrorist group’
American frustration has mounted over the past 18 months over
Pakistan’s failure to rein in the Taleban who have ready access to the
main population centres along the Afghan-Pakistan border, including
Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.
The Taleban have now launched a major effort to derail Nato’s
deployment of over 10,000 troops to southern Afghanistan this summer.
The Americans are also frustrated over the deadlock in Waziristan,
where the army appears to have lost control of the countryside to
Pakistani Taleban.
Defence and foreign ministers from Nato countries now deploying troops
in southern Afghanistan have been to Islamabad to tell Gen Musharraf
to deal more forcibly with the Taleban in Balochistan.
They point out that, whereas the US army’s major concern was al-Qaeda
and getting Osama bin Laden, their priority is dealing with the
threats to their troops from the Taleban.
Mounting fears
For Gen Musharraf, the key need is unqualified US support for his
re-election as president after the 2007 general elections.
Now it seems that US support is contingent on a free and fair election.
There are mounting fears amongst Western ambassadors and Pakistani
politicians that the army and its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)
are planning another 2002 election, in which the secular opposition
leaders were barred from standing and the elections were heavily
pre-rigged in favour of pro-army politicians and the fundamentalists.
That has resulted in a lack lustre, discredited parliament, a
technocrat prime minister who has no control over the ruling Pakistan
Muslim League, Islamic fundamentalists being anointed as the formal
opposition and a countrywide increase in Islamic extremism,
sectarianism and terrorism.
Protests in Pakistan
‘There has been a countrywide increase in Islamic extremism and
sectarianism’
Now the combined opposition is demanding that, before the elections,
the present government and the army step down in favour of an interim
government headed by an impartial figure.
They also want a powerful and clean Election Commission, a new voters
list and full freedom for all politicians to take part in the
elections.
No illusions
What the Americans and many Pakistanis are pushing for, but which Gen
Musharraf is resisting, is that he strike a deal with Benazir Bhutto,
allowing her secular, anti-mullah Pakistan Peoples Party, full freedom
to run in the elections in return for her support for his continuation
as president.
Nobody is under any illusions that the Americans are about to dump Gen
Musharraf.
Washington still prefers him to anyone else, but they would like to
see him become a conventional politician depending on secular parties
for support, rather than the extremists he presently relies on.
Gen Musharraf will need to strike a new deal with the US if he wants
their support in the critical coming months.
He will need to strike a genuine rapprochement with Ms Bhutto, curb
the Taleban in Quetta, open a dialogue with the Baloch nationalists
and get tougher with the Islamic parties who are fuelling the
militants in Waziristan.