Pak-US

[muse]

What is the relationship between Pakistan and U.S? what's it's based on, what should it be based on? Why?



EDITORIAL: How ‘incoherent’ is Pak-US relationship?

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made a speech at an American think tank, complaining of incoherence in Washington’s policy towards Pakistan. This has elicited one-sided comment in Pakistan. The point raised by Ms Clinton pertained to America’s traditional “no friendship or enmity is permanent” foreign policy shibboleth which also underpins its “cut and run” practice in military operations abroad. She appealed for more coherence of policy towards Pakistan, indicating the seriousness of President Obama’s policy approach to Pakistan.

The comment in Pakistan, correctly arrived at, ran along familiar lines, but needs to be balanced for the sake of Pakistan’s own correctness of vision. One comment went as follows: “Pakistan and the United States have ostensibly been allies since the early days of the Cold War. America has pumped billions into this country in the form of cash and weapons and we, in turn, have readily done its bidding, most notably during the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The US also bankrolled the Musharraf regime in the years following 9/11, a time marked by impressive economic ‘growth’ and a skin-deep sense of prosperity.”

While not quarrelling with the above assessment, one can add some insights for the sake of balance and as guidelines to any future policy planning in Pakistan. It is unwise to describe the Cold War equation between the US and Pakistan as the former “pumping in money” and the latter “doing its bidding”. Pakistan went into a relationship with the US with pragmatism, unlike what most critics think. It was pitted against India and had had its first war with it the year it was born. In the Cold War, which had just begun, India had clearly chosen not to side with the US against the Soviet Union.

Many people favour the “left wing” analysis of how unfairly Pakistan’s first prime minister, Mr Liaquat Ali Khan, went to the US on a state visit when he should have gone to the USSR. But if you look at the fruits of this relationship in the ensuing years of the Cold War, it was a good foreign policy decision, if foreign policy is to be based on the self-interest of the state and not on passions. Pakistan was nurturing a nationalism based on a fear of India, whereas America was nurturing a nationalism based on fear of the USSR. The bilateral equation was carried forward on a complex reconciliation of these two fears. Pakistan did not do America’s bidding blindly; it relentlessly pursued its India-centred objectives. It is another matter whether this was a wise long-term objective or not.

The basis of the relationship was not in any values. Pakistan, as the politically unstable revisionist state veered to military rule and Islamisation. At the best of times, American think tanks and Congress voiced opinions highly critical of Pakistan — which Pakistani politicians at times take as “official” opinion — but Cold War exigencies prevailed over principle. When the USSR sent its army into Afghanistan, the process of US-Pakistan mutual disenchantment was at its peak. Pakistan was broke after the Bhutto interregnum of democracy and General Zia-ul Haq saw his patrons in the Middle East spoiling for a jihad that would rain dollars on Pakistan. He went into Afghanistan because of a “confluence” of policy with the US. And he got big money for it too.

One can’t fault General Zia for this “realistic” decision. And in the end he hardly did “America’s bidding”. What Pakistan got out of it was its nuclear bomb, hardly a result of the supineness that policy critics often bemoan. In fact if you look closely, it is Pakistan which appears to be “milking” the US constantly. General Pervez Musharraf did the same sort of thing to the US. There was no money in the kitty after a decade of unstable democracy; and the dollars poured in when he joined the war on terror but drew a line when asked to send troops to Iraq in 2003.

The US-Pakistan relationship has endured because both have needed each other. There is hardly any incoherence in that. There have been vicissitudes in it because one has global worries to take care of, and the other is regionally obsessed with India. Without reference to the US, it is for Pakistan to meditate over its single-item foreign policy: can it go on risking its survival by following an uncreative and imitative approach to its big neighbour, India.

 

[muse]

The dog and pony show

Legal eye

Saturday, May 23, 2009
Babar Sattar

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School

The dog and pony show put up by the US every time a Pakistani head of state visits the 'land of opportunity' has not only become exceedingly unimaginative, but is also counterproductive. The pattern is unmistakable. A few days before the trip there are op-ed and sponsored investigative reports in leading US newspapers vilifying the Pakistani leader and his record at home. Such newspaper stories together with other disparaging reports from official think-tanks or NGOs and stern remarks from the bad-cops within the US Administration are aimed at engendering an environment wherein the visitor is pushed into a defensive mode and non-issues are added to the agenda for talks that can later be given up as concessions.

This time around President Obama eulogized the role of Pakistan army and belittled the performance of the elected civilian government in comparison a couple of days before President Zardari's trip. There were also op-eds predicting imminent fall of the Zardari government and lack of its utility in the war against extremism. And overall there was a sense that President Zardari would need to renegotiate the lease of life of his government first and foremost before moving on to speak of Pakistan's interests and concerns.

And in full knowledge of this contrived routine, Pakistani leaders continue to play along. For example, President Zardari didn't complete a single sentence while in Washington without uttering the work democracy umpteen times. Instead of highlighting the outrage in Pakistan over continuing drone attacks, emphasizing the need for the US and the world to empathize with the loss being inflicted by extremism on Pakistani citizens and society, and the urgency to provide material and financial support to bolster Pakistan's resolute fight against insurgency and terrorism, President Zardari spent large part of his time in the US defending the need for democracy in Pakistan.

Democracy is just not an issue at the moment. The Musharraf era is fresh in public mind and the image of the army has taken a severe beating consequently. The armed forces are overstretched in a gruelling and exacting struggle against insurgents and need political parties to build and sustain mass public opinion in support of their operation. There couldn't be a worse time for praetorian urges in Pakistan. Nevertheless the US administration dressed Zardari down as a weak and vulnerable leader before bringing him to the negotiation table, and Zardari willing took on the challenge to defend himself and drum-up support for his job in Washington.

Pakistan and the US continue to have a tenuous relationship despite being proclaimed allies partly because there is no recognition in Washington and Islamabad that the style and tone of their interaction and diplomacy matters almost as much as the strategies employed in pursuit of their respective foreign policies. The stick-and-carrot policy doesn't work when it becomes as explicit and vulgar as the US policy toward Pakistan. The US measure of diplomatic success in Pakistan seems to be its ability to goad the ruling regime to unquestioningly abide by American diktat even when it is in direct conflict with entrenched public opinion in Pakistan. This is a flawed approach and will not end the cycle of coercion-and-lies that US and Pakistan are presently caught in. The appeasing ways of Pakistan's hamstrung leaders discredit them before the public and their intentions become suspect. Thus even if they are motivated to act against extremists due to domestic considerations, their words and actions lack credibility and they are perceived as US lackeys.

In Pakistan, the US is accorded more credit and discredit for its ability to control events and decisions than is due. Our obsession with perceived US power manifests itself in two ways: one, as willing abdication of ruling elites to the whims and edicts of the US administration as an imperative to continue to enjoy power; and two, in the form of conspiracy theories based on the assumption that the US controls everyone from Zardari and Kayani to Fazalullah and Baitullah and that all our miseries are part of a grand sinister design of the US to break Pakistan up. These are two sides of the same coin that betray our sense of psychological disempowerment as a nation and lack of faith in our ability to refuse to become puppets in the hands of a bully or an all-powerful patron.

Such uninhibited belief in US omnipotence results in voluntary abdication of power and authority to the US and in turn reinforces our shame for reducing ourselves to a hapless dependant nation. Such shame translates into acute anger every time there is a drone attack on our soil that kills our people and violates our sovereignty and our pride, or when our president is seen sitting in the shadows of the US secretary of state as evidence of our blighted sovereignty, or even when he stumbles from one western capital to another begging for alms to feed his desperate people.

We can endeavour to explain to the US that this strategy of arm-twisting weak national leaders will not serve US interests in the medium to long term. But we must recognize that what we are exceedingly bitter about is not the demeanour of the US as the sole superpower, but our own unmitigated submission to a perceived bully. Our self-image as people of great industry and ability takes a severe drabbing when compared with the reality of our impotent existence as a poor and dependent country. We cannot change the manner in which the US articulates its national interest or pursues it. But our leaders can insist that the interaction between representatives of the two states is in accordance with the established norms of diplomacy in the nation-state system. The protocol that President Zardari must insist upon when in Washington on an official trip is one that Pakistan deserves as a sovereign state. When our political and military leaders make faint noises in response to physical transgression of our territory by US drones, they are merely abdicating our sovereign rights as a state. And voluntary surrender of rights invariably leads to their extinction. It is this abdication and surrender that we resent as we should.

The fortunes of countries can rise and falls just like those of individuals. But we cannot allow ourselves to fall from grace in our eyes as a nation just because our state is weathering a storm. No number of conspiracies can work against Pakistan if we show no tolerance for the co-conspirators amongst us. Likewise if our leaders know that treating the US administration (instead of the citizens of Pakistan) as their prime constituency carries prohibitive political costs, they will begin to conduct themselves with more integrity and dignity. But we don't need to be reactionary or think in binary terms. Being angry at the US doesn't need to transform us into apologists for the Taliban. Being proud nationalists willing to stand up to protect our national interest doesn't require us to shun progressive liberal values and endorse the theocratic project.

For example, we might be able to do more to fix the problems of Pakistan's tribal areas and integrate them with the rest of the country without waiting for peace and stability to return to Afghanistan. Likewise, Pakistan's inability to continue to function as a logistical conduit for the US war effort in Afghanistan might not automatically mean declaration of war against the US. Thus, a change in the style and demeanour of how representatives of the Pakistani state interact with their US counterparts must be accompanied by our own Afghanistan-America policy review to clearly define our national interest.

"The hope of leadership lies in the capacity to deliver disturbing news and raise difficult questions in a way that people can absorb, prodding them to take up the message rather than ignore it or kill the messenger" write Ron Heifetz and Marty Lindsky, Harvard University Professors, in Leadership on the Line. The leaders in Pakistan seem to lack the ability and the courage to raise difficult questions with the US regarding the US style and strategy in dealing with Pakistan that is widely perceived as inimical to Pakistan's national interest.

The American leadership might not comprehend the complexity of the challenge confronting Pakistan or might simply not care. But then it is not the representatives of a foreign country that have the mandate or the responsibility to protect the interests of Pakistan. So long as our ruling political and military elites seem singularly focused on appeasing the US rather than managing the legitimate expectations of the sole superpower, the intentions of our leaders will remain suspect and anger against the US will continue to brew. It is time to write a new act and wind up the dog and pony should.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu

 

[forcetrip]

They can buy us a million times over no matter how they treat us repeatedly. What makes us special ..How we treat our own people? It will always be cheaper to cut and run whenever possible .. and its all about the greenbacks .. blood is cheap and people easily bought .. stop blaming their policies .. its ours that is corrupt..

 

[muse]

You say:

stop blaming their policies .. its ours that is corrupt

Babar Sattar said:

The American leadership might not comprehend the complexity of the challenge confronting Pakistan or might simply not care. But then it is not the representatives of a foreign country that have the mandate or the responsibility to protect the interests of Pakistan. So long as our ruling political and military elites seem singularly focused on appeasing the US rather than managing the legitimate expectations of the sole superpower, the intentions of our leaders will remain suspect and anger against the US will continue to brew. It is time to write a new act and wind up the dog and pony should

 

[forcetrip]

The only question is why should anyone care what happens to us? are we like the retarded kid that needs its diapers changed everytime we smell?? The world we live in does not like to make each other's life easier .. sooner we accept that the sooner we can implement reforms.. I certainly think blaming everyone is not the answer .. lets clean our house first ..

P.S .. I totally agree with Babur Sattar .. We need to make him talk sense in the 90%+ population we have that find it easier to find faults in others..

 

[HAIDER]

looking to blame for failure ?....Yes....our national slogan. But would say thanks to Musharraf, who gave us free media to see both side of coin and made politicians life miserable.

 

[forcetrip]

There is nothing wrong with transperancy if the viewer was literate enough to decipher right from wrong. Propaganda is a double edged sword.