Pakistan has to be more than a stop on President Bush’s anti-terror campaign
By Paula R. Newberg
It's hard to know whether U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to
Pakistan is a desperate act to shore up an ailing ally, a cheerleading
trip to spur on the American anti-terror campaign, or a simple photo
opportunity on the road to India. No matter. When President George
Bush arrives in Islamabad he will find a deeply troubled government
and a country suffused with discontent. Pakistan's governance problems
are significantly affected by its relationship with the U.S. just
now—and it's President Bush's job to help craft a long-term
solution to southwest Asia's security problems and Pakistan's own
stability.
The American-led anti-terror campaign lies close to the heart of
Pakistan's many woes. Despite almost 70,000 Pakistani troops deployed
near the Afghan border, the Pakistan government's seeming impotence in
fighting militancy—which the U.S. uses to justify its own
clandestine border operations—appears politically ham-handed,
tactically incompetent, diplomatically awkward, remarkably
inconsiderate of public opinion and thus, oddly complicit with Al
Qaeda supporters. U.S. bombing campaigns along the border with
Afghanistan leave civilian fatalities and public disapproval in their
wakes. To Pakistani villagers, it looks as if a foreign army is waging
war on their territory.
Pakistan and the U.S. claim that their most successful collaboration is in
sharing information—and say no more. ... Instead, both traffic in secrecy, duplicity
and dishonesty in dealing with their own citizens, and in so doing,
foment further distrust among their own citizens.
Gathering and analyzing intelligence are not public sports. Pakistan
and the U.S. claim that their most successful collaboration is in
sharing information—and say no more. The current global climate
of distrust and fear, and a long, troubled diplomatic history with the
U.S., call for both governments to handle their alliance carefully and
above all, sensitively. Instead, both traffic in secrecy, duplicity
and dishonesty in dealing with their own citizens, and in so doing,
foment further distrust among their own citizens. The wages of this
shadowy war tax Pakistan's clumsy political system more than it can
bear.
A renewed local insurgency in Baluchistan is stoking the fires of
national discontent. Bush's advisors have no doubt told him the
province is a unruly place whose old-fashioned guerrillas score points
against the central government while they skirmish among
themselves—and hence, today's battles, like those of old, will
fade away with little cost to Islamabad. Such optimism would be
unwarranted. It's true that tribal politics can be nasty—but it's
also true that Islamabad has never treated Baluchistan as a full
partner in its unwieldy federal system, whether in the distribution of
natural gas revenues or encouraging political participation.
What Baluchistan has been good for, sad to say, is its astonishingly
permeable border with Iran and Afghanistan—good for war,
smuggling, corruption and rebellion. Indeed, the porous border areas
between Pakistan and Afghanistan have always helped define security
policy for both states. But all roads run in two directions: Baluch
insurgents found refuge in Afghanistan in the 1970s, Pakistan supplied
the Afghan mujahidin in the 1980s through Baluchistan, refugees have
ranged freely across the mountains and plateaus in all directions, and
today, weapons travel toward Pakistan to fuel insurgency anew.
Although Pakistan and its allies express support for the idea of
closing the Pakistan-Afghan border, success has been limited: Weapons
and militants continue to move, even when revenues from black market
activities shrink. This is why Afghan President Hamid Karzai is so
keen to keep the borders closed and step up the hunt for Al Qaeda. But
with army installations now insurgent targets, it's easy to see how
Islamabad—and potentially, the U.S.—might wrap these secular
Baluch nationalists under a broader terrorist flag.
What a mistake. As the anti-terror campaign holds larger meaning for
Pakistan's domestic politics—it's equally about the fundamental,
if ignored, role of citizens in making policy—so Baluchistan
continues to remind Pakistan's government, and should remind the U.S.,
that tribal and ethnic identities provide a political vocabulary when
national identity and enfranchisement are absent.
Tribal and ethnic identities provide a political vocabulary when
national identity and enfranchisement are absent. ... Little wonder,
then, that Islamist parties can so easily provoke disturbances by
renting crowds to protest policies or events.
That fragile national identity, framed by almost six decades of
unresolved debate about the country's political structure, has left
society open to many competing visions of its future. Little wonder,
then, that Islamist parties can so easily provoke disturbances by
renting crowds to protest policies or events. It is also easy to turn
all the people's anger—whether about Danish cartoons or a missile
attack on suspected Al Qaeda—against General Pervez Musharraf's
principal backer, the U.S.
Pakistan keeps edging toward the moment when it won't be able to
govern itself, but recovers almost miraculously from each moment of
crisis. Musharraf's military government is demonstrably weak, even as
the military enriches itself on the backs of civil society, takes over
civic institutions and cumulatively unravels the country's frayed
social compact. As a result, more than 35% of Pakistanis are
profoundly poor, borders are inadequately defended and citizens cannot
redress grievances against the government, militant groups, foreign
interlopers or allied armies.
Musharraf has had many opportunities to correct these ills—but
hasn't. He has pilloried opposition politicians when they criticize
military rule, given the army free rein in civic life, and diminished
vital civic institutions, including courts and legislatures. Musharraf
has failed to reconcile the army's shallow modernism and the
increasingly recondite sectarianism of militant—if officially
powerless—political parties. It's an uneven match: Pakistan's
Islamist parties are more often loud than correct and generally fare
poorly in elections unless they cooperate with the military.
President Bush will soon step onto this disputed landscape. If past
experience is a guide, he will see Pakistan solely through the focused
lenses of the anti-terror campaign, view the military as the only
effective national institution—what a military government always
says—and thus limit his vision of a future, constructive
U.S.-Pakistan relationship. If he does so, he will misread this complex
country, and the U.S. and Pakistan will miss an opportunity to correct
course for their relationship and for the Pakistani state.
If past experience is a guide, [President Bush] will see Pakistan solely through the focused
lenses of the anti-terror campaign ... and thus limit his vision of a future, constructive
U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
Although Pakistan's present predicaments are neither solely the result
of this complicated alliance nor only the outgrowth of tired and
misguided military rule, it has become the joint responsibility of the
President and the General to turn their alliance to domestic political
good. To Pakistan's profound detriment, this never happened when Field
Marshal Ayub Khan, General Yahya Khan and General Zia ul Haq ruled
from the 1960s through the 1980s. Following his illegitimate seizure
of power and subsequent misrule, Musharraf's broken promises to cede
power to civilian rule have indelibly marked his tenure, too. This
time, the first step—small as it may seem in the shadow of global
terror—is a fundamental shift in Pakistan's governance.
Little in Pakistan, and in its region, will improve until the military
understands that the time for its rule has passed. Under no
circumstances should the U.S. force, or appear to force, a change of
regime. But if Bush seeks a stable, well-grounded, respected alliance
between the U.S. and Pakistan, he will have to push for an elected,
representative government that can negotiate such an alliance, fulfill
its mission, and salvage security for the entire region.
Paula R. Newberg is dean of Special Programs at Skidmore College.
