Author: Shaheen Sehbai
Publication: The International News
Date: May 1, 2009
URL: http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21845
President Barack Obama's 100th day prime TV
time press conference on Wednesday night has created a grossly uneven playing
field for President Asif Ali Zardari's upcoming visit to Washington, as the
candid and frank, almost brutal, observations of Obama have cut Zardari to
a very small size besides giving the Pakistan Army much more importance than
the Pakistani leadership would like to hear.
Likewise, the US president has also revealed
some fundamental shifts in Pakistan's India policy and the thinking of the
Pakistan Army vis-a-vis India. Such a shift, willingly or unknowingly, has
not yet been remotely reflected in the policies or statements of the civilian
leadership of Pakistan. Obama's assertion that the Pakistani civilian government
was very fragile, without any capacity to deliver almost anything of consequence,
was made in the same breath when he made several statements showing a superb
degree of confidence in the Pakistan Army. It dug deep into the credibility
and future of the civilian set-up, specially the fate of Zardari himself,
who everyone in Washington knows, has been running Pakistan as a one-man show.
So the criticism hits the Pakistani president right where it hurts.
These statements, as the US political system
works, were not off-the-cuff remarks by a man thinking on his legs. Although,
he was answering a question on Pakistan, Obama had come fully prepared to
answer any question about the US policy on Pakistan and his 10-point statement
was the ultimate crux of the numerous official briefings and position papers,
which the US president has been receiving from dozens of national security,
Defence Department, Pentagon, US Army and State Department officials and experts,
besides the very knowledgeable scholars in Washington and US think tanks.
The 10-points of Obama's statement were couched
in these crisp and sharp words:
* I'm confident that we can make sure that
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure. Primarily, initially, because the Pakistani
Army recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands.
* I am gravely concerned about the situation
in Pakistan, not because I think that they are immediately going to be overrun
and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan.
* I'm more concerned that the civilian government
there right now is very fragile and don't seem to have the capacity to deliver
basic services: schools, healthcare, rule of law, a judicial system that works
for the majority of the people.
* As a consequence, it is very difficult for
them (the government) to gain the support and the loyalty of their people.
* We need to help Pakistan, help Pakistanis.
* There is a recognition increasingly on the
part of both the civilian government and the Army that this is their biggest
weakness.
* On the military side, we are starting to
see some recognition, just in the last few days, that the obsession with India
as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided and their biggest threat
right now comes internally.
* Pakistani military is taking much more seriously
the armed threat from militant extremists.
* We want to continue to encourage Pakistan
to move in that direction. And we will provide them all of the cooperation
that we can. We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognise that
we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making
sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed
militant state.
* I feel confident that that nuclear arsenal
will remain out of militant hands.
Each of these points, when analysed, hits
deep at the root of the legitimacy, competence and future of the civilian
set-up in Pakistan and reflects the broader thinking in Washington that the
Army probably is a better option, given the top priority Pakistan is now receiving.
For instance, he said, the nuclear arsenal
was safe because ìthe Pakistani Army recognizes the hazards of those
weapons falling into the wrong hands.î
His expression of total no confidence in the
civilian ability to deliver almost anything, not even as basic things as education,
health and justice, was in fact an indictment that would be very hard for
President Zardari to explain when he meets him at the Oval Office next week.
But to add insult to injury, Obama went on
to say that ìit was very difficult for the government to gain support
and loyalty of their people.î These words are shocking as they show
that the US president was unwilling to accept the mandate which the PPP government
claims to have on the basis of the Feb 18 elections.
He then went on to say the US needs to help
Pakistan, and help Pakistanis, not the government, in other words.
It was also his view that even the civilian
government and the Army have recognised that this perceived incompetence was
ìtheir biggest weaknessî. By clubbing the Army and civilians
on this point, Obama revealed what the Army leadership may have been privately
saying to the US generals who have been visiting Pakistan feverishly in recent
days.
Obama's biggest breaking news was his observation
that in the last few days, the Pakistan military had started looking at India
not as the enemy number one. He saw ìsome recognition that the obsession
with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided and their biggest
threat right now comes internally. Pakistani military is taking much more
seriously the armed threat from militant extremists.î
These words mean that the Pakistani military
leaders have been speaking up their mind much more openly with the Americans
than the people or leaders of Pakistan. Within Pakistan, there is yet no word
that the Army has been misguided in its thinking that India was not a mortal
threat.
If there have been some secret understandings
and assurances given by the US generals to their Pakistani counterparts, then
the Pakistanis, their parliament, the prime minister or the president have
either not been taken into confidence, or if the leaders are on board, someone
is playing big games with the people behind their backs.
The people of Pakistan have not yet been told
that India is no longer an enemy and the eastern borders are safe. If this
is so, has there been any pullout of the Army away from that border, or will
there be in the coming days. No one knows yet. But Obama certainly does because
he has hinted at the basic shift in Pakistan's foreign policy. Or may be there
have been assurances given to him on that count.
And all that, according to the US president,
has been done by the Pakistan military, not the government of President Asif
Zardari. Lastly, the US president made it absolutely clear that stability
in Pakistan was one of the biggest national security and strategic interests
of America and this statement simply means that the US will protect this interest,
come what may.
By implication, this also means that if Washington
had to support a non-democratic, though stable government in Pakistan, it
may be prepared to do so. This was not uttered by Obama in exactly these words,
but reading into what he says means exactly the same. No one may, however,
publicly admit this at this stage.
Diplomatic observers are unanimous in the
view that just a few days before Obama meets Zardari for the first time, coming
out with such brutally frank words about his administration is an ominous
sign - Obama would like to see the back of Zardari and would welcome a political
change in Pakistan.
But one consequence of this tough talking
could be that the Pakistan Army would come out of its self-imposed seclusion
and would assert itself more dominantly in critical Pakistani decision-making
processes.
Some analysts, however, believe that if Zardari
assures the US president that he would allow this to happen and would stop
his one-man rule, he may be given the chance to continue. But for Zardari
to keep smiling like he always does will then be a great challenge.
And for all those on whom Zardari depends
for his US policy, either in Washington or in Islamabad, it is time to pack
up and go home. It is absolutely certain that they would never have told the
president of Pakistan that the president of the United States was about to
throw a ton of bricks on our president's head, just days before meeting him.
Maybe even they had no clue he would.
