Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: February 19, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/190204-features.html
The trouble with Pakistan has always
been the arrogance of its elite, its dream of wanting the world to accept
it as on par with India. The arrogance stemmed from its deeply-felt belief
that Hindus could easily be subjugated, that they had been first under
Muslim and later British rule and that they had only to be threatened for
time to succumb. That belief was once given expression to by Ayub Kahn
who said that one Pakistani soldier was equal to a dozen Indian sepoys.
He was not joking. He sincerely
believed in that dictum. And it was that which led Pakistan to fight three
wars with India only to lose all three. In every department of knowledge
India was out-distancing Pakistan and it was when India took the lead in
nuclear armament that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto proclaimed that Pakistan would
compete with India in this field too even if it took a thousand years to
achieve that object and Pakistanis were forced to eat grass tell then.
Such was the hatred of India among the Pakistani elite.
The sole and unerring aim of the
Pakistani elite was to acquire parity with India. If India became a nuclear
power it was felt that Pakistan necessarily had to become one and possibly
a bigger one at that. And nothing would be allowed to come in its way of
acquiring status even if, as Bhutto said, Pakistanis had to eat grass.
The Americans did not like that one bit. Indeed, during a visit to Lahore
in August 1976, then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger offered Bhutto
material and political support if Pakistan were to abandon its plan to
acquire nuclear weaponry. Bhutto wouldn't listen, Kissinger had then to
warn him that if he wouldn't listen "we can destabilise your government
and make a horrible example of you". This is precisely what the US Government
must have told Musharraf as well.
This time Musharraf had to give
in. He plainly had no alternative. But despite what Kissinger said, there
was a powerful section in the US State Department which hated India with
as much passion as did Pakistan and in the end if was this faction that
had the last word. This faction was willing to pamper Pakistan as much
as possible, so long as Islamabad was willing to obey its dictates in other
fields. Thus Washington wanted Pakistan's help to get back door entry into
Beijing. Gen. Haq was only too willing to oblige. When Washington wanted
Pakistan's help to get the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan that help too
was made available for the mere asking. There was nothing that Pakistan
was unwilling to do, as long as it had the freedom to pursue its nuclear
dreams.
Hatred of India was all. It is not
that the United States was ignorant of what Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was up
to. Every move of his was carefully watched. Between Pakistan and the US
there was tacit blackmail. It suited one faction in the US State Department
to see Pakistan checkmate India. It met two vital needs of the US: One
was to keep India down; another was to use Pakistan to needle the Soviet
Union in Afghanistan. So Abdul Qadeer was given a free hand. Apart from
wishing to outdo India, Pakistan had another dream: to lead the Islamic
world from Morocco in the west to Afghanistan in the east and to set up
a contemporary Ottaman Empire.
To possess nuclear arms, thus, was
a must. And financial support came from Saudi Arabia. This too was only
too well known in Washington which chose to turn a blind eye. Pakistan
was all too blatant about its ambitions. The Kahuta Research Laboratory
over which Dr Khan presided and was not accountable to anyone was only
one aspect of Pakistan's nuclear ambitions. Year after year Islamabad would
hold international workshops on such subjects as "Vibrations in Rapidly
Rotating Machinery" indicating that Pakistan was in the know of all that
need to be known in the matter of manufacturing nuclear bombs.
Simultaneously Dr Khan and his cohorts
would publish a number of papers on the subject and only the truly dumb
would not have understood their meaning. And during all this time Dr Khan
had the full support not only of the civilian rulers like Benazir Bhutto
and Nawaz Sharif, he had even the more solid backing of the Pakistan Armed
Forces and its leaders like Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and Gen. Jehangir Karamat.
Dr Khan was not accountable to anybody nor were his expenditures ever audited.
He had a free hand. He had become a national icon, the man who was thumbing
his nose at India. He was above law.
There were two other Islamic countries
which harboured ambitions similar to that of Bhutto, namely Libya and Iran.
These were freely provided with technical information on development of
nuclear bombs. How much Dr Khan made in the process, finance-wise and how
much the corrupt Pakistan Generals too made, is anybody's guess.
At one point in time when India
had acquired technological know-how to make missiles, the Generals were
agreeable to sell nuclear secrets to North Korea in exchange for Korean-made
missiles. Indeed General Karamat himself visited North Korea in 1997 to
strike a deal with Pyongyang. All this was known to Washington which, for
its own reasons, decided to keep quiet. But the mastermind behind all these
transactions was Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, as Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, Commander
of Pakistan's Strategic Planning and Development Cell was to reveal to
the Pakistan media.
But behind Dr Khan was the hand
of the Pakistani Armed Forces Establishment. It was quite well known to
the US that Dr Khan had visited North Korea 13 times in five years. Such
visits can't be kept a secret for long. The truth had to come out some
time. It has come out now. And the western world is furious. What seems
certain is that the US Government deliberately leaked out the information
of Pakistani plans to leak nuclear technology to Iran and Libya to the
New York Times and Washington Post. When these two papers published long
articles of Pakistani perfidy, the cat was finally out of the bag. Reports
suggest that both Secretary of State Powell and his understudy threatened
Musharraf that if he doesn't get rid of Dr Khan he may have to pay very
dearly for his disobedience. So a plan was hatched in Islamabad. Sacking
Dr Khan who had become a national icon would have invited fundamentalist
wrath. So, Dr Khan had to be persuaded to admit to trafficking in sales
of nuclear technology. He was then to be pardoned in an excessive show
of mercy.
Musharraf went to the extent of
saying that Dr Khan could retain his ill-gotten wealth. That would shut
his mouth. For reports were going the rounds that if he was punished Dr
Khan would spill the beans on all the Pakistani Generals who had been privy
to his activities. That would have included Musharraf himself. As of the
moment Musharraf has barely saved himself and his reputation. But overnight
as it were Pakistan has been shorn of its nuclear capabilities. There are
reports that US forces have all but taken over all of Pakistan's nuclear
capabilities which now are under American custody.
That robs Musharraf of his one strong
bargaining point with India on the Kashmir issue. He will now have to give
in to India, whether he likes it or not. Scared that his country may suffer
the same fate as Saddam Hussain's Iraq, Libya's Col. Gaddafi has already
capitulated to the US. It is now Musharraf's turn to capitulate fully to
Washington or face consequences such as Henry Kissinger threatened Bhutto
with. That could be either dethronement or death. When the US gets mad
it stops at nothing as Gen. Huq must have realised as he faced death in
a plane accident. But what next? One must go back to October 1981 when
The Economist (London) published an article by a former lieutenant of Bhutto,
Mustafa Khar. In that four-page article Khar advised the then Pakistani
regime against becoming a total satellite of the United States while suggesting
a long-term deal with India.
As was noted in The Future of Pakistan
(page 44): "Khar's article dismissed any reliance on the Muslim world as
a utopian dream, attacked a pact with the USSR as unrealistic and argued
that only India could guarantee the present frontiers of Pakistan. These
views, as Khar himself noted, were remarkable for a Punjab politician.
The point is, however, they did not fall from the sky. They represent the
thinking of an important layer of policy-makers in the United States and
also inside the Pakistani civil service. Khar presented his option as a
way of preventing total dependence on the United States..."
Could Musharraf possibly be thinking
along these lines? Consider the following: Once, Pakistan has now to give
up all hope of building an Islamic Bomb for exclusive use of Islamic countries.
Two, just as Libya has capitulated, so has Musharraf to capitulate as well,
if he wants to survive. Three, only India can save Pakistan from further
ignominy. But for that to happen Pakistan has to give up its dreams of
taking over Kashmir.
On the contrary it has to make its
peace with India. Given the choice between remaining a slave of the United
States and making peace with India, even the fundamentalists of Pakistan
would prefer the second alternative. For Pakistan the game is up. It allowed
itself to be used by the United States all these years in the hope that
it would be recognised as a nation on par with India. That dream now lies
shattered.
Islamabad has come to realise that
all these years it was taken for a ride, though it was through its own
willingness. For Pakistan those rosy days are now over. It is acknowledged
that it is India that is the major power in South Asia. The US has made
its choice and willy nilly Pakistan has to accept it. Pakistan's dream
of being accepted on par with India has turned into a nightmare. For it
the honourable course is to accept Indian as Big Brother to save itself
from further disenchantment.
What Kissinger threatened he will
do to Bhutto, Powell has now done to Musharraf. And deservedly, too. That
is why it is not unreasonable to expect that Musharraf will come to terms
with India and that, too, on Indian terms. One can only hope that this
time India will not allow itself to be fooled as it did in Simla. The days
when Pakistan could manipulate the US to suit its plans are over. For its
own good it must make peace with India. And who knows but that emerging
in the not too distant future will be a Confederation of India and Pakistan?
