Author: Husain Haqqani
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 6, 2005
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=69809
Introduction: As long as America
keeps supplying arms to Pakistan, the military will never want to make
peace with India
General Pervez Musharraf has declared
that extremism is the biggest challenge being faced by Pakistan. Pakistan's
''development and dignity in the comity of nations'' is threatened by extremism,
he recently told the Baluchistan cabinet.
If that is the case, should Pakistan
not focus on building democracy and reorienting its national discourse
to marginalise extremists who have an exaggerated view of Islam and Pakistan's
role in the world? The Pakistani state's national objectives have not been
replaced by more realistic ones like prosperity for Pakistan's people and
their inclusion in the country's governance.
The Musharraf regime continues to
raise expectations within Pakistan of a solution to the Kashmir issue though
there appears little realistic prospect of that happening in the near future.
A few months ago, General Musharraf fanned the flames of rhetoric over
Kashmir by telling a garrison durbar in Quetta,''We will not give up Kashmir;
we have fought wars over it." It might be prudent for Pakistanis to give
priority to normalisation and stability in South Asia over settlement of
the Kashmir dispute. To make that possible, the rhetoric over Kashmir must
end-a fact observed by one of General Musharraf's most significant civilian
allies, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, President of the pro-military faction
of Pakistan Muslim League (PML). If civilians truly controlled decision-making
in Pakistan, the common sense view of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain would have
prevailed and General Musharraf would have tried to lower the rhetoric
over Kashmir rather than raise his people's expectations.
Musharraf also keeps trying to deny
the reality of military domination of Pakistan's political life. ''The
Army is not involved in politics'', he told the centenary celebrations
of the Command and Staff College, adding ''I am only involved to the extent
of maintaining a check and providing guidance and support in the light
of my five-year experience in government...I have nothing to do with day-to-day
governance or legislation, which is happening entirely under the cabinet
or other legislative bodies.'' Given that General Musharraf is still Chief
of Army Staff and would not have been in power had he not taken it in a
coup d'etat, his assertions are untenable. The U.S. Ambassador to Islamabad,
Ryan Crocker, appears to share General Musharraf's view that Pakistan is
on the road to democracy but then his predecessors Walter McConaughy (1962-1966)
and Deane Hinton (1983-1986) made similar statements about the regimes
of Field Marshal Ayub Khan and General Ziaul Haq respectively.
The most disturbing aspect of Pakistan's
current engagement with the US, including the F-16 deal, is that it reinforces
the traditional pattern of the US-Pakistan-India triangle. In pursuit of
a short-term quid pro quo, the US believes it is stabilizing Pakistan by
lending support to its military regime albeit dressed up as transition
to democracy. American military sales encourage Pakistan's military to
believe they can qualitatively keep up with India, thereby postponing India-Pakistan
normalisation.
The real reason for the US selling
F-16s to Pakistan (and offering them to India as well) may have been to
keep Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant in Texas operational after the
US Air Force and Navy stopped ordering F-16s. But Pakistani strategists
consider the F-16 sale as a signal of American acknowledgement of Pakistan's
strategic value to the US Central Command. The prospect of US partnership
and the feeling that Pakistan has a special place in American grand strategy
has consistently encouraged Pakistani military planners to think as a Middle
Eastern country rather than as a South Asian one.
This is not the first time the U.S.
has adopted the path of folly in dealing with South Asia. In 1962, the
respected scholar of the realist school in foreign policy, Hans J. Morgenthau,
said this of US policy toward the region: ''The classic example of the
counter-productivity of the policy of containment and of alliances, as
it was conceived in recent years, is the case of Pakistan. It is difficult,
if you take a look at the map, to know against whom this alliance could
possibly be directed, except against India. But obviously we have no interest
in supporting Pakistan against India. While we support Pakistan against
some imaginary enemy, we force India to divert a considerable amount of
its scarce resources to military purposes in order to match the military
preparations of Pakistan. Since, of course, we realize that India is infinitely
more important than Pakistan in terms of the overall world situation; we
must support India in order to make up the difference between its resources
available for economic development and those which have been diverted for
military purposes. So we are really engaged in an armaments race with ourselves.
With the left hand we support Pakistan militarily, while with the right
hand we support India economically in order to help her bear up under the
weight of the armaments which our support for Pakistan had forced upon
her.''
The writer is a Visiting Scholar
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC
