From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
June 3, 2005
Pakistan Accountability
Act
While recent Bollywood movies
like Veer-Zara and Mae Hoon Na tend to supplement
the current Indo-Pak peace process, there is little
evidence to suggest that the acrimony plaguing relations
between Pakistan and India since the inception of
the two countries has subsided. It has only turned
latent but retains its post-1947 animus testifying
afresh to the validity of the two-nation theory.
The trend has found a manifest expression in the
charged attitude of the Indian lobbies and their
hectic maneuverings at Capitol Hill following Washington’s
announcement to supply the F-16 aircraft to Pakistan.
The lobbies have wasted no time and acted with expedition
to scuttle any positive outcome of the announcement.
A proposed Pakistan Accountability Act 2005, introduced
by Gary Ackerman, has been referred to the House
Committee on International Relations. It states:
“No United States military assistance may
be provided to Pakistan and no military equipment
or technology may be sold, transferred, or licensed
for sale to Pakistan … unless the president
first certifies to the appropriate congressional
committees that the government of Pakistan has provided
the Untied States with unrestricted opportunities
to interview the Pakistani nuclear scientist, Dr
Abdul Qadeer Khan …; the government of Pakistan
has complied with requests for assistance from the
international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) …”
and so on. This is a disconcerting development and
warrants a reiteration of our observation The F-16s
Announcement and After of April 8 on the subject:
The good news came after an exasperating wait of
fifteen years. For many Pakistanis who had fumed
over the inordinate delay, the recent Washington
announcement for the supply of the F-16 aircraft
sounded like music to the ears. Thank you, President
Bush! A new vision of US-Pakistan ties is beginning
to crystallize. Indisputably, there has been of
late a marked surge in Washington’s support
for Islamabad
President Musharraf’s statement on the sale
carries a ring of truth: “The … acquisition
of F-16s would certainly enhance the effective punch
of our defense…it is our longstanding demand
which has now been met. It will also help our strategy
of defensive deterrence.”
As expected, stern critics of Islamabad fumed over
the announcement prompting Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice to promptly spell out the motivations for the
US decision. “Pakistan has come a long way,
it’s on a better trajectory than it’s
ever been, or that it’s been in many, many,
years.” Struck by the conclusions of the September
9/11 Commission - invest in the relationship with
Pakistan, because if you don’t you’re
going to create the same situation we created in
the 90s - Dr Rice explained why the US is now more
energetically responding to Pakistan’s needs.
Ryan C. Crocker, US Ambassador to Pakistan, seemed
to elaborate on this explanation: The US desires
to establish long-term, broad-based multidimensional
relations with Pakistan, not as a favor to Islamabad
but for mutual benefit. Perhaps, the roller-coaster
phase of US-Pakistan relations is over and indications
are that a firmly structured relationship between
the two countries is beginning to crystallize.
Yet, the Washington announcement on the sale of
the F-16 fighters to Pakistan and the F-18s to India
occasioned both jubilation and anguish in Pakistan.
The public response became markedly muffled as the
realization dawned on many that Pakistan - a reliable
ally in the forefront of the US war on terror at
considerable peril to its own security - had not
been treated at par with its adversarial neighbor
whose earlier adventurous association with the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, and later aberrations
in opportunistically changing course at will, are
too well known. The logic of showing readiness to
supply the more advanced F-18 planes to India is
indeed hard to swallow.
So also the servile urgings of quite a few key influential
Americans to India to buy the F-18 plane. How could
one explain the recent exhortation of Mike Kelly,
Senior Executive of Lockheed Martin, to Delhi: “If
India’s requirements are beyond any existing
fighters, we are prepared to make upgraded F-16s
to India’s specifications with complete transfer
of technology.”
US Ambassador to India, David C. Mulford, also had
the same obsequious tone when he announced: “We
will find out what kind of plane India wants and
how we do technology transfer and also be reliable.”
Surprisingly, US Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan C.
Crocker furnished a singularly grotesque explanation
in trying to dispel the impression that the F-18s
were in any way superior to the F-16s: “The
F-16s are used by the US Air Force and the F-18s
by the US Navy. Both are equally efficient in their
functions and one is not superior to the other!”
Mike Nipper, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, however,
thinks differently. An F-16, according to him, is
a single-engine, land-based fighter jet that costs
upward of $35 million. The F-18, a more advanced
fighter, is a double-engine, carrier-based aircraft,
which is up to 30 per cent heavier than the F-16.
“The cost of the F-18 is considerably higher,”
Nipper says, explaining that the jets sell “by
the pound.”
As the campaign to appease India on the sale of
the F-16s to Pakistan continues, the media in the
US and India and influential political circles in
Washington and Delhi, unabashedly express their
indignation at Washington’s decision. A small
sampling:
“I am bewildered by this decision. It is strategically
such a bad move.” - Former Senator Larry Pressler.
“This sale sends a grave symbolic message
to the government and people of India. We are slighting
our relationship with India, a fellow democracy,
to sell a defense system to a neighboring non-democratic
nation, who has shown an unwillingness to normalize
relations with India, …” - Congressman
Frank Pallone
“The announcement Friday that the United States
is authorizing the sale to Pakistan of F-16 fighter
jets capable of delivering nuclear warheads - and
thereby escalating the region’s nuclear race
- is the latest example of how the most important
issue on the planet is being bungled by the Bush
administration…” - Robert Scheer in
an article in the Los Angeles Times
“Balancing those sales by offering New Delhi
the chance to purchase, and perhaps build, similar
planes doesn’t lessen the damage of the Pakistan
sale. It compounds it.” - New York Times.
“Pakistan, it appears is being rewarded, here
and now, for … its abominable record on proliferation.”
- The Hindustan Times.
Blissfully, the Wall Street Journal appeared to
present just the opposite view, nay, an objective
assessment: New Delhi has raised some objections
but its more substantive response has been that
it may consider buying a more sophisticated US jet
fighter, F-18, and is ready for an expanded strategic
relationship. The F-16 is famous for its ability
to deliver air strikes with pinpoint accuracy, and
is thus a valuable asset in Islamabad’s war
on terrorists hiding in the rugged terrain near
Afghanistan….
“The argument that Pakistan wants the F-16
to deliver nuclear weapons to India, a fellow nuclear
power, ignores the fact it can already do that in
other ways if it wishes to commit suicide.
“In fact, relations between the two states
haven’t been this good for years and don’t
look to be derailed by the plane sales.
“President Pervez Musharraf is due in New
Delhi to watch the grand finale of the India-Pakistan
cricket series.
“Indo-US relations have also reached a new
maturity, President Bush who is due to visit India
this or next month personally informed Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh of the decision to sell
the planes to Islamabad. Mr. Singh expressed ‘great
disappointment’, an obligatory response because
of Indian domestic politics. But more significant
is what his Defense Minister Parnab Mukerjee told
the Press Trust of India: If the military aircraft
and other weapons needed for our national interest
are available from the United States, we will certainly
consider them.”
It is not difficult to infer who stands to gain
more from Washington’s decision to supply
the F-16s to Pakistan.
The bill introduced by Gary Ackerman was hardly
warranted. So also the latest maneuverings by the
Indian lobbies at Capitol Hill.
- afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
