June 03, 2011

Pak-Us Relationship Frayed but Symbiotic

Pakistan-US relations, already clouded by suspicions in the US over the sincerity of the Pakistani leadership in the war against Islamic extremists and among sectors of Pakistani society over the US disregard of the country’s sovereignty in drone attacks, reached a new low with the stealth operation in Abbottabad on May 2 to kill Usama bin Laden.

Leon Panetta, CIA chief, stated that Pakistani officials, ISI in particular, was intentionally kept in the dark about the operation owing to apprehension that the information might be leaked to Usama.

I have received in my Inbox almost a dozen cartoons published by various US papers, all pointing out the duplicitous conduct of Pakistan army. Pakistani officials on their part rebuffed the US request not to close the liaison offices in Peshawar and Quetta that had been used to share intelligence on militants with Pakistani ground troops.

Pakistan and the US have all along enjoyed exemplary relations, but for the recent misgivings. Not long ago, Pakistan was even declared a major non-NATO ally and relations with it were called symbiotic.

Considering the strategic location of Pakistan, the US can ill afford to ditch it. And, Pakistan is much more dependent on the US for its stability and progress. Symbiosis and mutual dependence will continue to define their relationship.

No wonder then that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen rushed to Islamabad on May 27 for talks with the civil and military leaders of Pakistan to restore at least a working relationship. This was made possible within four hours owing chiefly to the symbiotic nature of their relationship.

To ease the charge of complicity, Mrs Clinton declared at a press briefing following the talks, “I want to underscore a point ….There is absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest levels of the Pakistani government knew that Usama bin Laden was living just miles from Islamabad.” She did not, however, give a clean chit to the ISI, whose chief had accepted intelligence failure in an address to the Parliament. The US authorities have not accepted ISI’s excuse of intelligence failure as “it insults our intelligence”.

It is quite possible that some retired or serving lower level elements of the ISI had been sheltering him there. It is not a failure of intelligence but a complicity and duplicitous conduct. One sincerely hopes that the committee set up to probe into the episode will be able to identify the culprits so that they are taken to justice.

Right now the nation is tortured by the thought, as put by the eminent Pakistani journalist, Cyril Almeida, “If we didn’t know (bin Ladin was in Abbottabad) we are a failed state; if we did know, we are a rogue state.”

The responsibility in any case is that of the men in uniform. During their lengthy rules over the country, they have usurped civil leaderships’ areas of operation, including foreign affairs, and turned the defense budget into a one-line item in the federal estimates so that it is not discussed in the parliament.

The US too is partly responsible for the erosion of the legitimate powers of elected governments. They have preferred to deal with military leaders who, suffering from a lack of legitimacy, were more amenable to the US demands.

The pattern is undergoing a revolutionary change in the Arab world. Two military dictators have already fallen and the others are struggling to survive. The Obama administration is siding with the protestors. One may expect a similar American approach to this matter in Pakistan too. But the weak-kneed civil government of Pakistan appears to have opted for immediate gains instead of a long-term rectification of the system.

The incompetent and corrupt PPP administration seems to have entered into a deal with the military leadership to be allowed to complete its five-year term in return for standing by its side in the current crisis of confidence caused by its inept handling of the Usama case.

The irony of the situation is that while the US Secretary of State has publicly declared that Pak-American relations have reached a turning point, our Foreign Office refers to it as a correction of course, a recalibration of the existing policies. That means no basic change.

The US, one hopes, will deploy its clout in Pakistan to strengthen the civilian government treating it as the sole decision- and policy-making body of the polity. That is the thrust of the Kerry-Lugar Act too. Unfortunately, John Kerry, who visited Islamabad a few days before Mrs Clinton, met first the Army Chief of Staff, before going to the civilian leaders. Unfortunately also, the present civilian administration has thoroughly failed to solve the basic problems of the people at large, as it is given to graft and greed. If the civilian rule continues uninterrupted by military coups, the caliber of the elected representatives may record an upward trajectory.

The US has given a list of militant Islamic leaders it wants Pakistan to take action against. It has the names of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Usama’s deputy; Siraj Haqqani, commander of the Haqqani network of fighters; Ilyas Kashmiri, head of the Harkatul Jehad-al-Islami; and Atiya Abdel Rahman, operational chief of Al Qaeda.

Senior administration officials have made it clear that if Pakistan fails to take the measures expected of it, the US could cut off about $2 billion in annual aid.

Since 9/11 Pakistan has received some $20 billion by way of US assistance in the fight against the extremists. It is acknowledged that Pakistan has already detailed 140,000 troops for the purpose, and no less than 35,000 of civilians have died in the war along with 5,000 troops and over 2,000 police.

Surprisingly enough, incidents of terrorism have become disconcertingly frequent despite such a large deployment. Asma Jehangir, chair of the Supreme Court Bar Association, has blamed the army for creating conditions conducive to the expansion of terrorist networks in the country. That does not make sense; nor does her contention that the military leadership comprises politically duffer persons.

The fact, nevertheless, remains that the intelligence apparatus was caught napping on May 2 in Abbottabad and on May 22 at the PNS Mehran naval air base in Karachi. In the Mehran incident, 6 to 8 terrorists managed to enter the highly secured base, battle for 15 hours, destroy two Orion surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft costing $36 million each, kill at least 9 persons, and escape leaving behind only four dead bodies of their group. These terrorists were suspected to be from Ilyas Kashmiri outfit said to be the arm of Al Qaeda.

Pakistan ’s armed forces, seventh largest in the world and well trained, have not measured up to the nation’s expectations. Perhaps they don’t have their heart in the fight against the Islamic terrorists. They might even be regarding it as a war of America they are made to lay down their life for. If that be the case, the military leadership has miserably failed to eradicate the mental split.

arifhussaini@hotmail.com