From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
Dated
April 08, 2005
The F-16s Announcement
and After
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
fretted 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 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 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.
- afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
