The US Should
Stop Coddling Dictators in Pakistan
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
From 1947 onwards, US policy
toward Pakistan has focused on engaging with the
military leadership in Pakistan and shunning the
civilian leadership. All the bonding moments have
occurred when a Republican administration has
been in power in Washington, a military administration
in Islamabad and a war has been taking place in
the background. The hallmark of the relationship
has been expediency, not sustainability. Thus,
it has failed to evolve into people-to-people
contacts.
General Ayub’s coup in 1958 was not opposed
by Washington. It is unlikely that he would have
been able to carry it out without the modern weaponry
and training that the US had supplied to Pakistan
through various bilateral and multi-lateral treaties
during the four prior years.
This was a marriage of inconvenience. America
wished to enlist the Pakistani military in containing
the communist threat. The Pakistani military wished
to contain India and to wrest Kashmir. In the
end, while America’s objectives were achieved,
Pakistan was afflicted with blowback (“Argument
without end,” Daily Times, July 22, 2007).
Claiming that he understood the genius of the
people, Ayub framed a constitution centered on
Basic Democracy. He opined that Pakistanis would
not be ready for full, Whitehall-style democracy
for two generations. This must have amused their
Indian siblings who had been enjoying full democracy
from Day One.
Sadly, Ayub’s concept of democracy was hailed
in the US by academics as an important innovation.
His fans included Samuel Huntington who would
later gain fame as the proponent of the Clash
of Civilizations theory. Huntington called Ayub
a modern-day Solon (the great Athenian statesmen).
When Ayub toured Washington on an official visit
in the 1960s at the invitation of President Kennedy,
he was taken aback by how the president’s
powers were checked by Congress. He came to see
Congress as a juggernaut that stymied progress.
Evidently, in the general’s view, democracy
was a bad idea even for Americans.
America’s policy of coddling up to Pakistan’s
dictators has produced dismal results. While billions
of dollars have flowed to Pakistan in economic
and military aid over the past six decades, anti-Americanism
in Pakistan is at near-record levels. The civilian
institutions in Pakistan have failed to develop
while the military has grown in size, firepower
and political clout. Pakistan is currently ranked
12th on a list of critically unstable states compiled
by Foreign Policy magazine (July/August 2007).
Reflecting the resilience of paternalistic thinking
among American policy wonks, there has been a
surge of articles calling on Washington not to
dump General Musharraf and to allow Benazir Bhutto
to return to Pakistan as the Prime Minister. This
recommendation has appeared in the pages of TIME
magazine (Peter Beinart of the Council of Foreign
Affairs), Newsweek (Fareed Zakaria, its international
editor) and Foreign Affairs (Daniel Markey, a
former State Department official).
The recommendation is based on a mistaken reading
of Pakistani history. It is true, as these authors
assert, that the army has been the dominant force
in Pakistani politics for the past six decades,
even during the 29 years when it has not been
in political office.
It is also true, as mentioned by some of the authors,
that that the army did not like the fact that
the US invoked the Pressler Amendment in the early
1990s to cut off its arms supply and that it remains
suspicious of US intentions.
And it is also true that if the US were to cut
off military aid to Pakistan now, in order to
encourage Musharraf to remove his uniform and
to force the military out of politics, that the
army would turn even more to its major ally, China
and possibly become more entrenched in domestic
politics.
But this cannot go on forever. At some point,
the army does quit the political scene. The lawyers
revolt and the unanimous decision of the Supreme
Court to revoke the suspension of the Chief Justice
is without precedent in Pakistani history. There
is a chance that the military will leave politics
for good this time. Such a transition needs to
be encouraged by Washington, not muffled.
It is questionable, as argued by these experts,
that a successor government in Pakistan would
stop the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban
or even worse, succumb to these forces. It is
in Pakistan’s interest to continue the fight.
Moreover, successor governments may be able to
prosecute the fight more successfully by changing
its strategy and tactics.
Civilian leaders who enjoy popular support are
more likely to realize that such a war cannot
be fought with military methods. Indeed, the best
“weapons” in such a war lie in the
realm of dialogue, reasoning and ideology rather
than in the realm of confrontation, emotions and
high explosives.
It is even more questionable that bringing in
Benazir Bhutto as the prime minister for the third
time will do much to assuage the sentiments of
the Pakistani people. It will come across as yet
more spin by a disingenuous general staff. The
political movement that seen Musharraf’s
popularity to an all-time low was neither led
by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) nor
was it initiated by it.
It is argued that Bhutto should be given the position
because she heads the largest political party
in the country. But the PPP has no significant
representation in the two provinces with the greatest
amount of unrest, Balochistan and Frontier. In
Sindh, the party’s influence is confined
largely to the rural areas. It is only in Punjab
that is has widespread support but that is also
the province where the army already has significant
representation. Bringing in the PPP will not change
the dynamics there.
Any such extra-electoral move would render the
elections irrelevant and erode Bhutto’s
standing. She would be reduced to the status of
a factotum, like the current prime minister. The
idea has even less merit than Musharraf’s
reelection by the existing assemblies.
Such a move would have long-run consequences not
only for Pakistan but also for US security interests
in the region. It will further inflame emotions,
turning even the secular mainstream groups into
anti-Americans.
Musharraf has often expressed his admiration for
the Turkish model of governance. He needs to update
his understanding. Turkey has just gone through
a national election, a big turnout and a clear
result. The Turkish army chief has expressed no
desire to run for office, in or out of uniform,
and did not interfere with the polls. Even in
the land of Ataturk, democracy is functioning
well. It is about time that the same happened
in the land of Jinnah.
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