America’s high officials, media and think-tank
community are demanding what the Musharraf regime
finds hard to do. The thrust of the demand is
that Pakistan should prevent the Taliban from
using Pakistan’s territory to attack Afghan
targets. They think that Pakistan owes it to them.
Given the spreading chaos and crises in the
Middle East, an assessment of what will happen if
Pakistan were to comply with endless American
demands would show that it might soon be asked to
participate in American campaigns against Iran.
The troubles in that region cannot be
compartmentalised into Afghanistan, Iraq and
other pressure points, of course. Pakistan has
already showed that it remains loyal to the
American camp by holding an OIC foreign
ministers’ conference in which Iran, Syria or any
representative from Hezbollah, Hamas, were not
invited. That showed where Pakistan stood: as
pro-American as they come. Despite that, the
current rift with US threatens to grow. US anger
flows from Pakistan’s inability to unstintedly
use its armed forces against all suspected of
being Taliban or their supporters.
What position can a Pakistani commentator take,
especially when he has never endorsed Islamabad’s
Afghan policy? American demand is surely
impractical. Many Pakistanis have explained they
have already done the maximum they could. They
say the problem is not of Pakistan’s making; it
is an Afghan problem for Afghans or their
occupation forces to solve. To leave the issue at
that is not too unreasonable expostulation. Is
that adequate or satisfying?
Pakistan is troubled by divides even within its
elites, let alone the basic one between the
elites and the plebeians. The common people have
never counted for much. Elites are divided today
in various ways and the state remains under the
occupation of Pakistan Army that has controlled
and guided the nominal government even when it
comprised civilians. Policies Pakistan has
followed since Ayub Khan and even earlier were
army dictated. Civilian input has been pitifully
insufficient. It is a false patriotism to rush to
Islamabad’s defence in all the twists and turns
vis-a-vis America in which the impact on aam admi
was never a consideration. Outside the charmed
circle of power, nobody matters.
As for the plebeians, some crumbs did indeed fall
from the high table for them because some
development has taken place. Pakistan’s economy
of 2007 is much bigger than 1947’s. That
development has greatly enriched the elites but
has not substantially reduced the growing numbers
of the poor. Quality of economic development has
been demonstrated by virtually non-stop inflation
at least from 1960s onward. Ordinary people,
including ordinary writers, do become cynical and
apolitical. What is their input or what they
receive, is what they want to know.
What is wrong is that Pakistan’s foreign policy
has been built around just one need: how to find
enough resources to sustain a modern military
that needs constant modernisation because local
resources were not enough and even today, had it
not been the inflow from the west of something
like $12 billion in additional help during the
last six years, things would have been worse
despite normal Paris Club loans.
Thanks to the American connection, Pakistan has
in 60 years received something like $100 billion
aid and some of these dollars were much stronger
than today’s. The country today owes $38 billion,
plus there may be more in the pipeline not yet
finally registered. The quantum of aid so far, in
today’s dollars, must be equal to $200 billion
while for this much industrialisation, less than
half the amount should have sufficed. Pakistani
elites’ financial health shows that a substantial
portion of foreign aid was in fact cornered by
them.
Anyhow, when a great power especially funds a
poor and smaller state, it expects a quid pro
quo. It was that liability that converted
Pakistan into a satellite of America. Pakistan
has often bridled against American demands at
various stages; even these elites have sometimes
found them to be excessive.
To be brutally frank, Americans treat Pakistanis
as a bunch of mercenaries who will do anything
for money and some of the speeches one has heard
from Blair and Bush after 9/11 amounted to
saying: ’here is cash on the barrel. Now be with
us’. The Americans are all too conscious of what
they have done and demand compliance with their
wishes. They are in a huff because Pakistanis
have failed to live up to their expectations.
As for Afghanistan, Pakistan has always
incongruously tried to act the big brother.
Pakistan was a part of the big international
intrigue that ultimately resulted in the Saur
Revolution of 1978 and was a major actor in
Americans’ proxy war against the Soviets for
almost the 1980s’ decade. That enriched some
Pakistani officials no end.
After 1989 Americans left Afghanistan to Pakistan
altogether. Pakistan’s relations with its Afghan
cronies, later known as Northern Alliance, did
not remain friendly for long. Islamabad won back
its suzerain-like position in Afghanistan by
using its secret weapon: Taliban. The latter
quickly conquered the Pushtoon parts of
Afghanistan and established a Taliban caliphate.
Pakistan started dreaming dreams of strategic
depth and a confederation and so on — supposedly
to confront India better. But even the Taliban
were not as pliable as the Pakistanis wanted.
Ultimately against Pakistan’s advice, Taliban
fell out with the Americans and after 9/11 the US
invaded and occupied Afghanistan. Now, Pakistan
and Afghanistan are both helpless satellites of
the US. Why should one sympathise with Pakistan’s
military rulers? True, Taliban are a grave danger
to Pakistan. But Taliban were Taliban even in the
1990s. Shouldn’t some heads roll?
This government would do whatever the Americans
may want. The thing to do is to learn to stand on
one’s own legs. Unless the country can reinvent
itself as a people-friendly state and start an
economic development that is integrated and
self-reliant, there will be no future.
International loans are all right so long as they
produce something with which they can be repaid.
Building infrastructure is Pakistan’s own duty.
It has no business to take loans for projects
that do not add to the productivity or financial
ability to repay within, say eight to nine years.
But that is for the long haul. It is contingent
on a political revolution that liberates the
state structures of Pakistan from the
stranglehold of the army. If the people do not
win back their sovereignty soon, Pakistan is
going to be in serious trouble. Hopes for a
brighter future will fade for a long, long time
to come.