Why We're Stuck with Pakistan
By Aryn Baker / Islamabad Thursday, May 12, 2011
When the U.S. confronted Pakistan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there were no discussions of common goals and shared dreams. There was just a very direct threat: you're either with us or against us. Pakistan had to choose between making an enemy of the U.S. and taking a quick and dirty deal sweetened with the promise of a lot of cash. In the end, Pakistan's cooperation was a transaction that satisfied the urgent needs of the day, brokered by a nervous military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, who failed to explain the value of the U.S. relationship to his people. That allowed a theme to become fixed among Pakistanis: the war on terrorism was America's war. When Pakistani soldiers started dying in battles with militant groups, when suicide bombers began killing Pakistani civilians, it was America's fault because it was America's war.
So as Pakistanis processed the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, many concluded that they had been betrayed by their supposed ally. How dare the Americans sneak into the country without so much as a warning and conduct a military operation just 75 miles (120 km) from the capital? But they felt betrayed too by their military. How could it be that Pakistan's armed forces, which claim a lion's share of government spending, were clueless about the presence, a mere mile from the country's most prestigious defense academy, of the world's most wanted terrorist? Cyril Almeida, one of Pakistan's best-known opinion writers, summed up the national anguish in a column: "If we didn't know [bin Laden was in Abbottabad], we are a failed state; if we did know, we are a rogue state."
Pakistan is a bit of both. It's not hard to detect dysfunction in a state where the military controls foreign policy, national security and an intelligence network so pervasive that no dinner guest at a foreign journalist's house goes unscrutinized. The civilian government, hobbled by incompetence and corruption, has no power and, even worse, no backbone. In tea shops and on street corners, Pakistanis' frustration with their leadership collides with their inability to change it. Instead they lash out at the U.S. for reminding them of their failure as a nation.
The consequence is what Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in an interview with TIME, calls a "trust deficit" with the U.S. Gilani insists that he can't mend the relationship with a wave of his hand. "I am not an army dictator. I'm a public figure," he tells TIME. "If public opinion is against [the U.S.], then I cannot resist it to stand with you. I have to go with public opinion." In a May 9 speech to Parliament on the Abbottabad raid, Gilani accused the U.S. of violating Pakistan's sovereignty and warned that Pakistan had the right to retaliate with "full force" against any future incursions. Others are more blunt: "To hell with the Americans," says retired Brigadier General Shaukat Qadir, a popular columnist and regular guest on TV talk shows. "We need to reconsider our relationship."
In Washington, that sentiment is echoed in Congress, where lawmakers are demanding to know why a country that has received more than $20 billion in U.S. aid over the past decade shelters and arms enemies of the U.S. even as it purports to hunt them down. "I think this is a moment when we need to look each other in the eye and decide, Are we real allies? Are we going to work together?" said Speaker of the House John Boehner.
It's not just the rhetoric that's heating up. Each side seems eager to poke the other in the eye. The U.S. has launched drone strikes at several sites in Pakistan since the Abbottabad operation, knowing full well that these will infuriate the Pakistani military, which sees them as a violation of sovereignty. For their part, Pakistani officials have told ABC News that they may give China parts of a destroyed U.S. stealth helicopter left behind at bin Laden's compound.
Yet for all the anger in Islamabad and Washington, neither nation has much of a choice. However duplicitous and volatile it may be, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is central to the interests of both countries. The U.S. needs Pakistan's help to be successful in Afghanistan. Pakistan provides, among other things, a vital transit link for goods destined for coalition troops in the landlocked country. But even without Afghanistan, the U.S. would need Pakistan to be stable. The alternative — a collapsing nation awash with terrorist groups and possessing a nuclear arsenal — is too awful to consider. How real is that prospect? "Pakistan is passing through one of the most dangerous periods of instability in its history," warns Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "[It] is approaching a perfect storm of threats, including rising extremism, a failing economy, chronic underdevelopment and an intensifying war, resulting in unprecedented political, economic and social turmoil."
Flaws in the Foundation
The relationship, in truth, has never been about trust. It was and is a strategic alliance founded on complementary interests: Pakistan's desire for military assistance and its fear of becoming a pariah state, and the U.S.'s need for regional support in the Afghanistan war. While Pakistan and the U.S. share similar long-term goals — economic partnership, stability in the region — their short-term needs rarely intersect. That is why the question of whose side Pakistan is on is so galling to most Pakistanis and so infuriating to most Americans. "Pakistan is on Pakistan's side," says Tariq Azim, an opposition Senator and Deputy Information Minister under Musharraf.
Carved from the newly independent India in 1947, Pakistan has never fully resolved the quandary with which its founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, wrestled: Is it a Muslim state or a state for Muslims? While his Indian counterpart, Jawaharlal Nehru, ruled for nearly two decades — long enough to realize his vision of a secular state — Jinnah died a year after Pakistan's founding. A succession of weak civilian governments and military dictatorships followed. In that period, India and Pakistan fought three wars, mainly over the contested territory of Kashmir. In 1971, Indian military support for separatists in East Pakistan led to the creation of Bangladesh. That humiliation informs Pakistan's actions still and its belief that India constitutes an "existential threat" capable of destabilizing and further dismembering Pakistan. That fear of India, in turn, explains Islamabad's quest for nuclear weapons, which was realized with a test in 1998.
For the first three decades of Pakistan's existence, its leaders, both military and civilian, ran a largely secular state. That changed in 1977, when General Zia ul-Haq took power in a military coup. He cemented his rule by instituting Islamic law and revising the educational curriculum in an effort to promote nationalism and an Islamic identity. Had it not been for the 1979 Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan's secular elite might have rebelled. Instead the country rallied in support of its neighbor, out of fear that it might be next.
Fearing the same thing, the U.S. supported Pakistan as it armed and trained Afghan mujahedin to take on the Soviets. This required both subterfuge and a certain amount of denial: since U.S. law forbade aid to a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, Washington chose to pretend Pakistan was doing no such thing. When Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, Pakistan was left with more than 3 million Afghan refugees and a generation brought up with the culture of jihad. Then, in 1990, Pakistan's nuclear program was finally recognized, and the U.S., which had already cut aid, imposed sanctions on Islamabad. "You used us, and then you dumped us," says Qadir, the retired general, echoing national sentiment. "And Pakistanis are convinced you are going to do it again."
Uniform Power
The U.S.-Pakistan alliance in the 1980s vastly empowered the Pakistani military and its Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). American aid flowed through them, swelling their sense that they alone could safeguard the nation's interests. When Pakistan returned to civilian rule in 1988, the military retained effective control of national security and foreign policy, redirecting Islamist fervor against India in a protracted guerrilla war. Civilian rule lasted barely a decade. By the end of 1999, Musharraf, another general, had seized power in a coup.
The U.S. didn't seem that concerned. After 9/11, sanctions were lifted and aid restarted, with the Pakistani military again serving as the main conduit. In exchange, Islamabad would enable the free flow of supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, allow covert U.S. operations against terrorist groups sheltered in Pakistan and mop up any groups that threatened U.S. interests. Musharraf's replacement by a civilian government in 2008 didn't change the terms of the deal, but it coincided with growing concern in the U.S. that the Pakistanis were not keeping up their end of the bargain. While Pakistan was indeed doing battle against some terrorist groups, it also seemed to allow others to thrive: the Haqqani network, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda and which has attacked U.S. and NATO positions in Afghanistan, has safe haven in Pakistani territory. In the past two years, a succession of top U.S. officials have openly suggested that some of the most wanted terrorists were being sheltered by elements of the Pakistani establishment.
Since the killing of bin Laden, the Obama Administration has been careful not to finger Pakistan's government or military leadership. But the bargain struck in 2001 seems to have broken down. "Clearly, from an operational perspective, the fact that the U.S. executed this raid unilaterally suggests that there's not a lot of faith in that relationship anymore," says Stephen Tankel, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's South Asia program. "So this seems to me an opportunity to try to engage with a longer-term view toward promoting civilian governance in Pakistan."
Many Pakistanis would like that as well but know from history not to hold their breath. "This is a golden opportunity for the civilian leadership to assert themselves," says Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general who has long campaigned to get the military out of government. But, he adds, "knowing their capabilities, in all likelihood they will not. And that is the tragedy of Pakistan."
The Military Mind-Set
Why is Pakistan's civilian leadership so weak? The military is at least partly to blame. For the past two decades it has engaged in a campaign of divide and conquer, setting political parties at odds with one another. It has bought media complicity — either through intimidation or by threatening to cut lucrative advertising from military-owned enterprises. When politicians persist in criticizing the military, they are quickly silenced. One parliamentarian, who asked not to be named, says he received a series of harassing text messages within moments of criticizing the military. "A known pro-ISI journalist came up to me and said, 'Sir, they are going to make an example out of you,' '' says the parliamentarian. And then the text messages arrived: "According to news reports, you frequent a gay club in New York," the first one read. Then: "Hey, I just saw gay videos of you on YouTube." And finally, "Hi, I remember we had good times together. Love Boris."
All of which poses an obvious question: How could an organization that so closely monitors all aspects of Pakistani life not have known that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad? One explanation: it wasn't looking. "The fight against al-Qaeda was part of the larger effort to play a role in the war on terror, but you didn't have a dedicated al-Qaeda unit in the ISI monitoring activities in Pakistan," explains military analyst Rifaat Hussain. "It was a classic case of not paying attention to something under your nose." Pakistanis, in truth, are less concerned that bin Laden was in their midst than about the fact that the U.S. was able to find him there and enter Pakistani territory without the military's knowledge. "This leads one to a more serious question: Are our nuclear assets safe?" asked Pakistan's former ambassador to Afghanistan Ayaz Wazir in an opinion piece in the News, an English daily. (The notion that the U.S. is after Pakistan's nuclear weapons — more than 100 bombs, by some estimates — is one of many conspiracy theories trotted out on nightly TV talk shows.)
Yet if the raid in Abbottabad has taken some of the shine off the military brass, the generals can be relied upon to stoke anti-American sentiment as a diversion. The military is adept at making even good news look bad. In the autumn of 2009, when the civilian government cheered the prospect of U.S. legislation tripling nonmilitary aid, the generals stepped in to denounce its conditions as humiliating. The Kerry-Lugar bill marked the first time Washington had addressed the dire socioeconomic problems of Pakistan and the need to reinforce democracy there, but the military rightly perceived as a threat a rider stipulating that funds would cease in the event of a coup.
From outrage over drone attacks to hysteria over the CIA contractor who killed a pair of Pakistanis in what appeared to be a legitimate case of self-defense, anti-U.S. rage is the military's dependable standby. "Pakistan doesn't have positive leverage over us," says Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert at Georgetown University. "So [the military] creates bilateral fiascoes through their media wing and uses that to temper what Pakistan will or will not do."
One thing the military won't do is take on militants in North Waziristan, which serves as a haven for the Haqqani network. To retired ambassador Tanvir Khan, who served in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the cost of taking on the Haqqanis would be too high for Pakistan to bear. You have to pick your battles, he says. "If the army does in North Waziristan what the Americans want it to do, overnight the Haqqanis become enemies of Pakistan," he says. Already the military is battling insurgents elsewhere in the tribal areas. The Haqqanis "would be a much harder nut to crack," says Khan. And if the military were to dedicate its army to combatting militants on its western border, it would risk leaving its eastern flank vulnerable to attack from India.
Given Pakistan's fear of India, that is a lot to ask. That fear may have been fanned by a military establishment attempting to justify its outsize expenditures, but India has done little to assuage the paranoia. Indeed it contributes, massing troops on the border and, according to Western diplomats in Islamabad, sending agents into Baluchistan province, where a long-simmering ethnic separatist movement invites memories of Bangladesh. And it is India — not Pakistan — that has a deal with the U.S. for the peaceful exploitation of civilian nuclear power. "From the Pakistani point of view, we are the ones playing a double game," says Pakistan expert Fair. "We reject their security concerns, saying they are not relevant. Then we ask them to move their entire military in order to wage a deeply unpopular war, and meanwhile we give India a nuclear deal. No wonder they don't trust us."
Can't Live Without 'Em
Still, the awkward truth remains: The U.S. needs Pakistan. U.S. officials believe that bin Laden's death offers an opportunity to peel the Taliban away from al-Qaeda. And when that happens, Pakistan will be perfectly poised to offer its assistance. Though routinely denied by Pakistani officials, it is hardly a secret that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has been using Pakistan as a base of operations ever since he fled the U.S. invasion in 2001.
With the target date for turning over responsibility for Afghan security to the Afghan army in 2015 approaching, there is near universal agreement that the Taliban will have to be involved in some sort of political reconciliation. "The Americans need the Pakistanis to negotiate in Afghanistan," says a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad. In Pakistani eyes, that justifies the policy of maintaining relations with the Taliban, says Senator Azim. "We are the only ones who are accused of keeping close ties, so Pakistan is the only country that [the West] can rely on."
Officials' knee-jerk denials of Pakistani support for the Taliban have turned into crowing triumphalism as leaders see a decade's worth of subterfuge bear fruit. Still, Azim makes it clear that his nation's interests will stay at the fore of any reconsidered relationship. Pakistan will protect its Taliban sources even as the U.S. demands greater intelligence sharing. So for Washington, says Azim, the question boils down to this: "A decision has to be made. Can you use Pakistan, with all its warts? My submission is that you don't have anyone else, so you might as well use us. Not by twisting our arm or accusing us. You know, do it nicely by sitting down with us and listening to our point of view. Our objective is to have a friendly government in Afghanistan. Americans want a safe, honorable exit. Let us help you."
Gilani, too, insists that the relationship can be put back on track. For example, "a drones strategy can be worked out," he says. "If drone strikes are effective, then we should evolve a common strategy to win over public opinion. Our position is that the technology should be transferred to us." And, he adds, he is prepared to countenance a strategy in which the CIA would continue to use drone strikes "where they are used under our supervision" — a departure from Pakistan's publicly stated policy of condemning drone strikes as intolerable violations of sovereignty.
What Gilani really wants is some love. Washington, he told TIME, needs to provide his people with a visible demonstration of support if it hopes to rebuild trust. The U.S., the Prime Minister says, "should do something for the public which will persuade them that it is supportive of Pakistan." As an example, he cites — of course — the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement of 2008. "It's our public that's dying, but the deal is happening there," he says in a wounded tone. "You claim there's a strategic partnership? That we're best friends?"
Then, casting his eyes up at his chandeliered ceiling, Pakistan's Prime Minister reaches for a verse. "When we passed each other, she didn't deign to even say hello," he intones, quoting the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. "How, then, can I believe that our parting caused her any tears?"
— With reporting by Omar Waraich / Islamabad and Mark Benjamin, Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson / Washington
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