Islamabad mon amour

The Pakistan-US romance began in the tense years of the Cold War. Since then, though the ardour has cooled at times, it has renewed with fervour periodically. But it was never unselfish love. Pakistan has been consistently useful to the US in the protection of its global interests. Soon after 1947, the Pakistanis would bow and scrape as they sought to establish an identity.
The early Fifties in the US were marked by sustained campaigns against communism and neutrality was immoral. Richard Nixon led this charge globally and came back from Pakistan in December 1953, visibly impressed. He wanted the US to provide military assistance to Pakistan, “a country I would like to do everything for”. Then there was Gen Ayub Khan, the Sandhurst-trained pucca sahib. The Americans concluded they could do business with him rather than the argumentative Indians. Ayub was recruited to fight communism and John Foster Dulles assured the US Congress that the Pakistanis would fight any communist invasion with their bare fists if they had to. Ayub returned this effusive praise with a promise that “our army can be your army if you want us” — prophetic words. SEATO and CENTO followed. So did arms assistance and the US began using Pakistani territory for reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union.
Pakistan became the trusted messenger boy between the US and China, both anxious at that time to contain the Soviet Union. Pakistani visitors to Pentagon or the state department were used to convey feelers and goodwill gestures to Beijing. President Yahya Khan, on a visit to New York for the UNGA in 1970, was summoned by Nixon to Washington and asked to convey to the Chinese that a rapprochement between China and the US was ‘essential’.
By Sept-Oct 1971, Indo-Pak relations were deteriorating. Nixon didn’t want to allow a friend of America and China to be defeated in a conflict with a friend of Russia and decided to overlook Yahya Khan’s brutal repression of the Bengalis in East Pakistan. Henry Kissinger then began to furtively meet the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Huang Hua, in CIA safe houses in New York. There he told Huang that Nixon would not accept military aggression by India against Pakistan. He would show Huang CIA reports about Indian military positions and detailed Indian plans of assault on Pakistani positions in what was East Pakistan. Kissinger told Huang that India had withdrawn two mountain divisions from the border facing China. The hint was obvious. And Kissinger pressed further.
He told Huang that the US was circumventing the ban on sale of arms to Pakistan by encouraging Jordan, Iran and Saudi Arabia to divert equipment and armament. And suggested that if the Chinese went ahead and bashed the Indians, the Americans would protect the Chinese from the Soviets. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai did not buy this line.
Later, perhaps angered by the 1974 Indian nuclear test, Kissinger and his assistant, Winston Lord, are believed to have joked in the presence of Chinese officials that the best way to contain Indian ambitions was to arm Pakistan and Bangladesh with nuclear arms. The Chinese apparently took this advice seriously and the US looked the other way — twice. In 1979, there was evidence that Zia-ul Haq was clandestinely acquiring nuclear technology but the Americans felt that without Zia’s cooperation the Afghan jehad was a dead issue. The second time the Americans were forgiving was when Pakistan began to retail nuclear weapons technology to rogue States. Without Pakistan’s cooperation the war against terror could not be fought.
In 1979, Leonid Brezhnev made the horrendous miscalculation of intervening in Afghanistan and Zia the pariah became Zia the friend and ally. A tripartite relationship between the Americans, the Saudis and the Pakistanis blossomed as the Afghan jehad began to take shape. This marked the beginning of the world’s first State-sponsored globally privatised campaign of violence against another State. The refrain was ‘get the Evil Empire’.
Weapons came from all over — from Egypt, Turkey, China — and when the Pakistanis ran short of indigenous mules to transport the weapons across the craggy mountains of Afghanistan, an enterprising CIA operative had them flown in from Texas. Tonnes of the deadly C-4 plastic explosives were given to the ISI for distribution to the mujahideen — the quantity was enough to blow up half of New York. British magnetic depth charges to blow up bridges and sophisticated weapons and timer devices were freely provided. Saudi and American largesse in 1987 totaled about $ 1.2 billion; it was roughly similar in 1990 even after the Soviets had gone. The CIA ironically remained involved in the new international anti-West jehad taking shape that would later haunt America. Tanks captured from the Iraq war were later to be shipped to Pakistan to be given to Pakistan’s protégé Gulbuddin Hikmetyar long after the Russians had gone and Pakistan was then fighting its own battle for control of Kabul.
Over time, the CIA had let its Afghan policy subserve Pakistani interests and Pakistan’s agenda became the CIA’s own. The relationship between the services began to warm up and CIA director William Casey would brief ISI chief Akhtar Rahman about Indian military movements. A grateful Akhtar presented a $ 7,000 carpet to Casey on one of his many Pakistan visits.
Akhtar made the fullest use of American and Saudi generosity to transform the ISI from a small insignificant unit of the Pakistan army into Pakistan’s most powerful and feared institution. Jehadis trained in Afghanistan would be equipped and financed with American and Saudi money for operating in the new theatre of Kashmir. The Russians were on their way out from Afghanistan by the time Zia was killed, and the US then seemed to have taken two basic decisions. Leave Afghanistan to the Pakistanis to handle the messy situation as they understood it the best. Second, they would help Pakistan move towards democracy and also that they would defend Pakistan against any external threat. It is obvious where the source of external threat to Pakistan was supposed to originate.
When the terrorists got to Pentagon and the World Trade Center in September 2001, the Indian establishment offered all assistance in the hope that the US would now understand the Indian position and that this was a chance to strategically engage with it. Nothing of the sort happened. It was to be a Pakistan-first policy. The war against terror was fought with US rules and nobody else’s. India was not relevant beyond containing its hand, whatever the provocation — December 13 or Kaluchak.
Pakistan today has strategic value for the US. It has a strong army and is a nuclear weapon State lying on the eastern fringes of a volatile but energy rich belt. Pakistan also has a nuisance value. It is nuclear armed and has fiery Muslim fundamentalists roaming all over the country and in positions of influence, promising anti-American jehad. George Bush, in his acceptance speech, spoke of Pakistan as a transit point for terrorists and his deputy referred to the closure of the black market of nuclear weapons technology. Not the best way to be remembered.
There are many in Pakistan who today resent what their military leaders have done to their country. China has both strategic and commercial value for the Americans. India, on the other hand, will not abandon its age-old friendship with the Russians, will not be a cat’s paw in any adventure. India today has little strategic value for the US but has tremendous market potential. It is, therefore, Corporate India that can profitably engage Corporate USA.

Source : Hindustan Times 6th oct 2004