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The US, anti-jihadis and the Pakistan
myth
By Ramtanu Maitra
The
US-led invasion of Iraq has raised hopes within a
section of India's pro-Israel, pro-United States
anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan power structure that the
US neo-conservative anti-jihadis will soon train their
sights on Pakistan.
This hope surfaced in New
Delhi recently, after acknowledgment by the US State
Department that Pakistan and North Korea have been
involved in a missiles-for-enriched-uranium transfer
policy for decades.
This "hope", though, may
soon turn into active manipulation of a not-so-unwilling
government in New Delhi to revive an aggressive pursuit
of the one-dimensional anti-Pakistan policy that has
already made it something of a laughing stock in
Washington and other world capitals. New Delhi's
credibility was damaged significantly last December when
it brought back 700,000 troops amassed along the
India-Pakistan border. As US assistant secretary of
state for South Asia Christine Rocca told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee recently, the withdrawal was
made on the advice of the administration of President
George W Bush.
Those who keep their ears close
to the ground will have little difficulty in divining
what drove the United States to its war against Iraq.
For certain, it was not to suppress Islamic
fundamentalism, as Iraq was never a fundamentalist
nation. The so-called neo-conservatives within the US
power structure say very clearly: this war was waged to
rid Iraq of a bloody tyrant. More important, they claim
the objective is to export American values of democracy,
market-based economy and the rule of law to the Muslim
world. What they do not say, and only can be surmised at
this point, is that the war will help Israel in its feud
against the Palestinians and also ensure a steady flow
of cheap Middle East oil to the United States and its
allies.
Pakistan in the crosshairs?
Those in Washington who agree with the anti-Pakistan
cabal in India claim that Pakistani President General
Pervez Musharraf is a military dictator who possesses
weapons of mass destruction and the Pakistani Islamic
movements have direct ties to international terrorist
organizations such as al-Qaeda. Until recently,
Musharraf was supportive of the Taliban. But then, so
was Washington. They also accuse Musharraf and the
Pakistani army of bringing the region under the threat
of a nuclear war. They like to think these echo the
reasons Saddam Hussein had to go. But that argument is
merely self-serving.
Besides the pro-Israeli and
anti-Muslim groups within India, there are others who
think that Pakistan could be a target. Malaysian Prime
Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, for instance, told
al-Jazeera television recently, "Today there is a
cooperation between Pakistan and other countries on
nuclear technology, and it is believed to possess
weapons of mass destruction." To have a dictator as a
"friend" is annoying to the US neo-conservatives, but
Pakistan's nuclear capability is a fait accompli, as is
India's. The growth of Islamic fundamentalism in
Pakistan, which has taken the shape of anti-Americanism,
is another issue that irritates the anti-Jihadis in
Washington, but only to a certain point.
On the
other hand, there are many very clear reasons why
Pakistan is not in America's crosshairs. To begin with,
the Pakistani government, despite what it says publicly,
has never acted against Israeli interests. Its support
of the Palestinians was at best lukewarm. Of course,
Pakistan does not produce cheap oil and Islamabad is
more than willing to accept market-based capitalism if
money in the form of aid under US blessings flows into
Pakistan. Therefore, the pro-Israel anti-jihadis in the
US cannot build a strong enough case to attack Pakistan.
There are other considerations. Pakistan is the
cornerstone of US policy to fight al-Qaeda and the
Taliban. Pakistan is ready to give up most of the
al-Qaeda members sheltered within and along its borders,
but not the Taliban. Washington, which once quietly
supported the Taliban in the mid-1990s, could live with
that. Moreover, the Pakistani army has long been a close
ally of the Pentagon. Washington knows fully well that
the Pakistani army is the single most important
institution left in Pakistan; and a large section of the
Pakistani army, in order to keep battle-fit, wants to
maintain strong ties with the United States.
Importance of the Pakistani army
But
the Pakistani army serves a greater role for Washington.
If and when the US wants to bring a political party to
power in Pakistan in support of its own democratic
values, it must depend on the Pakistani army to do so.
Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz
Sharif's Muslim League (Nawaz) can come to power only
when these political parties manage to broker hands-on
support from the army. Washington knows that very well,
because under US ambassador Robert Oakley ("Viceroy
Oakley") such brokerage was done time and again in the
1990s.
What Washington also knows is that street
Islam, an extremely disruptive anti-American power base,
can only be controlled by the Pakistani army. The
so-called democratic political parties of Pakistan
cannot hold their own against the Islamic militants, and
never did, without support from the barracks. (It is
another matter that the barracks, having taken the
responsibility of bringing political parties to power,
also hold the "right" to remove them.)
More
important, despite getting into a very rough spot in the
aftermath of September 11, 2001, Islamabad has not
pursued a unidimensional foreign policy. Pakistan's
close relationship with China is not to be
underestimated, particularly in light of America's
growing problems with North Korea. Whether Washington
likes it or not, China is a very important power and may
not look aside if Pakistan is in fact militarily
threatened by the United States.
Those
pro-Israel, anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan Indian
powerbrokers who are trying to straitjacket India's
foreign policy inside a narrow tunnel ought to know that
the neo-conservatives in Washington may be calculating
and ruthless, but they are not reckless. They know full
well on which side their bread is buttered and who are
the enemies to be taken on. The neo-conservatives are,
in fact, not very happy with India. Despite India's
vaunted democratic system, the neo-conservatives do not
like India's continuing protection of its economy. Their
attitude toward India may get downright nasty if India
accelerates a closer relationship with China and Russia,
tries to play a meaningful role in Central Asia, or
tries to break out of the present unidimensional,
anti-Muslim, pro-Israel foreign policy.
(©2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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