Pakistan as a 'key non-NATO
ally' By Ehsan M Ahrari
US
Secretary of State Colin Powell brought good news to
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf on
Thursday. The United States will elevate its military
relationship with Pakistan as a major ally outside of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That is
the ultimate reward for Musharraf's willingness not only
to do a lot of heavy lifting to capture or kill the top
al-Qaeda leadership, but also for risking the very
stability of his country by getting so close to
Washington. But risks for Pakistan might not be as heady
as they appear at a glance. For India and China, the
elevation of Pakistan by the Bush administration poses
new questions.
From the vantage point of
domestic politics in Pakistan, Musharraf's "never say
no" attitude toward the United States' demands regarding
its global "war on terrorism" is not likely to win him
many friends. However, that is not to say that
anti-Americanism is on the rise in Pakistan. The March
17 findings of the Pew Research Center underscore that
America's image in Pakistan, Turkey and Russia has
improved from its last survey of May 2003. As a general
principle, a majority of Pakistanis are showing their
revulsion against what al-Qaeda and its cohorts inside
their own country represent. However, Musharraf still
has to worry about the Islamists of his country and
their commitment to Osama bin Laden's world view and to
his primacy of jihad. Those Islamists have enough clout
to cause ample trouble in certain sections of Pakistan.
In addition, they will continue their anti-government
and terrorist activities, including carrying out further
assassination plots.
Pakistan's elevation as a
key non-NATO ally by the administration of US President
George W Bush is a diplomatic coup de theatre for
the Musharraf government. From the perspectives of
regional politics, Pakistan is likely to get special
access to conventional weapons of all sophistication
from the United States. For now, one can speculate that
Pakistan will get the same treatment as Israel, Egypt,
or Jordan. But in reality, Pakistan would do well if it
could be treated on par with Egypt. No key ally of the
US will be treated with the kind of generosity in the
realms of economic and military assistance as Israel has
been receiving from Washington since the 1967
Arab-Israeli war.
Even in agreeing to go along
with President Bush's recommendations for the transfer
of weapons to Pakistan in the coming months, the US
Congress will insist on heightened transparency from
Islamabad regarding its nuclear-proliferation
activities, and complete information on the
nuclear-proliferation-related activities of Dr Abdul
Qadeer Khan. That is an issue that will not go away for
Musharraf.
India, China watch
carefully By elevating Pakistan as a key ally,
the US will be forced to conduct a constant balancing
act vis-a-vis its strategic partnership with India. That
partnership has grown considerably and is not about to
be unraveled, barring unforeseen mishaps. There is
little doubt that New Delhi will apply its own
behind-the-scenes pressure on Washington to elevate its
own special strategic status further under the new
circumstances. How far the US is willing to go in terms
of accommodating India's strategic predilections will be
determined by who is occupying the White House in
January 2005. The global "war on terrorism" under John
Kerry is not likely to take up as much of his energy as
it has Bush's, barring no further terrorist incident in
the United States. Thus, under a Kerry administration,
India might enjoy a slight edge over Pakistan. More
substantially, Washington's job of balancing the
interests of India and Pakistan will be considerably
easy if both South Asian nations succeed in keeping
their mutual ties steady and free of tensions leading to
a potential war.
China is certainly scratching
its head over the implications of Pakistan's newly
elevated strategic status for its own ties with that
country. In the short run, Sino-Pakistani ties are not
likely to be affected. However, in the long run -
especially if Islamabad were to get even more economic
and military benefits from Washington - the traditional
Sino-Indian strategic rivalry might be revisited by
Beijing and Delhi. There is little doubt that if
Pakistan were to accrue the kind of military and
economic payoffs that it expects to get from Washington,
the strategic balance in South Asia will undergo a
noteworthy mutation. Such a transformation would not be
welcomed by New Delhi or Beijing, for different reasons.
India will not be appreciative of any changes in
Pakistan's status in conventional arms. That is an area
where India has assiduously built up its own superiority
for the past 40 years. Beijing, for its part, does not
want to lose Pakistan as a key partner in keeping India
off balance in the Sino-Indian rivalry. Unbeknownst to
Washington, by elevating Pakistan's status as a key
ally, it has started a new era of strategic realignment,
or at least a major reassessment toward a potential
realignment. All in all, such a reassessment is not at
all unwelcome, especially since it guarantees the role
of the United States as a long-term balancer in South
Asia.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an
Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic
analyst.
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