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Lollipops and Iran
By B Raman
United States President
George W Bush notified Congress on March 25 of the
intention of his administration to clear the sale
of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan. If there is no
opposition from Congress within a month, the
company manufacturing the aircraft
(Lockheed-Martin) could start negotiations with
the government of Pakistan on the sale. Before
notifying Congress, Bush informed Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh of his decision.
A
US spokesman who briefed the press indicated that
the deal, when signed, would involve the sale of
24 F-16s. In the late 1980s, the US government
cleared the sale of 32 F-16s to Pakistan. The
government of Pakistan had placed orders for the
aircraft and paid money in advance. When the
planes were about to be delivered in 1990, the
Larry Pressler Amendment was invoked against
Pakistan for clandestinely producing a nuclear
weapon, and all military sales and training to
Pakistan were suspended, including supply of spare
parts for the equipment sold and delivered to
Pakistan before 1990.
After a visit by Mrs
Benazir Bhutto, the then prime minister, to the US
in 1995, the Bill Clinton administration
encouraged the passage of the Brown Amendment by
Congress to lift the ban on the sale of military
equipment to Pakistan and the training of
Pakistani military officers in the US. After this,
the supply of spare parts for the pre-1990
military equipment and the training of Pakistani
officers in the US were resumed. Some pre-1990
orders for fresh equipment, such as the one for
the sale of three P-3 maritime surveillance
planes, were executed, but the Clinton
administration declined to release the 32 F-16
planes for which Pakistan had already paid.
Instead, it had them sold to third countries and
reimbursed Pakistan - partly in cash and partly in
kind (soya beans) - the money which it had already
paid for the planes.
The ban on the sale
of military equipment and the supply of spare
parts was reimposed after Pakistan carried out its
nuclear tests in May, 1998. These restrictions
were reinforced after the army, under General
Pervez Musharraf, overthrew the then prime
minister Nawaz Sharif in October, 1999, and seized
power. These restrictions were again removed after
September 11 as a quid pro quo for Pakistan's
cooperation in the US-led "war" against al-Qaeda
and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Since then
the Bush administration has been gradually
stepping up the supply of military equipment to
Pakistan. The first instalment covered spare parts
for the equipment supplied in the past, including
for transport and military aircraft, which had
been given to Pakistan before 1990. It also
included equipment required by the Pakistan army
and police for their counter-terrorism operations,
such as a large number of helicopters and
communications equipment. All of the equipment
under the first instalment was given to Pakistan
free of cost.
During Musharraf's visit to
Camp David in June, 2003, for talks with Bush, a
fresh aid package of US$3 billion was announced by
Bush. Bush indicated that this aid would be
disbursed over a period of five years and that
half of this would be in the form of economic
assistance and the remaining half would be
military assistance.
He was asked by the
media whether this military aid package would also
include F-16s. He replied as follows, "Let me just
say - first, let me say, the president is not
afraid to bring up the issue of F-16s. He has been
a strong advocate for the sale of F-16s to
Pakistan. In the package that we discussed, the
five-year, $3 billion package, half of that money
goes for defense matters, of which the F-16 won't
be a part. Nevertheless, we want to work closely
with our friend to make sure that the package
meets the needs of the Pakistan people."
The subsequent negotiations on the
utilization of the military aid component of this
package were very slow and did not make much
progress until October, 2004. The US kept the
finalization of the agreement pending until
Pakistan stepped up action against pro-al-Qaeda
jihadi terrorists who had taken sanctuary in the
South Waziristan area of Pakistan, and cooperated
in the peaceful conduct of the presidential
elections in Afghanistan.
Musharraf
stepped up military operations in South
Waziristan, but was unable to capture and deliver
Osama bin Laden and his No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
to the US. However, he effectively prevented the
Taliban, based in sanctuaries in Pakistan, from
interfering in the Afghan elections in October,
2004. He also facilitated the victory of US-backed
Hamid Karzai in the first round itself by
effectively mobilizing the absentee votes of the
millions of Pashtuns of Afghan origin living in
Pakistan. They got themselves registered as Afghan
citizens and reportedly voted for Karzai.
The US reward for Musharraf was not slow
in coming. On November 16, the Defense Security
and Cooperation Agency notified Congress of the
administration's intention to provide to Pakistan
military equipment worth $1.3 billion, including
eight P-3C Orion naval reconnaissance planes
possibly with anti-ship and anti-submarine
missiles, 2,000 TOW-2A heavy anti-armor guided
missiles and the Phalanx close-in weapon systems
for ships. This second instalment did not have any
pretensions of being meant for counter-terrorism
operations. Musharraf wanted this equipment for
strengthening Pakistan's military capability
against India. The Bush administration knew it,
but projected the maritime surveillance planes and
equipment as meant for strengthening Pakistan's
maritime counter-terrorism capability against
al-Qaeda.
The second instalment, which was not
opposed by Congress, also did not include the
F-16s demanded by Pakistan. After his re-election
for a second term, Bush has been diluting the
focus on bin Laden and increasing the spotlight on
Iran in order to neutralize its nuclear
capability. Pakistan has acquired added importance
in the eyes of the US in this regard. The US
intelligence community requires a presence in
Pakistani territory for the collection of
intelligence about Iran's nuclear installations
and for mounting an operation against them, if
this becomes necessary. There are clear
indications from reliable Pakistani sources (this
has been corroborated by Seymour Hersh, the
well-known American journalist) that Pakistan has
already agreed to this.
The US also
required the cooperation of Musharraf in the
on-going investigation of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) against Iran on an
uranium-enrichment facility constructed by it.
During a spot inspection, IAEA experts reportedly
found that some of the centrifuges in the Iranian
facility contained highly enriched uranium,
thereby giving rise to a suspicion that Iran might
have already started clandestinely producing
weapons-grade enriched uranium.
This has
been strongly denied by Tehran, which has been
claiming that it bought the centrifuges
second-hand from an outside party (Pakistan) and
that the traces of the enriched uranium found in
the Iranian facility might have come from the
supplier of the centrifuges. For the last year,
the IAEA has been demanding that Pakistan hand
over to it some of its centrifuges to have them
compared with those found in Iran, and a sample of
its enriched uranium to have it compared with the
trace found in the Iranian facility. Till last
month, Pakistan was refusing to do so.
Since the beginning of March, Western
media reports have been quoting IAEA officials in
Vienna as saying that Pakistan has relented and
has agreed to give some of the centrifuges from
its Kahuta enrichment facility, but this is denied
by Pakistani government spokesmen.
This
subject reportedly figured during the talks of US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Musharraf
in Islamabad on March 16-17. In a TV interview on
March 24, Musharraf announced that Pakistan was
considering sending some nuclear centrifuges to
Vienna for inspection. (See US not
finished with Pakistan yet
Asia
Times Online, March 19.) "To end the issue once
and for all we want to send nuclear centrifuges to
Vienna for inspection and the matter is under
consideration," he said. However, he did not
indicate whether he would also agree to the
request of the IAEA for the supply of a sample of
enriched uranium from Kahuta. One should not be
surprised if he has also agreed to this and if in
the coming weeks he wriggles out of the project
for the construction of a gas pipeline from Iran
to supply gas to Pakistan and India in order to
please the US.
Within 24 hours, Bush
notified Congress of his decision to clear the
sale of F-16s to Pakistan. Well-informed Pakistani
sources say that just as the military package of
November last was a lollipop as a reward for
Musharraf's cooperation in facilitating the
victory of Karzai in the presidential election,
the F-16 lollipop is a reward for his cooperation
against Iran.
In the coming months, the
US's main priorities in this region will be
winning the so-called "war against terrorism" and
neutralizing Iran's nuclear projects. For
achieving these objectives, it will continue to
need the cooperation of Pakistan. It will,
therefore, continue to be impervious to India's
concerns.
We should avoid euphoria and
illusions over the reported offer of Rice to
consider the sale of sophisticated equipment,
including F-16s, and nuclear power stations, to
India. The US will not hesitate to wriggle out of
this offer if it concludes that the supply of this
equipment could come in the way of its developing
relations with Pakistan.
B Raman
is additional secretary (retired), cabinet
secretariat, government of India, New Delhi, and,
presently, director, Institute for Topical
Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow and
convener, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai
Chapter. Email itschen36@gmail.com
(Copyright 2005, B Raman) |
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