The Importance of being Pakistan

While the Pakistani state is being periodi-cally buffeted by a series of highly volatile events exposing certain inherent weaknesses of its institutions, its increasing relevance to the world community is also being brought into sharper focus than before.

This apparent contradiction is easily explained when we examine various parameters to determine the changing status of the Pakistani state in the comity of nations.

To simplify our task, we can deal with four of these parameters; the Pakistan-USA relations, the Pakistan-India relations, and the Pakistan-Russia relations, with reference to Afghanistan; and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons state status in the context of political Islam and Islamist terrorism.

Firstly, why is it that despite being repeatedly exposed for its policy of harbouring Islamist militants on its soil in blatant contradiction of its declared policy and found to be working specifically against American interests, Washington D.C. finds it absolutely necessary to continue to maintain and strengthen its relations with Pakistan?

Michael Krepon of the Stimson Centre, Washington D.C., spoke on this very question in a May 5 hearing of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which may be reproduced here with some benefit. “Pakistan is a weak country,” he said, “ with strong powers to resist US pressures. US reliance on Pakistan for logistical support for our troops in Afghanistan is a great source of friction... US and Pakistani interests diverge on nuclear issues, India, and Afghanistan. Pakistan’s sense of insecurity is growing, which translates into increased reliance on nuclear weapons and continued links to groups that carry out deadly attacks in Afghanistan and India… The biggest challenge facing Pakistan’s national security establishment is to recognise how continuing links to extremist groups mortgage Pakistan’s future. Outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) are the leading edge of Pakistan’s national demise. If Pakistan’s military leaders cannot rethink the fundamentals of its anti-India policy and its increasing reliance on nuclear weapons, they will never know true security.”

While Prof Krepon succinctly described the dangerously unstable position in which the Pakistani state finds itself today, we can expand his analysis further under the following broad spectrum: the US policy for South and Central Asia traditionally determined by its geopolitical interests in the region, such as, the Kashmir issue and its impact on India-Pakistan relations; Pakistan’s past role in advancing US-China relations; Pakistan’s role in organising and sustaining the Mujahideen uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; and lastly, Pakistan’s vital role in the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in waging the so-called War on Terror.

While Pakistan’s principal value to the USA in the thick of the Cold War lay in serving as a facilitator for US networking of military and intelligence allies against communist and non-aligned states in Central and South Asia, its later and current importance derives from and is sustained by the imperatives of the US-led War on Terror.

It should be noted that Pakistan’s role vis-à-vis the USA underwent several metamor-phoses during the last four decades or so, from being positively beneficial while facilitating China-US contacts to being blatantly inimical to a genuinely fruitful participation in the War against Terror.

Even before the Wikileaks exposures forced US-Pakistani secrets to tumble out of diplomatic cupboards, the world community was well aware of the growing US frustration at Pakistan’s obduracy in pursuing its clandestine policies of helping and abetting Islamist militancy. What the world also saw at the same time was that each time Pakistan committed a serious misde-meanour, it was rewarded with even larger aid packages than before.

When we know the answer to “why so?”, we will be able to answer why Pakistan, now closer than ever before to the status of a failed state (as Indians would love to see it), has been actually gaining in a larger regional and global importance than before.

In an equally arresting contradiction, the USA today is the most hated and unpopular country in the two adjacent states it has been endea-vouring to help, Afghanistan and Pakistan. For the purpose of this article, we shall concentrate on Pakistan. If indeed Pakistan had been reduced to the status of a nearly-failed state, why was it that the Obama Administration found it necessary to fly its Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on May 27 (apart from a number of other senior administration and military officials in quick succession) to deliver a mixed bag of yet another warning to behave honestly and a wholesome assurance? The assurance came in the following words: “We look toward a strong Pakistan—one that is democratic, prosperous and stable—being a cornerstone for regional stability and global security. That is why the US will continue to support Pakistan’s sovereignty, its civilian elected government and above all its people…We are prepared to stand by the Pakistani people for the long haul.”

However, a largely discredited Pakistan (after Osama bin Laden’s long and hitherto successful hiding in its territory was exposed on May 2) was at the same time able to dictate certain hard terms to the Americans which the latter accepted. Revealed by the Los Angeles Times but uncon-firmed by the US Administration, these were designed to reduce the overt American military and intelligence presence on Pakistani soil, mainly to please the dangerously angry Pakistani people.

It is noteworthy that the US agreed to humour Pakistan despite the fact that its capability to monitor and coordinate special operations (excluding drone sorties for missile attacks on identified targets) on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border would be severely handi-capped.

Barely two years ago, Pakistan’s repeated failure to rein in Islamist militants forced the Americans to set up three intelligence fusion cells or liaison centres in Quetta and Peshawar to facilitate sharing of satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence inputs with Pakistani ground forces engaged in anti-Taliban operations. The objective was also to train the Frontier Corps, a force that the Americans hoped could help halt the infiltration of the Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan. With the closure of the fusion cells US “advisors” (military and intelligence personnel) will also be removed from the border. Washington D.C.’s plan to gradually push Pakistan towards conducting operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere will also be hindered. However, there is just a probability that this major American climbdown would prove to be shortlived but there is no word yet about this.

Behind the American accommodativeness apparently worked the imperative of sustaining the elected civilian government in Islamabad, a task which has also been made easier by an equally strong public wrath directed at the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies for their utter failure to detect the US SEALS commandos’ infiltration at Abottabad. The American action, determined by their complete lack of trust in Pakistani fidelity, has led not only to their supreme unpopularity but also to a mortally hurt Pakistani self-pride in their sovereignty.

The role played by Pakistan in helping the USA to establish contacts with China is well-documented and too well-known to be repeated here. What is of relevance here is the present Pakistan-China relations. By virtue of its dynamic diplomacy and foreign policy formulations, Beijing has succeeded in drawing a staunch US ally so very closely into its sphere of influence that Islamabad no longer hesitates to publicly place China above its other allies, including the USA.

Thus, Pakistan is a rare instance of being constantly wooed by the two most powerful countries in the world, the USA and China. And this very unique situation also colours Moscow’s policy toward Islamabad. Shortly after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the Russian and Pakistani Presidents met and reiterated their resolve to continue to be in close collaboration with each other in combating the two menaces their countries were fighting, terrorism and drug trafficking. In several other ways, such as, regional energy projects like the supply of electricity from Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, the Russian Government has expressed its interest in seeing these fructify and offered its assistance.

And where does the growing relevance of the Pakistani state leave India? To its infinite credit, the UPA-II Government has been steadfast in sticking to its time-honoured policy of cultivating better relations with Pakistan. At the same time, it has sought to pressure Islamabad increasingly to honour its commitments to curb terrorism and, specifically, to eradicate the anti-Indian jihadist outfits from its territory. “We can choose our friends but not our neighbours,” India’s current Defence Minister A.K. Antony was reported to have quipped in explaining Pakistan’s relevance for India. (In fact, the phrase he used was used on earlier occasions by severa of his predecessors as also by various Prime Ministers.) And that about sums up India’ s Pakistan policy.

However, there are still two other factors that doubly strengthen Pakistan’s relevance for the region and the world, its nuclear arsenal and Afghanistan. Like the USA and a host of other countries, India is immensely worried by the apparent expansion of Islamist militancy coupled with the continuing weakening of Pakistan’s state institutions. It might sound like a supreme irony but the fact is that it would go against India’s vital interests if the Pakistani military is eventually weakened unless, of course, the democratic institutions like the parliament, judiciary, elected government, and civil society are accorded their rightful place in a democracy. In such a scenario, a weakened and chastened military which knows its place in a democracy, would be an asset for Pakistan and no source of nuisance for its neighbours. Unfortunately, not even the most incorrigible optimist in Pakistan can dream of such a scenario at the present juncture.

Almost every option being considered today to ensure an eventual success story in Afgha-nistan seeks to involve Pakistan, and therefore Islamabad’s response to them engages the immediate attention of the world. Pakistan’s continuing recalcitrance enormously worries the US because the Obama Administration’s plan to begin a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan cannot be undertaken without a fully responsible Pakistani participation in the post-withdrawal scenario.

Similarly, India is reconciled to its realisation that Pakistan enjoys a special relationship with the Taliban, the very Islamist force that the US and its allies once sought to destroy and now plan to cultivate in order to forge a workable model of governance in Afghanistan so that they can get away without further collateral damage.

Pakistan had traditionally considered India its chief rival in Afghanistan and has till date jealously acted to preserve its relatively superior status among the majority Pushtuns by virtue of its long association with the Taliban. But the situation has slightly eased for India now with the Indian Government’s patient and wise policy finally bearing fruit. For, Islamabad has begun to sound as if it gives credence to India’s claim that it is not strategically interested in Afgha-nistan and wishes to play strictly the role of a responsible regional power.

To sum up, the weaker the Pakistani state grows, the stronger becomes its nuisance value, its capacity to facilitate infliction of mortal harm to its neighbours and to countries far and near. As the Indian Government and every other government that counts have emphasised time and again, an eventually failed Pakistani state would be a Frankenstein that the world can ill-afford and cannot allow to be a reality.

Apratim Mukarji is an analyst of Central and South Asian Affairs.