A baffling turn in Pakistan-US ties

Ever since President General Pervez Musharraf committed Pakistan to the US-led global war on terror, Islamabad and Washington have vied with each other to claim that this new strategic partnership is immune to the extreme fluctuations their alliance had been susceptible to in the past.

As a non-Nato ally Pakistan became eligible for the restoration of military sales denied after the draconian sanctions that the US imposed on its most aligned ally after its role in terminating the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ended.

On its part Pakistan had then defied the sanctions and gone ahead to become a substantial nuclear weapon capable power with tested delivery systems.

The new Afghan war transformed the situation dramatically and a fresh and eternal alliance with the United States became the major pillar of the foreign and security policy of the Musharraf regime.

Objective realities determining this partnership have not changed at all and the two sides need each other as much today as in 2001. The initial US triumph in Afghanistan turned out to be Pyrrhic victory and gradually the Taliban reasserted themselves as the vanguard of a national resistance movement.

The Pushtun tribes that straddle the long Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier abet this movement and provide it with sanctuaries and space for recovering from increasingly brutal operations by Nato troops, US air power and special forces. The battle ground does not respect the border.

Largely because of the terrain, the Pakistan army has suffered much heavier casualties than the Western armies it is assisting across the border.

Washington used to routinely reward Pakistan with public acclamation of its role and sacrifices.

This praise headed off, at least to an extent, a widespread perception in the country that led by the US, the West was waging a war for the re-conquest of the broader Middle East and that Musharraf's regime had imprudently allowed Pakistan to be sucked in into a conflict that Western planners may continue for a whole generation.

Under strain

By mid-2005, however, the bonhomie had begun to come under strain with allegations from the US that Musharraf was not doing enough to curb the Taliban. Islamabad played down the allegations by attributing them to motivated American media and over-zealous junior officials.

Now suddenly the American dissatisfaction with Pakistan's performance has become a squall.

The much trumpeted non-Nato ally status of the country is buffeted mercilessly by the Indo-US nuclear deal, the offer of F-35 aircraft to India and Israel and the frequent warnings that the US would not respect the international frontier if it needs to take out targets on Pakistan's soil.

Far more substantial, however, is a discriminatory law passed by Congress and already signed by President George W. Bush which attaches strict unilateral pre-conditions to the continuation of US assistance to Pakistan.

The avalanche of statements from US officials, Congressmen, individual politicians including aspirants to the office of the US president, think-tanks and media figures is seen by the people of Pakistan as a most unfriendly development as well as a crude attempt to embroil the Pakistan army into an endless and, by definition, no-win conflict with a vast area of the country's north west.

Islamabad had no opportunity this time to dismiss the criticism as the handiwork of an anti-Pakistan lobby in the media which has a slight touch of Islamophobia.

Frances Townsend, the main adviser on Home Security and her associate Mike McConnell had used the latest National Intelligence Estimate to hold out threats of strikes inside Pakistan, threats that the Under Secretary of State, Nicholas Burns, reaffirmed even as Bush made a reassuring telephone call to Musharraf.

What seems to be a new element in the situation is a change in the response of the Pakistani government. There have been strong statements from the top leaders reaffirming Pakistan's determination to defend its sovereignty.

Musharraf has stayed away from the so-called Grand Jirgas in Kabul that both the Karzai administration and the US government were hyping up. He has given the National Assembly a rare opportunity to debate foreign policy, a debate marked by passionate anti-US outbursts.

Strangely enough, the most strident criticism came from government benches. The speech made by parliamentary secretary for defence has just been denounced by the US embassy in Islamabad as reprehensible and irresponsible.

It is almost unthinkable that Musharraf is using the parliament to signal a change of policy towards the US.

In fact, cynics maintain that the government parliamentarians have deliberately resorted to wild rhetoric to create panic about a possible US attack so that the unfolding political drama in Pakistan could be aborted through a proclamation of emergency.

The Pakistani nation is seeking ways and means by which the political dispensation that emerged as a consequence of the military putsch of October 1999 could after eight long years become compatible with the basic law of the land.

It involves reference to people in fair and free elections and probably a simultaneous intervention by the highest courts of law.

Opposition leaders fear that the government is creating a bogey out of American threats of cross-border raids to scuttle this process.

Opinions vary as to the complicity of the US administration in this unbelievable strategy to prolong Musharraf's absolute rule. It flatly contradicts that part of the Congressional Law that requires the US president to certify that Pakistan is moving perceptibly towards full democracy.

Pakistan's present predicament has an internal provenance and the country needs a return to democracy.

There is a paramount need to define the partnership in the war against terror more accurately to safeguard Pakistan's national interest but the real issue that would determine Pakistan's destiny is its internal political order.

Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary of Pakistan.