Pakistan and the U.S.: a Devious Relationship

This week the Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf, declared emergency rule in his troubled country. Emergency rule is one of the more heinous euphemisms that proliferate in political discourse. Behind the sterile words, in this case, lies a despotic spate of actions which, among other things, suspended the Pakistani Constitution, purged the judicial system of judges with whom Musharraf disagreed, and led to a brutal police and military crackdown on the civilian opposition.

This puts the relationship of America—and the wider Western world—with Pakistan into sharper focus, because it so blindingly contradicts the fairy-tale narrative of the “War on Terror.” Without boring you with well-oiled Bushite recantations, the narrative runs as follows: we are currently fighting a noble messianic war for democracy and freedom all around the world, and have been ever since we became aware of the dangers of Islamofascism on Sept. 11, 2001.

Pakistan doesn’t fit so snugly into this conception. The country was a democracy up until 1999, when General Pervez Musharraf led a successful coup d’etat which ousted the democratically elected leader, Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League. Since then, the Western world has lauded Musharraf as the exemplar of the “liberal dictator”—his relative secularism and keenly antagonistic attitude toward Islamic radicals have kept him abreast of the international relations mafia boss, the United States, and its votaries, like Britain.

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Musharraf “remains a valuable U.S. ally in the fight against Taliban and al Qaeda leaders along the Afghan border.” The Los Angeles Times put it more bluntly: “For six years, the United States has staunchly supported Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, choosing to back a military leader seen as a strong ally in the ‘war on terror’ rather than push the general more forcefully for democratic reforms.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made some vague assertions about “reviewing” the generous aid package given to Musharraf after his latest totalitarian tantrum, but you can bet nothing will come from it.

Such pronouncements are an important delaying tactic, which the media has eaten up wholesale, taking Rice’s rhetorical flights as statements of policy. In fact, there was a rare moment of candor on Wednesday when Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told Congress that “cutting these [aid] programs”—which have totaled $10 billion since 2001—“would send a negative signal to the people of Pakistan. The safety of our citizens and the stability of the region depend on nurturing the ties that we have begun to form. Long-term partnership with the Pakistani people is the only option for the United States.”

The alliance between the U.S. and the Pakistani dictator is not just a marriage of convenience either—it is a marriage of coercion. Though Musharraf is handsomely rewarded with aid and diplomatic support for his obedience, the U.S. still felt it necessary to threaten Pakistan with bombing if it did not fully support the invasion of Afghanistan. This was revealed in Musharraf’s memoir, In the Line of Fire. In it, Musharraf claimed that soon after Sept. 11, then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage warned Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, that the U.S. would “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age” if it did not immediately turn against its Afghan ally, the Taliban, and allow the U.S. to use military bases in Pakistan to invade Afghanistan.

The pickle the Bush administration finds itself in is simple. They like a strongman dictator at their behest in Pakistan because it dampens dissent, allows them a base from which pursue their remaking of the Middle East into a pliant geostrategic region, and permits them to appear as though they are interested in fighting Islamic militancy even while they act to increase it through actions like the Iraq War.

All you need to do is contrast the Bush administration’s recent rhetoric on the violent repression of the anti-junta protests in Burma, where U.S. interests are marginal, with their lukewarm words of demurral about Musharraf’s totalitarian offensive in Pakistan, where U.S. interests are huge. The hypocrisy and double standards are startlingly clear.
Even University President Lee Bollinger, who apparently prides himself on his tough-talking, no-nonsense treatment of visiting “dictators,” was found wanting when Musharraf came to Columbia in September 2005. “President Musharraf is a leader of global importance, and his contribution to Pakistan’s economic turnaround and the international fight against terror remain remarkable. It is rare that we have a leader of his stature at campus,” Bollinger opined. Musharraf’s democratic credentials are far inferior to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s, but Bollinger and the U.S. government he worships have never given much play to the ideal of consistency.

The brazenness of Musharraf’s last offensive is perhaps surprising because the PR has been so bad, and the consequent pressure on the Bush administration so unusual. But the alliance of the Bush administration—and self-serving university presidents—with dictators who serve their interests is an overriding motif of the last seven years. It has been revealed in exquisite detail this week in Pakistan, but this same modality is being projected all over the world with disastrous human consequences—from Saudi Arabia to Uzbekistan to Pakistan.

The author is a student in the School of Journalism.