This refers to the article Pakistan's Slide Into Misery, by Sumit Ganguly, in the current Foreign Affairs. If it has been discussed to death already, I apologize: I'm late, as always. If not, here's the article:
foreignaffairs.org
Well worth reading, even though I pick at it (I do that with everything). My comments:
I approached Sumit Ganguly’s article eagerly: it has seemed to me for a long time that relations with Pakistan are one of the central challenges of the war on terror, and I know less about relations with Pakistan than I would wish. I was hoping to learn more. I did, but I also encountered a serious frustration: Ganguly leads the reader to the face of the most serious difficulty the US faces in developing productive relations with Pakistan, and then retreats without addressing that difficulty, indeed without directly acknowledging that it exists.
The problem is best illustrated by citing three paragraphs from the article, one from the beginning:
Washington cannot afford to ignore the mismanagement in Islamabad. Pakistan's sorry status quo and uncertain future are of critical significance. As the United States seeks to uproot the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban, it remains acutely dependent on Pakistan's stability and well-being, not to mention its cooperation. Moreover, the long-running tensions between India and Pakistan now have significance far beyond the subcontinent, thanks to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both sides. The United States is thus very concerned indeed to ensure that their recurrent tiffs do not spiral into full-scale war. And if the world hopes to stanch the growth of fundamentalist Islam, turning Pakistan toward democracy and away from venal, autocratic rule will be imperative.
And two from the end:
The unwillingness of Pakistan's elite to induce political reform has ill-served American interests… military rule in Pakistan, particularly under Zia, spawned many of the groups that the United States now so ardently seeks to eliminate. The effect of uncritical U.S. aid has been to extend and strengthen the violent grip of the Pakistani military.
This error is all the more tragic because only the United States can force Pakistan to reorder its domestic and external priorities. In the absence of substantial American economic assistance, diplomatic support, and multilateral loans, Pakistan would plunge into economic distress and social dislocation. Washington's clout is therefore enormous, and it could demand meaningful and long-lasting changes to address Pakistan's myriad woes. Whether the United States will prod Musharraf into changing the course he is so carefully plotting -- a route toward ever increasing military dominance and ever more limited democracy -- remains uncertain, however. Meanwhile, the fate of Pakistan's 140 million citizens hangs in the balance.
I do not dispute Ganguly’s claim that “In the absence of substantial American economic assistance, diplomatic support, and multilateral loans, Pakistan would plunge into economic distress and social dislocation”. His assumption, though, that “Washington's clout is therefore enormous, and it could demand meaningful and long-lasting changes to address Pakistan's myriad woes” seems seriously flawed to me. Washington can indeed threaten Islamabad with descent into “economic distress and social dislocation”. The threat would be entirely hollow, though, and both Washington and Islamabad know it. It would be hollow because if Washington ever carried the threat out, a very likely consequence of the resulting distress and dislocation would be the ascent of an Islamist government, or at least a significant decline in US influence and a proportional increase in Islamist influence. This is a consequence that Washington cannot afford to risk, for the reasons that Ganguly discusses in the first paragraph cited above. Pakistan’s nuclear capacity is not only a deterrent to any Indian military threat. It is also, particularly when combined with Pakistan’s vital position in the Afghan campaign and the broader war on terror, a very effective deterrent to any American attempt to use a threatened withdrawal of support as a lever to force internal reform.
Pakistan is a very badly governed country. As Ganguly very ably demonstrates, the current trend is toward even worse government. (I must mention here that Ganguly overlooks what seems to me to be one of the greatest failings of the Pakistani government: the effective relinquishing of the educational system in much of the country to the Islamic clergy.) Unfortunately, though, the “enormous clout” that Washington could theoretically wield to “demand meaningful and long-lasting changes to address Pakistan's myriad woes” cannot actually be used, because the probable consequences of its use would be unacceptable to the US (and, it must be said, pretty horrible for Pakistan as well). Pakistan’s dependence on American support does not give the leverage that Ganguly supposes, simply because we can’t afford to withdraw that support, and Musharraf knows it.
It can be argued that this is the sort of thinking that got us into the position we’re in now. Ganguly points out, credibly, that many of the problems that prevail in Pakistan today are related to American willingness to overlook regressive and anti-democratic policies as long as the Pakistani Government took a strong stand against communism. I have no reason to disagree. While the current problem may be analogous, though, it is in no way identical. To assess the wisdom of the cold war-era policies we would have to look at two items: the likelihood that an American attempt to use withdrawal of support as a lever to encourage internal reform would have caused a significant pro-communist shift, and the consequences of such a shift if it had occurred. To assess the wisdom of our current position we have to perform the same assessment with respect to the likelihood and potential consequences of an Islamist ascension in the event of an American withdrawal of support. I will not address the first formulation here, but the conclusions of the second are not encouraging, as far as I can see. I think it very likely that withdrawal of American support would topple Musharraf, and equally likely that the government that would succeed him would be strongly influenced by Islamist ideology, friendly to terrorists, and unfriendly to the US. I don’t have to review the potential consequences. We are all very familiar with them. If anyone who knows more than I do about Pakistan can assure me that this is not the case, and that Musharraf would probably be succeeded by a friendly government, I hope that they will do it. It would be a very reassuring thing to hear. It would be difficult to justify moves that would topple Musharraf, though, unless we are very sure that an unfriendly government would not come to power. The consequences of an Islamist ascension would be very severe.
So we are left with our current position: supporting and closely cooperating with a regime that, according to our principles, we should be shunning. In the short term we may have no choice, but it is not likely to be a workable policy in the long run. The key question of our relations with Pakistan, then (in the eyes of this absolute layman, at least), is this: what practical leverage can we bring to bear to encourage reform in Pakistan, bearing in mind that all parties to the question know that we are not going to do anything that will threaten the stability of the current government?
In other circumstances, threatening a withdrawal of American support if reforms are not undertaken might very well be the answer. Unfortunately, we don’t have other circumstances to deal with.
It’s a damnably difficult question, and I haven’t got any answers. I had hoped that Ganguly, who knows a hell of a lot more than I do about it, would have some answers, or could at least shed some useful light on the details of the question. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Maybe next time he will. I hope so; I’d honestly like to hear his thoughts on the subject. |
