Shame or no shame: Pakistan's dilemma
By Ayaz Amir
After his recent about-face speech on Iraq, one of the first leaders George Bush called was his good friend President Musharraf in Islamabad. No one should have been surprised.
There have been few readier Bush acolytes than Musharraf. With America looking desperately for rent-a-nations to clean up its mess in Iraq, it was only fitting that one of Bush's first calls should have been placed to Pakistan, all the more so as Pakistan's reputation as a one-phone-call country stands confirmed by events. (This title deriving from Colin Powell's historic phone call to General Musharraf soon after September 11, a call enough to line up Pakistan for the then impending attack on Afghanistan.)
Who would have thought that the Bushites would be forced to eat humble pie so soon? While getting ready to attack Iraq, they had nothing but scorn for the international community and no time at all for the United Nations. In Washington at the time unilateralism, crude and vulgar, was all the rage. How long ago that seems.
Today the US is quagmired in Iraq and finding the going difficult in Afghanistan. Suddenly it has rediscovered the virtues of multilateralism. Hence the need for a new UN resolution and the search for rent-a-nations to carry America's tattered baggage in Iraq.
As if Pakistan wasn't enough, the US is wooing India too. Some time ago the Indians said no in the absence of a UN cover. But what if a cover is provided? Would rent-a-nation status, which many well-heeled Indians seem to be hankering after, then become more attractive?
Turkey is also on America's wishlist. But the Turks are smart and tough and will play for high stakes. They have deep interests in northern Iraq and will send occupation troops only if it serves or advances those interests.
India, Pakistan, Turkey: America's dream rent-a-nation coalition. What wouldn't the Bushites do to get this? For what is at stake is not so much Iraq's future as George Bush's future. In the opinion polls he may still be ahead of his Democratic challengers but if Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be the disasters they are, the great American electorate will have to be dumber than it is to re-elect him.
True, the Democratic pack would make even a hardened optimist's heart wilt. Still, if American soldiers continue getting killed in Iraq, Bush would have a lot of explaining to do when the primary season starts early next year.Look at some of the chemistry changes which have already occurred. Some of Bush's arrogance and Rumsfeld's cocksureness have worn off. Across the Atlantic Blair lies mortally wounded. It'll be a miracle if he survives his Iraqgate--all the lies dished up to justify the aggression on Iraq.
Afghanistan, by the way, was supposed to be a piece of cake. What's happening there? Far from disappearing, the Taliban are regrouping in greater numbers. Karzai was supposed to strengthen his authority. Instead, as time passes, he looks more of an American puppet.
Even Al Qaeda could not have scripted such a story line. The Bushites and the neo-con gurus of American hubris have no one to blame but themselves, their arrogance finally catching up with them. They wanted to redraw the map of the Middle East. Instead they have created a mess which is helping redefine the limits of American power.
Far from counting the costs of adventurism, they thought the Iraq adventure would pay for itself, Iraqi oil being used to finance America's war machine. Iraq has been destroyed, which serves Israel fine, but the rest of the venture is running way off script. So now the Bushites want to save their backsides by getting foreign troops to do their dirty work in Iraq.
What will India do? Good question. India did not have deep rent-a-nation instincts before but Pakistan's example has probably proved infectious and it seems to have developed those instincts to some extent now. Which is why if a fresh UN resolution (a big 'if' though) is passed India will come under renewed pressure to do its 'international duty'.
But what will Pakistan do? This should concern us more than what other countries do. Rent-a-nation instincts run deep here because from the early anti-communist alliances right up to jihad and war in Afghanistan--the Americans being pro-jihad in the 1980s and anti-jihad now--Pakistan has had long experience of toeing the American line and performing sentry duty for America in various guises.
If the US is successful in putting together a fresh UN resolution and if the French and Germans don't stymie it, Pakistan will be prime candidate for dirty work in Iraq.
It's a telling sign of Pakistan's incipient desire to don rent-a-nation status that Musharraf has never outrightly ruled out the option of sending Pakistani troops to Iraq. Indeed, far from rejecting the idea, let alone pouring scorn over it, he's always tied it to the need for an acceptable umbrella. In other words, to an acceptable fig-leaf.
But fig-leaf or no fig-leaf, UN resolution or no resolution, for Pakistan to even contemplate sending troops to Iraq would be downright silly and morally indefensible. Musharraf's personal ratings may soar in American eyes but such a course would do no good to the country. If nothing else, our status as an American lackey would be further confirmed.Remember also that we would be hitching our wagons to a fading star. American power may be undiminished but Bush's stock is falling. Being stuck in one place would be bad enough. But as the months pass and the body bags increase, it is becoming clear that the US is stuck in two places simultaneously, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even if the US had an appetite for further military adventure, it would lack the resources to carry it out. To come to America's rescue in these circumstances, that too for the sake of shortsighted greed rather than any principle, would require extraordinary stupidity. The people of Pakistan can only pray their military rulers for all their other faults are smart enough to realise this.
Consider if you please the justifications advanced for dancing to America's tune. No opportunity goes by without the nation being informed that Pakistan's relationship with the US is not temporary but 'strategic' in nature.
Consider the evidence. India, with American blessings, gets a Phalcon airborne warning system from Israel, something that will place Pakistan at a huge disadvantage. If the US had any concern for our sensibilities it wouldn't have okayed this deal. If these are the wages of a 'strategic' relationship we are better off without them.
We were also told that kowtowing to US wishes was in line with one-superpower reality. Recognising America's status and not picking needless quarrels with it is one thing, jumping to attention whenever the US snaps its fingers quite another.
There's another thing to consider. Great power status is best defended by putting judgment and wisdom in the service of power and not simply by bullying and wielding a heavy stick. The Roman and British empires wouldn't have lasted long if the only thing going for them was the arrogance of the Bush administration.
Horace puts it best (words which I have often quoted in this space): "Brute force bereft of reason falls by its own weight. Power with counsel temper'd even the gods make greater; but might which in its soul is bent on all impiety, they hate."
In Iraq we saw the exercise of brute force without reason, might driven by impiety. If the gods are angry, and if they are exacting retribution in the killing fields of Iraq, is it for Pakistan's generals to stand in the way of their wrath?
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