DAWN - Opinion; 13 December, 1998

Aladdin's useless lamp

Eqbal Ahmad


IT IS humiliating to read the transcripts of American officials' news briefing on the meeting between Bill Clinton and his Pakistani visitor. At the brief appearance the two leaders made before the White House press corps, Pakistan's prime minister was all but ignored. With one exception all questions were directed at Bill Clinton and concerned matters unrelated to Pakistan.

The substantive press briefing was offered by three middle level officials - Bruce Riedel and P.J, Crowley, staff members both of the National Security Council, and Karl Inderfruth, an assistant secretary of state. Whatever the visitors' illusion, Pakistan's prime minister was accorded the small-fry protocol, a clear indication that the importance of a visitor to Washington is not calculated by the size of his entourage.

Much more troubling than the symbolic gesture was the tone and substance of the press briefing by the American functionaries. One phrase - "the President reaffirmed" - recurs with frequency and underscores that Bill Clinton had nothing to offer Mr. Nawaz Sharif but hardened reaffirmations of previously stated American positions. Thus the " President reaffirmed his view" that more progress [on non-proliferation matters] needed to be made "before we can remove all the sanctions" against Pakistan. He reaffirmed also that the limited relaxation of the sanctions is temporary as his authority to grant such relief "lasts only one year."

As if this were not enough, Bruce Riedel hammered the message in: "The president underscored that point [viz. limited duration of the relief granted to Pakistan] to the prime minister." Karl Inderfruth who followed Riedel saw virtue in repeating the message: "While we want to be helpful, we stress the limited nature, limited nature, of the president's decision which is confined to the IMF package ... To make further progress, to provide further assistance... would require additional steps, concrete steps by Pakistan to address non-proliferation and security concerns."

Inderfruth identified the security concerns as including "follow-up work" under the six-plus-two process led by UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to establish a "broad-based, multi-ethnic government in Afghanistan", and of course "the primary importance of expelling bin Laden" from there. "And I think", said Inderfruth head master-like, "that message came through loud and clear to Prime Minister Sharif."

At another point the assistant secretary of state said of Pakistan's prime minister: "We can't help him unless he helps himself." In 35 years of Washington-watching I do not recall a more blase attitude displayed by middle-level officials toward a visiting head of government.

As for Kashmir, Sharif urged Clinton to mediate between Pakistan and India. "[T]he president reaffirmed ... that there would need be a request from both parties for the US to play a mediating role." In response to another query Inderfruth said this: "I think the question of training terrorists that may operate in Kashmir is a serious question. It's one that we are also concerned about." It was as though Mian Nawaz Sharif was invited to the White House mainly to be put on the mat; he was given no place to hide. He could cite, of course, his 20 minutes alone with Clinton. That exchange has not been made public. The prime minister and his aides insist that his trip to Washington was a great success. I fear that they will end up believing in their claims, and illusions shall continue to inform policy.

Two questions arise: why were the visitors so terribly expectant before their visit, and why did the hosts prove so stringent? It is wrong to blame the failure, as one English daily has insistently done, on Riaz Khokar, Pakistan's ambassador in Washington or even on the Foreign Office which was reduced to a messenger service long before this government took office. American concerns were widely known to be non-proliferation, the Taliban, bin Laden, and fundamentalist militancy. During 1998, the nuclear tests, Taliban excesses, the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and Mr Sharif's Fifteenth Amendment had further accentuated these concerns.

What the US had expected of Islamabad was repeatedly and publicly articulated. Moreover, there had been several meetings between Strobe Talbott and Pakistan's foreign secretary, and by more than a week an advance party of Pakistani officials led by a minister had preceded the prime minister in Washington. Pakistan's great financial and economic vulnerabilities were also known; its government was hardly in a position to bargain. Yet, the rhetoric of restoring the US-Pakistani partnership of the 1960s and 1950s emanated from Islamabad. Such unrealistic expectations must be ascribed to factors other than lack of information or insufficient briefing.

They were stimulated, I believe, by the importance which our leaders assign to Pakistan's declared nuclear capability. From the start they have regarded nuclear capability as an attribute of power and an ultimate weapon of security. Hence, an assumption crept in that after the nuclear tests great powers shall reckon with Pakistan as a "nuclear power", a phrase now common in the official discourse. This is an outdated, and therefore dangerously misleading, presumption. For the nuclear has been proven to be a weak component of power and an unreliable instrument of security.

Chairman Mao's description of the nuclear weapon as "a paper tiger" has proved to be uncannily prescient. The possession of nearly 10,000 nuclear warheads deployed in the world's most advanced delivery systems did not save the US from stalemate in Korea, then defeat in Vietnam.

Nor did it save the USSR from collapse, nor even Russia from defeat in Chechnya. Similarly, the non-possession of nuclear capability has not prevented Japan and Germany from developing into world powers. South Africa dismantled its nuclear arsenal and Brazil closed a well advanced nuclear research outlay without suffering a fraction of loss in prestige and power. Official claims notwithstanding, neither India nor Pakistan is more powerful internationally or more secure internally since attaining the nuclear status. Nuclear capability is in fact like the imaginative child's Aladdin's lamp that does not light.

An honest analysis shall reveal Pakistan to be a weaker, more vulnerable country than it was last May, even after the depredations and mismanagement to which Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari had subjected it. The manner in which Mian Nawaz Sharif has been treated in Washington is a reflection of that weakness. Obviously, American officials have administered a deliberate put-down - unprecedented in the annals of US-Pakistan relations - to drive home the point that the attainment of nuclear status has not raised Pakistan's standing, and to link its future relations with Islamabad to non-proliferation issues, Pakistan's policy in Afghanistan, and its openness to improve relations with India bilaterally. Irrespective of the extent to which Islamabad complies with it, the agenda which emerged from the prime minister's visit to Washington was an American, not a Pakistani agenda.

The prime minister's trip to Washington may yet serve a purpose if he and his aides rise above their paltry need to justify it as a great success, and reflect instead on the lessons it offers. There are at least the following: First, nuclear capability holds at best one asset for Pakistan, and many liabilities.

The asset is that insofar as the logic of deterrence operates, it reduces the probability of war with India. For this asset to serve at all, Pakistan and India will have to work out, at least partly together, an elaborate system of command and control responsive to South Asia's unique nuclear environment. They will also have to reach an understanding on the rules of their adversarial relationship so that neither country pushes the notion of deterrence to the breaking point.

Second, while the nuclear tests have raised international anxieties over the danger of war between Pakistan and India, thus bringing the Kashmir dispute to the centre of international concern, this shift of attention on Kashmir does not necessarily work to Pakistan's advantage. There are reasons to believe that the opposite may occur.

Pakistan is likely to come under increasing pressure to (a) moderate its support for the insurgency in Kashmir, (b) liberalize trade and other exchanges with India, and (c) enter into bilateral talks with India on Kashmir, perhaps with the UN and/or the US playing the role of facilitators.

If Pakistan's policy makers do not make thorough preparations, our responses will bear all the burdens of 'ad-hocism'.

Third, Pakistan's real security threats lie in its deeply troubled economy, its ailing system of governance, and its failed system of education, especially higher education. These are in need of urgent and systematic attention, and any extra expenditures which divert from it will decisively harm this country's security.

Fourth, yet another dose of 'islamization' and 'shariah' shall further divide this country, produce paradoxes in the structures and rules of governance, add harmfully to centralization of power, and contribute greatly to the loss of international support which we need for reasons strategic no less than economic.

Is there someone listening in Islamabad?