ALTHOUGH WORLDWIDE OPPOSITION to an American attack on Iraq is mounting, most Pakistanis think it imminent. Most also believe that Saddam Hussein, while no angel, is “innocent” of the grave charges levelled against him by the US. Why then is America bent upon “taking out” Saddam? Several explanations exist, from materialist theories of oil, imperialism and domination to subconscious Muslim anxieties of 21st century crusades against Islam. But behind them all lurks a more fundamental fear: “After Iraq, will Pakistan be America’s next target?”
This question raises other, more basic questions: Why, when US-Pak relations are better today than at any time in the last decade, should this question be asked at all? Indeed, why aren’t people in overtly anti-US states like Iran and N Korea afraid that their country might be “next”? Clearly, if the problem is one of oil resources or imperialism, Pakistan should not figure in any American equation at all since it has no oil and is not equipped to challenge American power. Equally, if the matter is one of an American crusade against Islam, all Muslim countries should be on the American hit list rather than only Pakistan. Is the fear, then, based on some subliminal truth about some dimension of our “otherness” that is cause for serious concern in America?
Talking to a “soft”, handpicked audience the other day at the Governor’s House in Lahore, it is significant that when this very question (“Is Pakistan next?”) was asked of General Pervez Musharraf, he is reported to have deflected the issue by urging Pakistanis to be “realistic”, “unemotional” and “pragmatic”. It should be noted that General Musharraf has been wont to clutch at such words whenever he has felt the “need” to try and make a paradigm shift in the strategic or political discourse of the nation. The last time he pledged to do so was after 9/11 when Pakistan was nudged from being a “pariah” state in the direction of becoming a “front-line ally” of the US. The current subliminal question must therefore stem from a vague notion that perhaps the time has come to redeem the promise or confront the threat (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) of a paradigm shift announced a year ago.
The country-specific sources of potential US conflict with Pakistan in the future cannot be ignored. First, more than any country in the world, and for a host of domestic and foreign reasons, Pakistan has become home to the most virulent anti-American forces in the world, ie, the remnants of Al-Qaeda and outcrops of Taliban ism. Every day brings fresh headlines of Al-Qaeda activists and Taliban supporters detained or questioned in Pakistan. Now we hear of running battles between American troops and pro-Taliban forces in the tribal borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. If the suspicion should take hold that Pakistan isn’t doing enough to snuff out such forces or worse that Pakistan may be abetting them to protect its “geo-strategic Pakhtun interests” in Afghanistan, as opposed to the Tajik-Uzbek alliance sponsored by America and supported by India, severe strains could be imposed on the US-Pak “partnership”. In other words, if American notions of “stabilising” and “nation-building” in Afghanistan should come to clash with Pakistani notions of its “strategic backyard”, there could be trouble.
Second, Pakistan has an unmatched c apability of feeding into America’s fear of weapons of mass destruction falling into the “wrong hands”. Like many other Muslim countries, Pakistan is swamped by anti-Americanism. But unlike any of them, including Iraq, it has tested nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Worse, it is seriously thought to have transferred nuclear know-how to N Korea for material or strategic gain. Finally, it is the only country in the world where widespread notions of violent Islamic jihad against the infidels include not just Hindu India but also Christian America and Jewish Israel. More ominously, such notions are endorsed by increasingly powerful, Taliban-like religious parties who are contending for the commanding heights of government and state in the country. Thus is the question of “Is Pakistan next?” linked in the American mind with the question of “What if Pakistan’s nuclear weapons fall into the wrong hands?” In this context, “wrong hands” would not only mean any and all “foreign hands” but also “anti-American Pakistani hands”, which in turn would encompass anti-American Pakistani hands in the military and its intelligence services as well as among the jihadi and religious parties.
Let’s face it. Pakistan’s India-centric national security policies (nuclear weapons, strategic depth, Islamic jihad) have unwittingly brought the country into the eye of a gathering storm. General Musharraf senses this new “ground reality” and is desperately trying to steer a safe course. But he is juggling too many old and new vested interests for comfort. His problem is accentuated by a stricken economy, a wobbly “democracy”, an aggressive religious front, and an intransigent India. For all these reasons, if Pakistan is not to be the “next” American target, he will have to show greater wisdom and more political courage in breaking with the past than he has demonstrated so far in trying to make a new Pakistan.