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Publication: Salon News (salon.com)
Date: August 11, 2001
The diplomatic overtures to Pakistan
Thursday came as U.S. foreign policy in South Asia recently shifted away
from Pakistan toward India.
This, despite the fact that India
often sided with the Soviet Union in the United Nations during the Cold
War, at a time when Pakistan's long series of military rulers proved staunch
U.S. allies. But the Cold War is long over. The recent shift in U.S. policy
toward South Asia seems to be directed at containing China, which many
in the administration view as the largest threat in Asia. But that may
change now, as U.S. policy refocuses on stopping terrorism, Cohen says.
Schaffer says a rekindled diplomatic
relationship with the United States wouldn't immediately result in a renewal
of aid to Pakistan. The U.S. imposed sanctions against Pakistan in 1990
when American intelligence sources concluded Pakistan had a nuclear device.
But now that capturing bin Laden
and other terrorists has become a priority for the United States, Pakistan
may be able to exchange terrorists for international acceptance. "Recouping
international respectability is not a trivial thing for the Pakistanis
and down the line there are other things that we could work with them on,"
like foreign aid or working out a deal between them and India over the
hotly contested region of Kashmir, Schaffer said.
This could lead to a realignment
of U.S. policy in South Asia, and force the United States to get more directly
involved in the region. "The Clinton administration and this administration
have been very pro-India," Cohen said. "Powell's statements were important
because he wants to give Pakistan every chance to do something with the
Taliban to help us out. It's like that old song from the '60s, 'Which Side
Are You On?' It's time for Pakistan to make that decision. Are they going
to be part of the solution, or part of the problem?"
Of course, South Asia diplomacy
is a delicate balancing act. Pakistan must balance its desire to gain international
respectability and avoid military retaliation by the U.S. on the one hand,
against growing hostility to America among its citizens and in the region
on the other.
"If the government allows Pakistan
to be used for attacks on Afghanistan it would be a great treachery," Maulana
Samiul Haq, the leader of the Afghan Defense Council, an umbrella group
of Pakistan's religious political parties and Islamic militant groups,
told the Associated Press. He said the group would urge street protests
if Pakistan cooperates with the United States.
"In some respects, Pakistan must
choose between the devil and the deep blue sea," Cohen said. Schaffer added
that the major issue for Pakistan is "a domestic issue that if they go
along with the demand that the U.S. may be making," its leaders may face
a confrontation with their own militant groups.
"It's a military government but
they've never been willing to confront the militants. If they do confront
them then they risk an overt showdown with mobs in the street. If they
don't, then the government risks being seen as weak, which means that they
risk collapse. The United States fears the militants as well and wants
a stable government in Pakistan more than anything, because if this current
government falls, Pakistan could become another Afghanistan."
U.S. efforts to target Islamic terrorists
will likely be welcomed by Afghanistan's neighbors, Schaffer says. In 1996,
as the Taliban rebels took control of Afghanistan, China, Russia, Tajikistan,
Kirghistan, Uzebekistan and Khazakistan entered into a security and intelligence
alliance aimed at containing the threat of fundamentalists spilling into
their countries.
And while Iran and Pakistan -- the
other nations bordering Afghanistan -- did not sign the treaty, Martin
Rudner, director of the Center for Security and Defense at Ottawa's Carelton
University, said those governments are also nervous about the destabilizing
possibilities of Islamic revolutionaries crossing their borders. "They're
strong regimes but feel a threat to their stability from the fundamentalist
contagion that could undermine their grip on power," Rudner says.
Iran already despises the Taliban,
according to Rudner, because the Sunni Taliban "brutally persecuted" the
minority Shiite community of Herat in southwest Afghanistan and forced
a wave of refugees to camp along the border, which the Iranians now view
as destabilizing elements. And yet Iran has been loathe to join efforts
to isolate the Taliban. The Pakistanis have a similar balancing act. According
to Schaffer, Pakistan's government has never directly confronted the militant
groups that make its country a base. And any significant action against
the Taliban, bin Laden or others would "risk an overt showdown with mobs
in the street," she says, recalling "Pakistan sent troops to fight with
the Western coalition in the Gulf War and faced pro-Saddam riots in the
streets."
So South Asia represents an increasingly
pressing challenge for the Bush administration. Cohen says that American
military actions against the Taliban "could deteriorate into a serious
South Asia crisis very quickly, or they could turn out to lead to a greater
accord between India and Pakistan. It's analogous to the Mideast in many
ways, but in South Asia all the countries have nuclear weapons."
salon.com
Anthony York is an associate editor
for Salon News.
