TARIQ, ali - The Duel

by Ali, Tariq

  Social and political rank in much of today’s world is determined by wealth. Power and money cohabit the same space. The result is a mutant democracy whose function is to seal off all possibilities of redistributing wealth and power or enhancing its own standing with the citizenry. Some exceptions remain. In China, for instance, the party hierarchy remains dominant, a partial reflection, perhaps, of the ancient mandarin tradition that insisted on educational qualifications as the principal criteria for social advancement. In Pakistan, the brightest kids dream of becoming stockbrokers in New York; the most ambitious imagine themselves in uniform. The immeasurable importance of the army determines the entire political culture of the country. The chief of staff is the single person on whom the gaze of the political community in Pakistan rests semipermanently. Next in line of importance is the U.S. ambassador. A failure to grasp this basic reality makes it genuinely difficult to understand the past or present of the country.

  Throughout its sixty-year history, political life in Pakistan has been dominated by a series of clashes between general and politician, with civilian bureaucrats pretending to be impartial seconds, while mostly favoring the military. The final arbiter is usually Washington. The statistics reveal the winner. Bureaucrats and unelected politicians ran Pakistan for eleven years, the army has ruled the country for thirty-four years, and elected representatives have been in power for fifteen years. It is a dismal record, but it had Washington’s strong approval as revealed by an inspection of each of the dictatorships in turn.

  8

  ON THE FLIGHT PATH OF AMERICAN POWER

  THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, PUBLISHED IN JULY 2004, PROnounced, among other things, that the Musharraf government was the best if not the only hope for long-term stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The turbulence required a strongman, and as long as Pakistan was on board in the “war against terror” and prepared to fight the forces of extremism, the United States owed long-term and comprehensive support to a regime committed to “enlightened moderation.”

  The word association forces me to digress briefly and recall the late conservative senator Barry Goldwater’s dictum in his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1964: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Malcolm X defended this view eloquently in one of his last public appearances, at which I was present. Leaving aside important differences of how to interpret “liberty,” this is also the view today of many who resist the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, though unfortunately most of them would not agree with a 1981 assessment by the same senator during a Senate speech in which he offered sage advice to his own party that applied equally to the Washington-backed Afghan insurgents battling the godless Russians at the time:

  On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position one hundred percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

  I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”

  These strictures had little real impact. Religious fundamentalism soon occupied the White House, and its equally fundamentalist enemy targeted Wall Street and the Pentagon. The advice of The 9/11 Commission Report was subsequently accepted by Congress and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108–458). The recommendations in relation to Pakistan were put into effect by calling for a program of sustained U.S. aid to Pakistan and instructing the president to report to Congress what a long-term U.S. strategy to engage with and support would entail. This was followed in November 2005 by a subsidiary appraisal from the commissioners that offered only a C grade to U.S. efforts in encouraging Pakistan’s anti-extremism policies and contained a warning that the country “remains a sanctuary and training ground for terrorists.” This view, widespread in the United States and Europe, is regularly reflected in the media and appears to have infected the political culture of both regions.

  Stanley Kurtz, a fellow of the Hudson Institute and Hoover Institution, recently wrote, “In a sense global Islam is now Waziristan writ large.... Waziristan now seeks to awaken the tribal jihadist side of the global Muslim soul.” It is not uncommon to read gibberish of this variety from a number of neocon pundits. As suggested earlier in this book, their equivalents were expressing equally nonsensical views in the eighties when the tribal areas were regarded as freedom writ large and most Western journalists meekly followed “advice” and referred to the mujahideen as “freedom fighters.” The same people continue to inhabit the same region. Once a necessary steamroller to defeat the Russians, now it appears that they themselves have to be steamrollered into oblivion. What has changed is the global priorities of the United States. This explains the new language. It is relatively easy for state intellectuals (those employed by instrumentalist think tanks and swathes of the academy) in the United States to somersault themselves into new positions and fall into line with imperial needs as required. It’s much more difficult for client states to behave in exactly the same way. This explains the crisis that has erupted on Pakistan’s western frontiers.

  The British Empire was once embroiled in the same region. For them too Waziristan was evil writ large. Their ideologues (and later their Pakistani mimics) produced a great deal of literature on this rugged region, a crude anthropology to justify war and imperial domination. What is today ascribed to Islam alone was in those earlier times seen as a genetic characteristic of the Pashtun race and some of its more recalcitrant tribal components. Here is Mr. Temple, a senior British civil servant in 1855, sharing his opinions with his colleagues in terms and language that would have been appreciated by General Custer:

  Now these tribes are savages—noble savages perhaps—and not without some virtue and generosity, but still absolutely barbarians nevertheless. . . . In their eyes their one great commandment is blood for blood, and fire and sword for all infidels. . . . They are a sensual race... very avaricious... thievish and predatory to the last degree.... The Pathan mother offers prayers that her son may be a successful robber.... It would never even occur to their minds that an oath on the Koran was binding. . . . They are fierce and bloodthirsty.*

  Here is another cultivated imperial officer, Mr. Ibbetson, writing in 1881:

  The true Pathan is perhaps the most barbaric of all the races with which we are brought into contact.... He is bloodthirsty, cruel and vindictive in the highest degree. . . . He does not know what truth or faith is.... It is easy to convict him out of his own mouth; here are some of his proverbs: “a Pathan’s enmity smoulders like a dung fire”; “speak good words to an enemy very softly; gradually destroy him root and branch.”

  To demonstrate that the Scots were not going to be left behind, here is Mr. MacGregor a few years later:

  . . . There is no doubt, like other Pathans, they would not shrink from any falsehood, however atrocious, to gain an end. Money could buy their services for the foulest d
eed.

  The author who cites these dozens of similar references also reveals:

  The Wazirs are Muhammadans of the Sunni sect, but, like any other Pathan tribe, they are not particularly strict in the performance of their religious duties. The mullahs have influence only as far as the observances of religion go, and are powerless in political matters, but the Wazirs are an especially democratic and independent people, and even their own Maliks [tribal leaders] have little real control over them.†

  The Afghan wars of the twentieth century changed all that and the mullahs became much more powerful, but what remains true is that the use of force, as the British discovered, can never be a permanent solution. Britain’s successor state in the region carried on in similar fashion, first using mercenary tribesmen to invade Kashmir in 1948 and subsequently using them during the first Afghan war from 1979 to 1989. This raises interesting questions regarding the place occupied by Pakistan in relation to the United States.

  For instance, whose interests are really being served by Pakistan’s foreign policy from 1947 till today, give or take Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s last few years in office? Is it the case that some senior cabinet ministers, generals, diplomats, and selected civil servants have often reported directly to Washington, circumventing their own respective chains of command? And, if so, why has this been the case for sixty years? It is not a pretty tale.

  The Great Leader had tried to rent his house to the new world power and failed. His colleagues were altogether more ambitious. With Jinnah’s encouragement the new rulers of Pakistan developed an early communal awareness that to survive they had to rent their country. An open auction was considered unrealistic. There was only one possible buyer. They were quite frank on this level and told Washington that after an initial fee of $2 billion to meet their “administrative expenses” for the first few years, they would still need “a regular source of finance” to keep going. This demand has been a constant of Pakistani politics. As their lobbyist in the United States in 1947, the shrewd, if foul-tongued, bureaucrat Ghulam Mohammed, doubling then as the country’s first minister of finance, chose the Chase National Bank of New York. Jinnah sent a trusted aide, Laiq Ali, with a memorandum spelling out the country’s needs to the bank chairman, Winthrop W. Aldrich. He read it carefully, improved its language, and suggested some changes, and then it was officially forwarded to Foggy Bottom.

  When Laiq met State Department officials, he stressed that the new country “presently faced a Soviet threat on its Western frontier.” This was a foolish fabrication as the State Department was well aware. The Soviet Union, wrecked by the war, was concentrating its energies on rebuilding the country and shoring up Eastern Europe. The United States was busy securing Western Europe and Japan, as well as keeping an eye on China, where the Eighth Route Army was beginning to threaten a Communist victory. The offer to buy Pakistan and its armed forces in perpetuity had no real appeal at the time. An internal memorandum circulated by the Office for Near Eastern Affairs was blunt: “It was obvious from this approach that Pakistan was thinking in terms of the U.S. as a primary source of military strength, and since this would involve virtual U.S. military responsibility for the new Dominion, our reply to the Pakistan request was negative.”

  This was made clear to Laiq Ali, though a sweetener was offered in the shape of an emergency loan to help alleviate social needs. A dejected Laiq then asked if money could be made available for certain specialist development projects. When his American interlocutors queried if these had been worked out in detail, he responded that he had knowledge only of a projected paper mill, in which he himself was interested. Unfortunately the official documents do not minute the informal reactions of officials. Washington did not even bother responding to the generous Pakistani offer to sell its army.

  Confronted with this unexpected rejection, the Great Leader’s special envoy asked if some money could be provided to buy some blankets and medicines for the refugees from India. This request was also turned down, but with the possibility that the United States might sell army surplus to Pakistan at a rate considerably lower than the market price. All the while Laiq was cabling Jinnah that the talks were going well. The Great Leader must have had his doubts. He instructed a veteran pro-British Muslim League leader and later prime minister, Sir Feroze Khan Noon, then on his way to Turkey, to call on the U.S. ambassador in Ankara and exert a bit more pressure. “Darkness at Noon” (a sobriquet subsequently awarded him by the Pakistan Times) sprang to his task with alacrity and penned the following “confidential memorandum,” so crude that it must have both appalled and entertained what was at the time a sophisticated State Department under George C. Marshall’s leadership:

  The Mussalmans in Pakistan are against Communism. The Hindus have an Ambassador in Moscow, Mrs Pandit, who is the sister of the Hindu Prime Minister in Delhi, Mr Nehru, and the Russians have got an Ambassador in Delhi, the Hindu capital. We the Mussulmans of Pakistan have no Ambassador in Moscow nor is there any Ambassador in Karachi—our capital. . . . If USA help Pakistan to become a strong and independent country . . . then the people of Pakistan will fight to last man against Communism to keep their freedom and preserve their way of life.

  There was no response. A desperate Noon then appealed to the Turkish government for military equipment, but they turned him down and immediately informed Washington of their decision. The reason for the indifference was not a mystery. The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed that the single most important country in the region was India. In 1948, Pakistan had attempted to solve the dispute with India over Kashmir by force. Kashmir was a Muslim-majority province in India, but its Hindu maharaja had signed the papers of accession and joined the Indian federation without consulting the people. This created real anger, and to keep Kashmiri nationalists on his side, the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had promised a referendum that would allow Kashmiris to determine their own future. It never happened. An enormous literature exists on this subject, and I have written about it elsewhere at some length.* Here it is only necessary to recall that the irregulars dispatched by Pakistan to take Kashmir were the same “terror tribes” that occupy the news headlines today. They were much less disciplined at the time. They were led by Pakistan army officers but were often out of control. Their untamed tribal egoism—looting and raping nuns en route—led to military disaster, holding back the assault on Srinagar. Indian troops secured the airport in that capital city, landed more troops, and the fighting was soon over. The British generals commanding both armies had had enough and refused to tolerate any escalation of the conflict. A Line of Control was established and Kashmir was unfairly divided. India obtained what its prime minister described as the “snowy bosom” of this stunningly beautiful region, leaving Pakistan with what can only be referred to as its bony posterior. Since then the dispute has led to semipermanent tension between the two countries. Even at the height of the Cold War, by which time, as is outlined below, Pakistan had become its closest of allies, the United States maintained an evenhanded approach to Kashmir, a clear signal that it was not prepared to jeopardize its long-term interests in South Asia.

  Pakistan kept trying to sell itself. Jinnah, deeply hostile to the British Labour government, told the U.S. ambassador not to be “misled by the UK,” which was pro-India, but to understand that Pakistan alone could be a crucial ally against Soviet expansionism. Jinnah, who must have overdosed on Rudyard Kipling’s novels, insisted that Soviet agents were present in Kalat and Gilgit in search of a base in Baluchistan. It was pure fantasy. More of the same was on offer from Pakistan’s foreign minister, Zafarullah Khan, in New York. His line was marginally more sophisticated. Accepting that India was the major power, he pleaded with the United States to shore up Pakistan, whose people were genetically anticommunist, since this was the best way to protect India against the Soviet Union, which would send its armies through the Khyber Pass. This ploy did not work either, but Pakistan’s persistence would ultimately pay off.


  During the Korean War (1950–53) the United States finally turned to Pakistan and slowly began to incorporate its military and bureaucracy into its new security arrangements for the region. In 1953, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Mohammad Ali Bogra was prime minister and, while opening a General Motors assembly plant in Karachi, once again suggested that “ties of goodwill and friendship can be forged on a permanent basis.”

  The United States responded by sending wheat as “aid.” It was in fact part of the U.S. government’s domestic price-support scheme to reduce a large domestic wheat surplus. Simultaneously John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, put out a statement branding Pakistan as “a bulwark for freedom in Asia.” The Pakistani prime minister responded obsequiously.

  The country’s largest English-language daily, the Pakistan Times, was not impressed and blasted the statement editorially on July 27, 1953:

  They [Pakistanis] will find it somewhat difficult to understand the meaning of the Prime Minister’s assertion, on the occasion of the first US food ship, that Pakistan and America speak the “same language regarding the ideals of freedom and democracy.” They will indeed find it hard to work out a common factor between their ideals of freedom and such concrete expressions of American foreign policy as innumerable strategic bases round the globe, open support to the crumbling Western Empires and their indigenous puppets in the Orient, alliance with such retrograde elements as the Kuomintang and the Rhee gang, and the strengthening of Wall Street’s hold on various Middle Eastern economies. They will also wonder how to reconcile their cherished dreams of a democratic political and social order with the cruel realities of American life such as racial discrimination and the lynching of Negroes, persecution of intellectuals and witchhunting.*