insight: Rethinking the alliance —Ejaz Haider

The US cannot be trusted as an honest broker between India and Pakistan. Its tilt towards India is very clear and its policies and approach towards Pakistan are a clear proof of thatCheck out the text of the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement (PEACE) Act of 2009, officially titled HR 1886, introduced by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) on April 2 and currently referred to the committee. (see http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1886)If this bill did not relate to a serious issue in the backdrop of a very grim situation facing Pakistan and this region, one might have dismissed it as a bad joke. While it would be an essential exercise to deconstruct it clause by clause to lay bare its intent, and one hopes the Foreign Office will do exactly that, it is important here to at least point to what is obvious.First, the bill and some of its clauses, especially those pertaining to India’s interest, are the work of Indian lobbying. That, one should, without any grudge, say is excellent work from India’s perspective. Equally, one might ask what effort, if any, was made by us to thwart India’s designs.The question, however, is this: should the United States be dealing with Pakistan on the basis of its (US) interests or India’s? The question, at this stage, assumes quite arbitrarily that US interests vis-à-vis Pakistan may be different from India’s. Increasing evidence may even put paid to this assumption but for now we shall not touch upon that.One may also assume that given the Obama administration’s own rhetoric, the US faces a grave threat in the region, which it cannot tackle without Pakistan’s help. Logically this means that the US should be trying to find points of convergence with Pakistan. Coming up with a bill that does not even purport to hide its India tilt is a strange way of doing that.Let’s consider Sec 4, Declaration of Principles, Clause 6, sub-clauses (H), (I), (J) and (K), in reverse order.Sub-clause (J) of the bill requires Pakistan “not to support any person or group that conducts violence, sabotage, or other activities meant to instil fear or terror in India”. This could have been drafted by India. But let’s deconstruct it. Seems fine; no? The fine-print is a different story. Given terrorist attacks within Pakistan and the degree of difficulty in tackling the menace, how can Pakistan be expected to ensure India will not be attacked and how would it be determined, and by whom, that Pakistan is “allowing” some groups to attack India — New Delhi?Once again, we are not even getting into the issue of what India might be doing and how might it be funding and supporting not just the Baloch nationalists but also those terrorist groups that are attacking security forces in FATA and elsewhere.As I wrote in this space last Saturday (“Terrorism and its discontents”; Daily Times, April 4) in relation to our discussion at an India-Pakistan conference in Bangkok, “What is...troublesome...is determining whether blame for a particular terrorist act can be laid at the door of the state of Pakistan. How and who is to trace the spoor; who would determine the intent behind the exercise and what role is [India’s] domestic politics likely to play in such an exercise, as it did during and after Mumbai?”This conditionality means Pakistan will always be the villain until it proves itself innocent. Do we want the money and this assistance, notwithstanding its apparent generosity, with this conditionality? I don’t know about official Pakistan but as far as I am concerned, no.Consider sub-clause (K) of the bill. It binds Pakistan “to ensure access of United States investigators to individuals suspected of engaging in worldwide proliferation of nuclear materials, and restrict such individuals from travel or any other activity that could result in further proliferation”.Well...Dr AQ Khan again! That episode, gentlemen, is over. Dr Khan has been sidelined and punished; Pakistan has taken measures to ensure that no one can do such a thing again; other states whose nationals were involved in the racket have still to come clean on what was going on; proliferation is an area where all nuclear weapon states have some blot on them, and that includes the US; credible reports from US experts have proven proliferation by India and so on, thank you.And yes, like the US, we like to try our defaulters ourselves.Sub-clauses (H) and (I) of the bill require Pakistan “not to provide any support, direction, guidance to, or acquiescence in the activities of any person or group that engages in any degree in acts of violence or intimidation against civilians, civilian groups, or governmental entities”; and “to redouble its efforts to prevent the presence of the Taliban and Taliban-affiliated groups in Pakistan that support insurgents in Afghanistan”.Very well. Once again, who will determine that Pakistan is successfully and/or sincerely doing this? Given the complexity of what is happening in this region and the different and differing interests of various players, what benchmarks are to be used by the US to make such a determination?As I mentioned above, there is much sting in this bill and the FO will have the occasion to go clause by clause to debate that and formulate an appropriate response. But one thing should be clear: the US cannot be trusted as an ally that can act as an honest broker between India and Pakistan. Its tilt towards India is very clear and its policies and approach towards Pakistan are a clear proof of that.I shall have occasion to get to that in a subsequent piece. But this bill is a piece of legislation that Pakistan must reject categorically and unequivocally. More than that, however, we need to rethink our terms of alliance with the US and for that we need to develop a coherent national response.Ejaz Haider is Consulting Editor of The Friday Times and Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times. He can be reached at sapper@dailytimes.com.pk