Making A Difference

To Pak, A Punch

Pakistan felt like the lesser mortal vis-a-vis the hugely successful India leg of the US president's Asia tour

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To Pak, A Punch
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Yet the opening snapshot at the airport set the tone for a pessimistic assessment of Bush’s visit to Pakistan last week. Just about every word the President spoke was analysed threadbare to read annoyance with Musharraf and his country. Sarcasm was seen in Bush’s remark thanking Musharraf for the friendship displayed. "...your daughter was there to greet us," said the president. "That was a really kind gesture, and I thank you very much for that."

Bush’s visit to Pakistan wasn’t anyway expected to be the huge success it was in India. He lavished praises on India’s commitment to democracy, stitched a civil nuclear deal with New Delhi, and declared, quite openly, that Islamabad wasn’t yet ready for such exceptional treatment. This, despite Washington’s claims of having a strategic partnership with Pakistan, especially post-9/11. The mood in the establishment was already sullen before the US president set foot on Pakistani soil.

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Worse, at the popular level, the mood was decidedly anti-Bush. The movement against Danish cartoons had already snowballed into anti-West and anti-US sentiment. A large section of Pakistanis has been enraged by Bush’s West Asian policy, and the penchant of US forces to hunt and shoot Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, often without Islamabad’s approval. Anti-Bush rallies were held a day before his arrival; countrywide security sweeps saw Opposition leaders placed under house arrest. Piqued, the Opposition boycotted the banquet for Bush. Add to this the woes of Islamabad and Rawalpindi residents, who countenanced for days unprecedented multi-layered security arrangements, frequent cellphone disruptions, body and vehicle searches. The US president could not have hoped for the affection that the Indians had displayed.

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Yet, from his own perspective, Bush could claim his visit was a success. Never before has he had the chance of lecturing Pakistanis on their own soil. Like a schoolmaster, with Musharraf sitting on the dais at the other end, Bush hectored, "Part of my mission today was to determine whether or not President Musharraf is as committed as he has been in the past to bringing these terrorists to justice." He then gave a thumbs-up sign to his host. "He is (committed). He understands the stakes, he understands the responsibility and he understands the need to make sure our strategy is able to defeat the enemy."

In his editorial, Daily Times editor Najam Sethi parsed the joint press conference for two implied messages: "One, that Pakistan’s primary importance is linked to how much and what it can do to help the US fight Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups like the Taliban, and two, that while Pakistan may have captured and killed scores of terrorists it still needs to do more." Former diplomat Tayyab Siddiqi saw two other messages in Bush’s remarks last week: one, the only way to defeat terrorists in the long run is through democracy; two, Pakistan still has a distance to travel on that road.

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The war on terror overshadowed just about everything, even Bush’s reference to a bilateral investment treaty to encourage fdi: "By fostering economic development and opportunity, we will reduce the appeal of radical Islam and demonstrate that America is a steadfast friend and partner of Pakistan’s people."

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Even Kashmir was seen from this lens. Before the trip, Musharraf had publicly urged Bush help advance the current efforts to resolve the contentious issue. All the US president said was, "Kashmir has been a source of violence and distrust between the two countries. I’ll encourage them to address this important issue." Obviously, Musharraf’s hope for US facilitation to resolve Kashmir turned out to be quite misplaced, even though the establishment claimed the Pak-US relationship has been placed on a higher pedestal.

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Dr Mohammad Waseem, analyst and teacher at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, says the traditional zero-sum model of Washington’s relations with India and Pakistan has become redundant. "The new Indo-US strategic partnership is part of Washington’s China policy, whereas the post-9/11 Pak-US alliance is part of the US policy towards the Middle East. Therefore, it has become possible for the US to cultivate a friendship with the two countries simultaneously, in pursuit of two separate agendas which focus on two different regions. The two agendas also revolve around two different projects: one global in nature and scope, in the context of managing China’s emergence as a major power; the other essentially regional in character, aimed at addressing what’s largely understood as political Islam in and around Middle East."

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Dr Waseem sees this difference as vital, both in impression and content. While Bush is setting up a perceived emerging power such as India against a perceived superpower as China, the second agenda is "couched in intra-state conflicts between anti-West popular sentiment and pro-West ruling dispensations led by men such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan." Adds former secretary (foreign affairs) Shamshad Ahmed Khan, "The Pak-US joint statement on peace and security listed a number of areas of cooperation including defence, arms and technology transfers, training, joint exercises and so on. Yet none of this reaches the level the US proposes or intends to reach out to India."

Dr Waseem shudders at the consequences Bush’s visit could have on the Indo-Pak peace process. "In the last two years, the peace process has been sustained essentially on the strength ofCBMs rather than through the mechanism of conflict resolution per se. The Indo-US pacts, which threaten to disrupt status quo in the region, can throw a spanner in the peace process."

Imtiaz Alam, current affairs editor, The News, is perplexed at the despondency in Pakistan over America’s emerging equation with India. "We want America to fulfil our every wish, and yet we curse it on every possible pretext—even for our own failures." Alam says Bush’s refusal to treat Islamabad on par with New Delhi on the nuclear energy issue should make Pakistanis realise how reckless they had been in not exercising control over "possible proliferation" that Dr A.Q. Khan and his network had indulged in. "What else could we get from the Americans after having been bailed out on the charges of proliferation? Thank God, we are not being tried by the iaea. Expecting the US to offer Pakistan the same ‘privilege’ as it did to India was asking for a little too much," he says.

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