US S.Asian Policy Illogical

[Guest guest]

Title: TILTING AGAIN

Author: Richard Rapaport

Publication: SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE,

NOV 13, 2001

"Most importantly, America must recognize that it is the superpower

India, not

the political and economic basket-case Pakistan, that is key to long-

term peace

and stability in South Asia, and perhaps even to a victory in the war

on

terrorism."

 

AMERICA'S new best friend, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, has

been a

busy strongman since September 11. Weekly, U.S. Cabinet secretaries,

the British

prime minister, generals and diplomats arrive at Islamabad's

President's House

to pay court. Saturday, at a joint press conference in New York,

Major Gen.

Musharraf was given President Bush's public seal of approval and a

billion

dollars in aid.

 

All tailored suits and crisp manners, Gen. Musharraf is very much the

model of a

modern major general, fitting Margaret Thatcher's characterization of

former

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev as a man with whom we can do

business.

Superficially, the match seems reasonable.

 

Musharraf's Anglo-Saxon-isms and the Pakistani military's British

personality

have helped smooth the way for the West's "tilt" toward the Islamic

world's sole

nuclear power. But the United States might want to dampen its

enthusiasm for

Musharraf and his "good guy" status; conjuring, as it does, the

Philippine's

Ferdinand Marcos, Chile's Augusto Pinochet, South Vietnam's Nguyen

Van Thieu,

Indonesia's Suharto and Cambodia's Lon Nol, all authoritarian "new

best friends"

for whom American benediction and foreign aid did little to ensure

their shaky

governments or even further long-term American interests.

 

Similarly, this latest manifestation of America's foreign policy

propensity for

taking the easy way out by aligning ourselves with the Pakistani

dictator will

not necessarily help the United States achieve its goals of stability

and peace

in South Asia or further the battle against Islamic radicalism. The

deal with

Pakistan indicates an inability on the part of the United States to

think

through long-term strategies, and is shameless in its transparency.

Only last

summer, Pakistan, the chief backer of Afghanistan's Taliban, was under

international sanctions for violating the nuclear-test-ban treaty,

supporting

terrorists in Kashmir and for the anti-democratic coup that brought

Musharraf to

power.

 

There is precedent for America's latest "tilt"; the phrase "tilting

toward

Pakistan" has been in the U.S. foreign policy lexicon since the Nixon

administration, when the United States supported another modern major

general,

Yaya Khan, who declared himself president of Pakistan in 1969.

 

Then as now, America's South Asian tilt meant cooling relations with

Pakistan's

archenemy, India. It also prevents recognizing that India, rather

than Pakistan,

should be the stable anchor of U.S. regional policy.

 

The logic is a powerful one. India is a nation created very much in

America's

image; a huge, market-driven economic power, which shares a common

heritage of

English-speaking democracy with the United States. India and the

United States

are the world's two largest constitutional democracies. Both have

strong

political parties committed to representational government. Even

during crisis,

India has stuck to its democratic guns. By contrast, for half its

history,

Pakistan has been ruled by "modern major generals" such as Musharraf,

who have

toppled elected leaders.

 

This totalitarian tendency derives from a fragility that has plagued

Pakistan

since its independence. Pakistan's diverse, often-warring ethnic

groups have

meant a fractious history, with the Pakistani military periodically

providing

the glue preventing national disintegration. The one unifying issue

that has

helped hold Pakistan together is the goal of taking the Muslim-

majority

territory, Kashmir, from India. Kashmir has been the spark for wars

and

continued tension with India largely because Pakistan's political

disunity

necessitates a unifying crusade against a foreign devil.

 

During these conflicts, India, with a population more diverse than

Pakistan's,

maintained its democratic instincts and institutions. In democracy's

greatest

test, the Congress Party, which ruled India since independence in

1947, lost its

parliamentary majority in 1977 and accepted its role as the

opposition party

without so much as a whisper of retaining control through

unconstitutional

means.

 

But even as a democratic paragon, the party's socialist ideology

clouded U.

S.-Indian relations since the late 1940s. Nor did advocacy for

nonalignment by

India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, endear India to the

United

States. For Americans, India has been a diplomatic prickly pear,

ironically

reminiscent of the United States' own spiny world image.

 

Since the Cold War's end, much has changed in India. Its command

economy is

transforming into a powerhouse capitalist engine. India has played a

crucial

role in America's technology primacy by providing thousands of

engineers and

software professionals working in the United States and India. With a

middle

class of 400 million -- and growing -- India is an increasingly

important

consumerist partner of the United States.

Demographics alone compel:

 

India's population of 1.033 billion is eight times Pakistan's.

Included are 145

million Muslims, equal to the total population of Pakistan and only

surpassed by

Indonesia as the world's largest Islamic country.

 

India's Muslims are loyal citizens. Which raises the puzzling

question of why,

while the United States struggles to find linguists and other experts

to unravel

the Islamic terrorist conundrum, it has not turned to India which has

its own

large stake in defeating terrorism. In recent years, thousands of

Indians have

been killed by Kashmiri insurgents, many trained at the al Qaeda

camps that

produced the September 11 hijackers. Far closer relations with India

could

provide a bonanza of intelligence capabilities for the United States.

 

Indians have a right to feel let down by this latest tilt, which the

Times of

India calls "The U.S.-Pak Lovefest." This is especially true because

of the

reassessment of U.S.-Indian relations during the Clinton

administration.

 

In 1999, President Clinton delivered an electrifying speech to the

Indian

Parliament outlining the seeming arrival of intimate relations

between the two

nations. The speech, a milestone in U.S.-Indian relations, received

little

notice here.

 

Even the Bush administration, seemingly determined to undermine all

things

Clintonian, decided that the rapprochement between India and the

United States

should continue. Unfortunately September 11's shock has provoked yet

another

reflexive "tilt" toward Pakistan.

 

Whatever the tactical gain, U.S. policymakers need to reassess the

strategic

realities of betting on Musharraf, the fourth general to name himself

president

of a country that is a poster-child for political instability.

 

Musharraf is likely to succumb to the political turmoil that undid

each of his

military dictator-predecessors. And, ironically, greater distance

from the

United States in the face a rising tide of pro-Taliban and Islamic

sentiment in

Pakistan may help Musharraf survive longer than will the perception

of his

status as an American puppet.

 

Most importantly, America must recognize that it is the superpower

India, not

the political and economic basket-case Pakistan, that is key to long-

term peace

and stability in South Asia, and perhaps even to a victory in the war

on

terrorism. With a solution to Kashmir unlikely, and a violent,

perhaps even

nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan a distinct

possibility, America

needs to think clearly about where its true long-term interests lie

and the

dangers posed by a Pakistan emboldened by another U.S. tilt.

 

Richard Rapaport has written about India for Wired and Forbes ASAP.