Sale of US Jets to Pakistan is a Leap Forward!!

The Financial Times
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Sale of US Jets to Pakistan is a Leap Forward

The US's emerging foreign policy pragmatism took a giant leap forward with the announcement that Washington would sell non-nuclear capable F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, write Mansoor Ijaz and Thomas McInerney.

By MANSOOR IJAZ and THOMAS McINERNEY

Mansoor Ijaz, chairman of Crescent Investment Management, was joint author of the blueprint for the Kashmir ceasefire in July 2000; Thomas McInerney, non-executive chairman of Crescent Technology Ventures, served as US Air Force assistant vice chief of staff from 1992-1994

The Bush administration's emerging foreign policy pragmatism took a giant leap forward with the recent announcement that Washington would sell non-nuclear capable F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan and - if New Delhi wants them - to India as well. Historically, such controversial decisions are remembered more for what was not said about their origin than what was.

This decision, meant in part to placate a disgruntled ally, Pakistan, could be transformational in stabilising South Asia if the US administration uses its initiative as a platform to encourage domestic policy shifts in Islamabad on key political, economic and strategic issues.

Unravelling what the nuclear black market run by A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist, supplied to Iran and North Korea tops the list. If Mr Khan cannot be made available to the US for interrogation, supplying International Atomic Energy Agency scientists and United Nations officials with examples of the parts sold - such as Pakistani uranium enrichment centrifuges - would help determine how far client countries including Iran and North Korea have advanced their nuclear programmes.

Irrefutable evidence of Iranian and North Korean nuclear malfeasance would greatly enhance prospects for using international diplomacy rather than militaristic bluster to resolve these two thorny problems, a possibility that alone justifies the F-16 sale. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, recently indicated he was considering a move to share such evidence with UN officials - he should do so without delay. Iran, which admits to holding some al-Qaeda leaders, might consider handing them over to a neutral authority in exchange for reasoned diplomatic management of its nuclear imbroglio - a result that would be possible only with Pakistan's carefully co-ordinated and planned disclosures.

Gen Musharraf should also use the leverage gained from resuming a strategic military supply relationship with Washington to stare down hawks within his army to accept the emerging blueprint for long-term peace with India over the disputed Himalayan enclave of Kashmir. For its part, New Delhi should take advantage of Gen Musharraf's forthcoming visit to India for a cricket match to proceed in resolving the 58-year-old dispute that has thrice taken the nuclear rivals to war. A staged withdrawal of troops by both sides along the Line of Control prior to the snowmelt in the Himalayas would be one such step.

There is also an intangible benefit in the new F-16 deal. In rewarding a loyal ally for siding with America against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks, George W. Bush begins healing more than a decade's worth of damage done by his father, then-president George H. W. Bush, with his decision in 1990 to impose sanctions on Pakistan for its nuclear weapons ambitions. At the time, Washington ended military sales to Islamabad after Pakistan had already paid hundreds of millions of dollars in deposits for 38 F-16s, a decision that alienated Pakistanis and fuelled extremist movements.

Moreover, the F-16 deal will help improve America's image on the streets of Pakistan and with Islamabad's generals. Longer term, the deal could be used to compel Islamabad to allocate more domestic resources to education and poverty alleviation programmes by using military spending to create new pockets of funding. The Bush administration should focus its creative energies here by, for example, asking Islamabad to redefine and use the offset programme accompanying any F-16 sales to channel funds into Pakistan's new programme to encourage non-religious schools rather than into dubious business deals. Gen Musharraf has touted this programme as a priority for Pakistan's future - here is his chance to prove it.

Lockheed Martin, the US aerospace giant that will deliver the F-16s and run the offset programme, could make matching contributions in fields such as healthcare and rural electrification so that Pakistan's poor and disaffected might also feel the benefits of US military largesse. It is not often that such a controversial decision can yield so many collateral benefits. Selling F-16s to Pakistan is a model of the more pragmatic US foreign policy emerging from the state department under Condoleezza Rice; it should be repeated in other problematic areas of the world.