U.S. Policy Toward Pakistan

"U.S. POLICY TOWARD PAKISTAN"

Highlights of testimony by Prof. Husain Haqqani, Director, Center for International Relations, Boston University and Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute Before the United States Congress House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, March 21, 2007

1. Close relations between Pakistan and the United States are in the interest of both nations. But the relationship between the two countries must be nuanced beyond the exchange of aid and policy concessions that has characterized their interaction over the last sixty years. It should not be subject to cycles of massive aid, followed by threats of sanctions and then application of sanctions.

2. There is a pattern in U.S.-Pakistan relations. Pakistan has been an ally of the United States during the cold war, in the war of resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and currently in the global war against terror. Each period of close U.S.-Pakistan ties began with great hopes and ended up in tremendous disappointment for both sides.

3. Since 9/11, Focus has been on relations with General Pervez Musharraf, who gave up support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and chose to become an American ally.

4. The policy has had some benefits. Pakistani support was crucial in the U.S. effort to oust the Taliban from Kabul and most senior Al-Qaeda figures now in U.S. custody were also arrested and handed over by Pakistan's security services.

5. But Pakistan plays a contradictory role in the struggle against global Islamist terrorism –it is considered both part of the solution and part of the problem.

6. Most discussion in Washington sees General Musharraf rather than the Pakistani nation as the lynchpin of American policy in the region.

7. Actual and budgeted amounts of U.S. aid for Pakistan during the period 2001-2008 total $ 5.174 billions. It is estimated that an additional $ 80-100 million are given each month in coalition support funds – a total of $4.75 billion until August 2006. There are no publicly available estimates for covert transfers of funds to Pakistan's army and intelligence services. Most of the money has gone towards Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and Economic Support Fund (ESF). Very little of it has flowed in ways that are visible to the Pakistani people as altering their daily lives.

8. For comparison, let me point out that the actual and budgeted USAID figures for 2001-2007 reflect $ 1.2 billion in FMF, $ 1.9 billion in ESF, $ 111.7 million for Child Survival and Health and a token $ 64 million for democracy promotion.

9. General Musharraf's regime has been given a virtual carte blanche on human rights violations and his failure to allow the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

10. When Musharraf fired the Supreme Court Chief Justice, prompting massive demonstrations the State Department's comments called for "restraint on all sides." The Department spokesman insisted that Musharraf was "acting in the best interests of Pakistan and the Pakistani people."

11. This personalization of relations between the world's sole superpower and a nuclear-armed nation of 150-million people is not the best way forward for either. It does not fulfil even the short-term purpose of securing Pakistan's cooperation in the global war against terrorism.

12. Pakistan continues to be a major center for Islamist militancy, the legacy of the country's projection of itself as an Islamic ideological state and a bastion of religion- based opposition to communism during the cold war and the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Most of Pakistan's dysfunction is due to internal political factors, therefore, there is no escaping paying attention to these factors.

13. There is more to Pakistan than Musharraf and sooner or later U.S. policy makers will have to turn their attention to the state of the Pakistani state.

14. Pakistan's relations with Afghanistan and India are more significant for Pakistan's rulers than they have been for U.S. policy makers. These relations, and how they shape Pakistan's foreign and domestic policy, require greater attention.

15. The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the hearing on his nomination as U.S. ambassador to Iraq that "Pakistan has been fighting terrorists for several years and its commitment to counterterrorism remains firm." The challenge faced by Pakistan in coming to terms with Taliban fighters along its border with Afghanistan, he explained, lies in a lack of capacity. If that is the case, it is crucial for U.S. policy to understand the reasons for the lack of capacity and to seek its remedy. The problem is clearly political and not just a matter of the Pakistani State having inferior firepower.

16. During the week preceding Vice President Cheney's recent trip to Pakistan, the country was the target of seven suicide attacks within one week, some in relatively quiet parts of the country's heartland.

17. The same week, Pakistan successfully tested the latest version of its long-range nuclear-capable missile. The Hatf VI (Shaheen II) ballistic missile, launched from an undisclosed location, is said to have a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,245 miles) and has the capability to hit major cities in India, according to Pakistan's military. Clearly, Pakistan's supposed ability to externally project its power is not matched with the strength of an effective state at home.

18. A compilation of published figures of terrorism-related casualties indicates that 1471 people were killed in Pakistan during 2006, up from 648 terrorism-related fatalities in the preceding year. Of these, 608 were civilians, 325 security personnel and 538 terrorists. In 2005, 430 civilians and 137 terrorists were reported killed but the number of security forces losses were a relatively low 81.

19. 2007 is an election year in Pakistan but Musharraf has decided not to risk his position and power at a free poll. He will be "elected" president by the parliament and provincial legislatures that were elected in the tainted 2002 elections just as their term enters its last days. Musharraf is seeking election from assemblies whose own flawed mandate is about to come to an end. Such technical legality is not a substitute for legitimacy.

20. Musharraf remains unwilling to deal fairly with opposition political parties, notably the secular Center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the faction of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League (PML) led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This increases his political isolation, compounds his legitimacy problems and pushes him to seek adjustments with Islamists, most of whom are favorably disposed to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

21. The PPP and PML remain the country's largest mainstream political parties and both have the capacity to mobilize popular support for the state's action against terrorists. Instead of courting their leaders, Musharraf has attempted to divide the two parties. U.S. diplomats have directly or indirectly supported Musharraf's domestic policies by hinting that Sharif and Bhutto should make way for others within their parties, refusing to acknowledge that doing so amounts to endorsing the Pakistani military's right to determine who can or cannot lead the country's political parties.

22. Pakistan's next parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held by the end of 2007, are unlikely to transform the country into a democracy or return it to civilian rule unless they are held under ground rules different from those in 2002. Musharraf has made it clear that he intends to continue running the country, combining the offices of army chief and president in his own person. Musharraf has persistently rejected opposition demands that he transform into a civilian leader by seeking election under the constitution after retiring from the army. He has gone so far as to say, "At the end of the day I am a soldier and I love to wear the uniform. It is part of me, my second skin."

23. The United States is viewed by most Pakistanis as being firmly behind the army. The three periods of significant flow of U.S. aid to Pakistan have all coincided with military rule in Pakistan. According to figures provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) between 1954 and 2002, the U.S. provided a total of $ 12.6 billion in economic and military aid to Pakistan. Of these $ 9.19 billion were given during 24 years of military rule while only $ 3.4 billion were provided to civilian regimes covering 19 years. On average, US aid to Pakistan amounted to $ 382.9 million for each year of military rule compared with only $ 178.9 per annum under civilian leadership for the period until 2002. The largesse towards the Musharraf regime almost doubles the average figure of annual aid under military rule.

24. The international community pays little attention to Musharraf's legitimacy problems and the democratic politicians' sniping at his heels. The U.S. and its allies are concerned more about the rising influence of Pakistan's Islamists, who made their strongest showing in a general election during the 2002 parliamentary polls. The Islamists secured only 11.1 percent of the popular vote but carried 20 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament. Since then, they have pressed for Taliban-style Islamization in the Northwest Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, where they control the provincial administration.

25. The Islamists' political success is made possible by restrictions on Bhutto and Sharif.

26. The disproportionate focus of the Pakistani state since Pakistan's independence in 1947 on ideology, military capability, and external alliances has weakened Pakistan internally. The country's institutions—ranging from schools and universities to the judiciary—are in a state of general decline. The economy's stuttering growth is dependent largely on the level of concessional flows of external resources.

27. Pakistan's gross domestic product (GDP) stands at about $85 billion in absolute terms and $300 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP), making Pakistan's economy the smallest of any country that has tested nuclear weapons thus far. Pakistan suffers from massive urban unemployment, rural underemployment, illiteracy, and low per capita income: one-third of the population lives below the poverty line and another 21 percent subsists just above it.

28. The intermittent flow of U.S. military and economic assistance has encouraged Pakistan's military leaders to over-estimate their power potential, making reconciliation with India and Afghanistan difficult. Even now, the bulk of U.S. aid is going towards military equipment, especially the acquisition by Pakistan of additional F-16 fighter planes, sidewinder and Harpoon missiles and P-3 Orion aircraft.

29. Normalization of relations between India and Pakistan and Pakistan's return to democracy is most likely the key to the withdrawal of the military from the political arena as well as to Pakistan's long term stability. Pakistan's minority Islamists would lose credibility and legitimacy if democratic institutions operate successfully and are dominated, through free and fair elections, by secularists and moderates.

30. Instead of thinking only in terms of the extremes of showering Pakistan, mainly its military, with aid or of cutting that aid off, U.S. policy makers should look at the totality of the picture in Pakistan. A policy of nuanced engagement, in which U.S. officials frankly share their concerns with Pakistan's rulers and the people is far better than the current policy of portraying one individual –General Musharraf – and one institution –the Pakistan army—as America's best bet.

31. It is my view that the U.S. Congress, as well as the Executive Branch, should take measures that demonstrate convincingly an international interest in Pakistan's return to democracy with full participation of all major representative political personalities and parties. These measures could include funding for full monitoring of the forthcoming elections and a willingness of the executive branch to openly comment on Musharraf's refusal to abide by democratic norms.

Committee on Foreign Affairs; Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
U.S. House of Representatives