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US Presidential elections – Life after Bush

Governor Bill Clinton has won a landslide victory over George Bush in the US Presidential Elections. For a President who had the highest job approval rating in US history (91%) barely 18 months ago, this has been a remarkable comedown. On the crest of Operation Desert Storm, no one could have ever given odds to any Democratic contender against President Bush except as a human sacrifice to the US electoral system. To that end Bill Clinton has managed a stunning triumph. He led President Bush right from the start and unlike Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic contender, Clinton managed to deflect hardball attacks against his character and patriotism to become the next President of the US of A.

Given that a sizeable segment of the Jewish population is mad at Bush for his perceived pro-Arab tilt, which Clinton has promised to “correct”, the media has been constantly antagonistic to Bush. The Jewish Lobby never forgave him for holding back US $ 10 billion Bank Guarantees for Housing till hardliner Likud’s Shamir was replaced by the more pragmatic Rabin of the Israeli Labour Party. Though his longtime aide and friend, James Baker, resigned as Secretary of State to take over as White House Chief of Staff and control the Bush Presidential campaign in the final months, the poll gap of 30 points (at one stage) was difficult to overcome. History will record that George Bush served his country well in his long career, because of his remarkable foreign policy triumphs, posterity will laud his performance as President.

The whole elections has hinged on the US economy, in a sense Bush’s successes in foreign policy were his undoing domestically. Given the end of the Cold War, the resultant cut-down on defence spending force-multiplied the unemployment throughout the industrial belt, consumer-apathy and reduced sales added to the recession. Along with other related matters, domestic economic issues focussed on the minds of the US electorate more than any other factor. President Bush’s economic team seemed to be in constant disarray. Concern about the pocket-book and the fact that in 12 years of the Republican Presidency, promises of reducing the deficit, balancing the budget, etc had not been fulfilled, indeed taxes had been raised in the face of “Read my lips, no new taxes!” Bush pledge of the last Presidential campaign. The economy had been going steadily downhill and all factors combined made the clamour for change into a groundswell of support for Clinton who represented change. The US President-Elect has been born after the end of World War II, in a sense he identifies with the impatient post-war baby boomers who make up the US electorate for the most part and who are more concerned about Environment, Health Care, Abortion, Aids, Equal Opportunity, etc. They supported Clinton in a preponderant majority. Along with the Jewish and the coloured vote which went solidly for Clinton, a rainbow coalition emerged that overtook the solid white majority (including a large number of so-called Reagan Democrats) that the Republican had banked on in the last 3 elections, particularly in the sun-belt States. By taking away 19 million votes, Ross Perot hurt Bush more than he hurt Clinton.

Life has been tough for Pakistan under Bush for the past two years beginning with the Gulf crisis, the winding down of the Afghan war and the break-up of the Soviet Union. During the 70s the US was extremely concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear programme, which commenced in earnest after India’s explosion of its “peaceful” bomb in 1974, to quote late PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, “we will get the Bomb even if we have to eat grass”, unquote. Along with drugs proliferation, these concerns prompted the last Democrat President, Jimmy Carter, to stop all economic and military aid to Pakistan. Two things happened simultaneously thereafter, Iran turned from being a firm US ally with the fall of the Shah to a perceived Islamic fundamentalist enemy and the Russian Bear moved into Afghanistan within a helicopter-borne force ride away from the vulnerable oil fields of the Persian Gulf (and the centuries old Czarist warm water dreams). This prompted the US to swallow its various reservations about Pakistan and convert it into the West’s frontline State to oppose Soviet communist moves to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, in effect make Afghanistan into Russia’s Vietnam. Almost defenceless in the sights of the Soviet Union and hostile Afghanistan in the West and implacable enemy India to the East, Pakistan’s survival instincts coincided with the US interest in the region, we became the cornerstone of US policy in the region, fighting a proxy war in support of the Afghan Mujahideen. This was a pragmatic marriage of convenience and was certainly meant to last the course only. Those who thought otherwise were fooling themselves.

While for a Superpower like the US it is easy to make or drop a friend at its convenience, Pakistan allying with the US in the face of Third World antipathy had ominous overtones, we lost our Non-Aligned status, if Afghanistan had not been a Muslim country we would have become rank outcasts. In any case the Indians exploited this to their great advantage and raked us over the coals in every such forum where the US was seen as a Capitalist enemy of the socialist system that India and its Soviet mentors espoused. It was always in the cards that the US-Pakistan relationship, given the various other major irritants, would revert to being under pressure at the end of the Afghan war. To that end, Pakistan’s rulers and policy makers followed an extremely short-sighted course in not bringing those major irritants to focus early in the 80s and thus at rest at a time when the US needed us most, these were simply shoved under the carpet and emerged later as hydra-headed monsters to haunt us. Some of our military, political and administrative leaders made millions in US dollars because of the siphoning off of funds and material in the clandestine funnelling of aid to Afghanistan, these people were compromised to the extent that they could not raise with any conviction subjects of vital national interest to Pakistan in any US-Pakistan forum. These unscrupulous people made enough money to buy themselves (and their future generations) respectability. We are a different generation, we owe nothing except contempt to such people who were responsible for this national policy failure at a crucial time of our history.

The Pressler Amendment is misunderstood in Pakistan, it was a specific mechanism (or subterfuge) invented by the then US Administration for Pakistan in the face of the Afghanistan crisis to circumvent the stipulation by the US Congress to ban all economic and military aid to such countries as were suspected of nuclear proliferation. It mandated an annual certification by the US President that he was satisfied that Pakistan was not engaged in any such activity. The Pressler Amendment thus opened the gates of economic and military aid to Pakistan. Once the crisis was over and the Soviet troops had departed Afghanistan, the US President did not feel the necessity any longer in giving such a certification and the aid was stopped, first the military and then the economic aid. To a great extent Pakistan still received help because of sympathetic officials within the State Department and the Pentagon who out of mutual loyalty built in due to years of cooperation in adverse circumstances found ways and means as much as anyone could without violating the letter of the US laws, e.g. the arms and equipment in the pipeline kept flowing for some time because of various ambiguities. While US Ambassador Oakley kept up a drumbeat of reminding the Pakistani authorities about the importance of compliance of the laws mandated by US Congress and its impending application to Pakistan, he moved silently to explain Pakistan’s special circumstances in US government circles and thus probably ran afoul of the US Establishment. As a serving US official, with instructions to carry out US policy, his public stance differed from his role in keeping US economic and military aid flowing into Pakistan for some time. This would probably be true of almost all senior US diplomatic and AID officials posted in Pakistan, the changing current of US policy was simply against them.

Pakistan is sometimes called a Republican country, nowhere in the world, perhaps including the US, is Richard Nixon respected as much as he is in Pakistan. By coincidence and probably because of deliberate policy, we have been under pressure whenever a Democrat is President of the US, beginning with John F. Kennedy and followed by Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Democrats are enamoured with Gandhi and the world’s largest “democracy”, India. During India’s China war John Kennedy gave open military and economic aid to India despite the fact that India had a long standing association with the Soviet Union (and earlier with China) and was clearly at fault in provoking China into the short Himalayan war. Having thrown back the Indian attack, the Chinese counter-attacked but unilaterally ceased their advance once they reached the foothills of the Himalayas, having destroyed all Indian forces in the region. US cargo aircraft in the meantime funnelled in hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies to India in a non-stop operation to equip India’s Mountain divisions. Even the US finally balked at India’s wish list which included “submarines” to fight the Himalayan war. During the 1965 Pakistan-India war, Lyndon Johnson ordered US war material stopped to both countries, India being mainly Soviet-equipped was not affected much but Pakistan which was almost totally equipped by US arms and equipment under Military Aid to Pakistan (MAP), was almost strangulated by lack of spares and war loss replacement. Jimmy Carter’s mother, Ruth, had been a member of the US Peace Corps in India and the Democratic fascination with India continued unabated. We must not be blamed for thinking the worse of Democrats given the comparison with the good times we have had, with respect to US Aid, during the Republican Administrations of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush (at least till two years ago). If solidly Republican Bush could stop all US Aid to Pakistan, what will Democrat Clinton do?

What are the major issues of contention between the US and Pakistan? First and foremost is nuclear proliferation which is the prime US concern post-Cold War, next is the drugs smuggling factor, third State-sponsored terrorism and last but not the least, the upholding of fundamental human rights. With the end of the Cold War, the day of US compromise with dictatorships as a bogey against communism is over. Islamic fundamentalism was a bugbear which the Carter Administration started to label Pakistan with but then had to swallow their apprehensions in the face of the Afghan crisis. Having hanged Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Gen Ziaul Haq had become something of a pariah, he was brought in out of the cold. The end of the Cold War signals the end of such compromises.

In the case of nuclear proliferation Pakistan has had a consistent stand, that the letter and spirit of the laws must apply to both India and Pakistan equally given the history of conflict and potential thereof, Pakistan has reason to fear that India will use its nuclear advantage to bully Pakistan into submission, that it will use the nuclear Sword of Damocles to impose a Pax India-na on the South Asian sub-continent and even beyond to the distant shores of what historically India perceives to be Indian-dominated territory many centuries ago. Religious prejudice is more rampant in India than any other country of the world. India seeks to impose regional hegemony. What is the reason for persisting with the huge cost for maintaining of the Blue Water Navy by one of the most impoverished nations on the face of this Earth? Our nuclear ambitions have no Islamic overtones, it is simply a matter of survival. India is an implacable foe and as much as any Pakistani would like to be themselves rid of a nuclear potential, it is simply not possible to do so unilaterally till India is treated by the world on an equal footing with everyone else and rolls back its nuclear programme. India has a bad track record with respect to its neighbours, it has had difficulties with all of them without exception in its pursuit of regional hegemony. On the other hand, Pakistan does not have any history of trying to subjugate its neighbours and/or interfering in their internal affairs, except in the case of Afghanistan in a just cause. It is important that Pakistan’s submission is understood by the new Democratic Administration. Given the fact that Clinton does not have to fulfil IoUs being held by special interest groups and/or various Lobbies, he is likely to have a more open mind vis-a-vis geo-political realities.

The second major consideration is the drugs issue which would certainly be a Clinton concern. Pakistan has become a major drugs manufacturing/exporting nation as well as a prime conduit, most of the drugs are targeted to the US. As such there has been considerable US concern as to the seriousness of interdiction on the part of the law enforcement agencies in Pakistan. Unfortunately the amount of money involved in the drugs trade and the spread thereof is so much, most of our agencies fighting the drugs trade have been badly compromised. The list of individuals involved in narcotics reads like a Who’s Who of the administrative and political hierarchy of Pakistan. Given the fact of the Medillin Cartel in Columbia, the reach of the tentacles is not surprising. It is in the interests of Pakistan as much as that of the US that we engage in an all out campaign against drugs proliferation, a war without any parameters. The number of drug addicts within Pakistan has increased dramatically as well as drug-related crimes and our interests and the US coincide on this issue. However the wherewithal to fight the drug barons must come from the US, it is far cheaper to fight the issue here than in the streets of USA. In this respect we need fixed-wing surveillance aircraft and helicopters as well as high-tech electronic support in the same manner as has been made available to South American and Latin American countries by the US. The rewards for catching drugs smugglers must also be made commensurately much higher to at least compete with the monetary favours they use to compromise official authority, the US can help in funding this. The US must also separate the BCCI issue from Pakistan, though Pakistanis were in management control of the BCCI, it was hardly Pakistan’s State policy to give official patronage to BCCI’s illegal and criminal acts. If there was any such patronage, it is in the interests of both the US and Pakistan to lay bare the facts and expose the individuals involved, whatever their past or present official position. To hold Pakistan accountable for BCCI’s illegal misdeeds is not fair, it is also not fair to label thousands of honest BCCI employees as criminals. One does find it strange and incongruous that the President of Pakistan should continue to be the patron of the BCCI Foundation. It is facts like these that give truth to BCCI’s links with Pakistan in the minds of the US intelligentsia, duly encouraged by vested interests inimical to Pakistan. All this force-multiplies the adverse image of Pakistan in the US.

The third fact used to belabour us in the US mind is State-sponsored terrorism. There are laws in the US that militate against this and India uses this to good advantage against us in US Congressional circles with respect to Kashmir and Khalistan. In the case of Khalistan, India has given the world to understand that it is Pakistan that is sponsoring terrorism within Indian Punjab whereas that is an indigenous Sikh reaction to the ill-fated Operation Blue Star that committed sacrilege with respect to the Sikh’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple. Bhindranwala was a protege of Rajiv Gandhi and a RAW creation to control the independent Khalistan urges of Sikhs. Very much like what the LTTE did later to RAW in Sri Lanka, Bhindranwala became a RAW created monster that ultimately turned on India. The Indian suppression is brutal and flagrantly violates all human rights in that State. Till today there has not been one shred of evidence of cross-border operations. Basically, India has been trying to neutralize the adverse propaganda against itself because of its brutal suppression of human rights within India by involving Pakistan. Because of rank stupidity on the part of some of our political leaders who should have exercised greater discretion in their rhetoric and not sought cheap publicity, we are wrongly labelled as the prime instigators of the Sikh revolt. One daresays that there must be much sympathy within Pakistan, particularly in Punjab, for the Sikh struggle for independence but outright material support is highly unlikely.

Kashmir is a different question altogether and cannot be treated on the same plane. It is an internationally recognized disputed territory and the US has been supporting the UN resolution for a Plebiscite for a long time. At this time there is a widespread indigenous armed uprising within Kashmir and it has invited brutal Indian repression. There is a total violation of human rights to a degree unimaginable in any civilized society. The Indians are using the window of opportunity created by the diversion of world attention at Bosnia to resort to “ethnic cleansing” of their own, to rid Kashmir of Kashmiris. While Pakistan can well understand the US concern that Kashmir should not become a flashpoint for another India-Pakistan war, with possible nuclear overtones, the US must understand that Pakistanis can hardly keep on standing mute while the grossest possible cruelty is being visited on their brethren within Kashmir. There is no Indian Kashmir and no Pakistan Kashmir, there is a Kashmir divided by a UN Ceasefire Line and the UN has mandated a Plebiscite agreed to by all the parties to the dispute. India will never allow the Plebiscite since it knows it will result in the Kashmiris opting for Pakistan and thus resorts to suppressing the Kashmiris in expressing their democratic desire as such, there is bound to be an adverse reaction. In fact the US must give credit to Pakistan for having exercised that much restraint in the face of grave provocation. While Pakistan is traditionally more comfortable with a Republican Administration, Democrat Clinton comes to the White House very much concerned about human rights violation. Maybe all our fears of Democrats can be laid to rest if Clinton upholds the principles he professes. While Republicans were apt to go the diplomatic route of quiet intercession, there is an even chance that the new Democrat Administration may not be such easy meat for Indian propaganda and may look extremely askance at the continuing gross violation of human rights in Kashmir. We must turn the tables of State-sponsored terrorism on India, is there any intelligence agency in the world that is more bloodily motivated in intercession in neighbouring country than the Indian Research and Analytical Wing (RAW)? Among other things, they have turned the Sri Lankan paradise into hell on earth, is its machinations in Sindh in the 80s in collaboration with KGB and Khad unknown to the West?

While many observers are apt to look at past-history in respect to US-Pakistan relations, one believes that Pakistan has a good chance of convincing the incoming US Administration that on a pro-rata basis there is a greater violation of human rights in India than in Pakistan, that democracy in India is a sheer facade for a rule by a privileged elite founded on the different classes of Hindu religion. There can be no greater violation of the fundamentals of human rights in this world than to declare that all men are not equal. Is there any custom so obnoxious as the Hindu tier system, the ostracisation of the “untouchables” in the Hindu dominated so-called secular India? It goes against the grain of the US Constitution and is very much in practice in “secular” India. There are many more rebellions by different ethnic communities in India than the better known ones in Kashmir and Khalistan and certainly more than in any other country of the world, suppression thereof included. Our media has thus a definite role to play, highlighting bloody revolts in such places as Bodoland, Mizoram, Assam, etc. While Kashmir burns we must not be so craven as to take part in such exercises that seek to undercut our commitment to our brethren within Kashmir? The foreign Press, particularly the US media, will pick up only what we expose, they will then certainly verify it before putting it to print but then they love to uphold the just position of underdogs, that is the American way. In India they may find more than an even dozen such on-going revolts, they may find myriad other draconian security-inspired laws that makes monkeys out of the paper constitution. That truth can only come out if it is sourced properly. Nine times out of ten, India will ban foreign journalists from entering disturbed areas except for the handful of friendlies, very much as they do in Kashmir and Khalistan. That by itself will become a point of foreign media focus, even “safe” journalists like BBC’s Mark Tully have resorted to exposing the truth to preserve their credibility with their organisations. While the Indians may be congratulating themselves on the Democratic victory in the US Presidential Elections, they may yet choke on the principles and standards that the new Democrats require of other nations, particularly those that profess to be democracies.

Pakistan must set a pragmatic course in its future relationship with the US, hoping for the best but planning for the worst. On the positive side we must remember that the US is the world’s greatest democracy, holding forth human values on the highest plane. It is upto our leaders to convince the incoming US Administration that the changing geo-political circumstances may well eventually turn a full circle, may well mean that the close friend of the 50s, which the US abandoned in the 60s and 70s and was again needed in the 80s, may well be required again. As Chou En Lai said to Kissinger during his historic Pakistan-arranged visit that opened up US relations with China, “do not forget the Bridge you have used, you may have to use it again”, unquote. Pakistan has a history of holding forth the same democratic principles that the US is committed to but we have had unfortunate hiccups of military rule in the process. Despite the intervention of military rule thrice, our democratic values are certainly much more than any other in this region and certainly we are much better off in the democratic sense than the monarchies and one-party States in the region as well as the sham that goes by the name of Indian democracy. Freedom cannot be contained to urban pockets, it must be all-pervasive to ensure democratic values.

Our relationship must also stabilize our economic in balance, presently by far in favour of the US. Being a cotton-producing country, our economic lifeline is cotton-based. Being the largest importer of cotton garments in the world, fair adjudication requires that the US must give us privileged textile quotas in keeping with the volume of our cotton production in supersession to economic aid or grants. Most frustrations that we feel come from economic inadequacies in not giving our hardworking masses the same socio-economic facilities that others may enjoy without having made the same quantum of effort. What the US and western countries call fundamentalism is actually the reaction founded on economic frustrations, a most fertile ground for extreme religious views to exploit. Pakistan is, and always has been, a moderate country. The vote bank that female Ms Benazir has is proof of that. Political parties with religious background have never managed to get more than an extremely small percentage of popular vote despite the fact that our masses have deep religious feelings, that is a sure indicator of the perception of our people to so-called Islamic fundamentalism with respect to interfacing with State policy.

We cannot afford to turn away from the United States of America. Not only is the US the only remaining Superpower, it continues to be the economic powerhouse of the world. As President-elect Clinton has stated, US Governments may change, US fundamental interests do not. What we need to do is to build our relationship on real-politik and on solid foundations. Throughout the Cold War we have been a committed friend of the US, opposing the Soviet brand of communism while suffering Third World and Non-Aligned approbation. Lastly we never flinched in the cauldron of Afghanistan despite grave threats, in the end the sustained war saw the death knell of the fragile Soviet economy. This led to the ultimate destruction of Soviet-controlled communism throughout Europe and Asia. On the other hand, India is a Johnny-come-lately to US friendship, having been in the Soviet camp and opposing the US tooth and nail for over four decades in every conceivable world forum and circumstance. India has moved swiftly to turn the tables at the end of the Cold War but can history be rewritten so easily? That is the stark difference that we must make aware to the US, that we have been a friend, unlike India, in times of need and not because of the new perceptions in changing geo-political circumstances. We are not opportunists, history is a witness that India has always been that.

The basic American penchant is to be fair, in our moves for strengthening our relationship let us concentrate on that endearing human quality of fairplay. There should be no joy in Pakistan at the exit of President Bush, he remained our friend within the limitations of his office. We must also feel no apprehension at the entry of President-elect Clinton, indeed we may look forward with hope that the demands of the Oval Office do not overcome his penchant for principles and human values. After all the policy options have been studied, the fundamental US policy concerns will not change drastically if we carefully explain our viewpoint and stand by our principles. We need leaders to project our national interest who have credibility, whatever their political backgrounds. Whoever is the ruler, he or she must have the courage to reach out and use the services of those best able to put forward Pakistan’s national interest at this particular crossroads.

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