The United States needs to change its policies toward Pakistan to better promote stability in South Asia, especially in Afghanistan, leading regional experts argued during a recent conference in Washington, DC.
The conference, hosted by the Hudson Institute, had six featured speakers, each differing in terms of their nationality, political orientation, and analytical perspective. However, the six generally agreed that a continuation of current American policies in the region would undermine the core US objectives of promoting democracy, weakening terrorism, and strengthening regional stability.
Marvin G. Weinbaum, currently scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, described a fundamentally troubled Pakistani-American relationship. Pakistan's contributions to regional counterterrorist efforts have been "inconsistent, incomplete, and, yes, at times insincere," Weinbaum said. US policy also has been "two-sided," with often the same Americans praising President Pervez Musharraf for his moderation while simultaneously admonishing him for acting insufficiently aggressively, demonstrating a lack of appreciation of the constraints confronting him.
Speakers at the March 16 event, titled "Stability and Democracy in Pakistan: In the Shadow of Terrorism," stressed the need to broaden America's base of support beyond Musharraf. Husain Haqqani, a professor and director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University, urged American policy makers to recognize that "there is more to Pakistan than Musharraf" and to pay more attention to the "dysfunctional state" of Pakistan. Americans must publicly declare their support for democracy and privately convey the same message.
The speakers agreed that the United States had to adopt measures to promote a return to civilian rule in Pakistan, or risk polarizing Pakistani politics between Islamist extremists and the military. Christine Fair, senior research associate at the US Institute of Peace, blamed the military for fostering a political system that suffered from "democracy interruptus." Dr. Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a visiting Pakistani scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, believed political moderates would enjoy considerable support in genuinely free elections. In his assessment, only a Pakistani government that acquired power through fair elections would enjoy the political legitimacy to counter domestic extremism and become a genuine US ally in the war on terror.
According to Haqqani, the Pakistani military had shown itself fundamentally incapable of curbing Islamic extremism and sectarian violence, or promoting broad socio-economic development. Instead, the generals remain fixated on winning a strategic contest against neighboring India.
The United States must avoid encouraging the Pakistani government's preoccupation with India through financing Islamabad's purchases of warplanes and warships of no use for countering the Taliban or al Qaeda. According to Weinbaum, Americans should help the military recognize its "corporate interests" as invariably linked to the strength of Pakistani society according to such metrics as the degree of political democracy and socio-economic equality.
Haqqani depicted Pakistan as both "part of the solution and part of the problem," adding that the Pakistani military "will not become part of the solution until it is reminded on a daily basis that it is part of the problem."
In terms of promoting broader regional stability, Weinbaum and other presenters stressed that the United States had to be seen as committed to engaging Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the other countries of the region over the long haul. A more benign regional security environment would create a more favorable context for the development of peace, prosperity, and democracy in Pakistan and its neighbors. By promoting peace in Kashmir, for instance, the United States would help weaken the connections between the Pakistani military and jihadist groups. Similarly, demilitarizing Pakistani society would become easier if Pakistanis no longer believed they faced a threat from India. Finally, by making clear the US determination to reconstruct a viable Afghan state, Washington would discourage Pakistani ambitions there.
The speakers characterized Pakistan as experiencing a severe blowback from events in neighboring Afghanistan. According to Khawar Rizvi, an expert on Pakistan's troubled tribal regions, the Waziristan Accord, signed last September by government officials and tribal leaders, has turned into a debacle for Islamabad. The pact provided for a cease-fire in the strife-torn region of North Waziristan, an area believed to be a hideout for heavy concentrations of Taliban fighters. Rather than enabling the government to contain extremist violence, the accord has enabled tribal leaders to establish a virtual "state within a state," Rizvi said. The respite granted by the agreement allowed Taliban and al Qaeda militants hiding in Pakistan to strengthen their lines of communication and coordination.
Haqqani warned that the pact was also contributing to the process of "Talibanization" within Pakistan. This phenomenon is now spreading eastward, as well as presenting a major threat to the coalition forces in Afghanistan, Haqqani added. Nobody objected when Weinbaum described northwestern Pakistan as a "Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuary." Weinbaum said that most Pakistanis do not view the war in Afghanistan as in their interests, despite the fact that their country would most benefit from a strong and stable Afghanistan, and that Pakistani society would suffer potentially severe repercussions if their neighbor were to fall under extremist control.
Khalid Hasan, Washington correspondent of Pakistan's Daily Times, maintained that the Bush doctrine of "democracy through invasion" had proved counterproductive in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Weinbaum argued that the administration's mistaken perception that Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and other conflicts represented part of a single integrated war on terrorism also deprived Americans of support among the Pakistani people, who interpret American actions as a US-led "war against Islam."
Editor's note:
Richard Weitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.
