Pakistan Faces More Than an Image
Problem
By
Husain Haqqani
PAKISTAN
FACES , once again, a barrage of allegations ranging from charges
of covert support of terrorists to accusations about illegally
exporting components for other nations’ nuclear and missile
programs.
The
Los Angeles Times ran a detailed story that blamed Pakistan
for helping Iran in acquiring nuclear weapons capability. This
follows similar allegations about exchanges of nuclear technology
with the rogue state of North Korea.
Jane
Mayer, writing in the New Yorker recently, insinuated
that Osama bin Laden was hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border, virtually protected by Pakistani tribesmen with a wink
and a nod from Pakistani officials.
The
Guardian, too, ran a similar story. Now the New Yorker
has come up with charges of collaboration between Pakistan’s
secret service and the international Jihadi network, identified
with al-Qaeda. India’s statements that Pakistan continues
to support militants (or terrorists) operating in Indian-controlled
Kashmir as well as elsewhere in India also continue to be believed
by large segments of international public opinion, Pakistan’s
contradictions and denials notwithstanding. The recent bomb attacks
in Mumbai are the latest instigation for a new round of negative
comments around the world about Pakistan.
Islamabad
has repeatedly and vehemently denied each of the various charges
leveled against it. But Pakistani officials’ statements
that the country is not involved in training or arming terrorists,
that it is not an exporter of nuclear contraband and that it does
not run covert operations against India or Afghanistan simply
do not have any impact.
Initially, after General Musharraf became a US ally, American
officials were a bit more supportive of Pakistan’s position.
Until a few months ago, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice could
be expected to weigh in and say that Pakistan was in the process
of change and whatever may have happened in the past, it was not
happening any more. But Washington is no longer offering even
such qualified clearance of late.
Pakistani sympathy for Jihadis, especially
those in Afghanistan and Kashmir, is well known but officials
of the Musharraf regime argue that sympathy is not the same thing
as active support. Allegations about covert weapons programs are
always based on intelligence leaks and there can be no independent
evidence either way about the charges relating to Pakistan’s
exchange of technology with regimes in Iran and North Korea.
Official
Pakistan seeks to dismiss all allegations against its conduct
as ‘propaganda’. Ordinary Pakistanis are also outraged
over the charges that their country periodically faces, leading
to the discussion in Pakistan’s media over the country’s
"image problem". But Pakistan’s problem is not
just that of image.
The
country is governed in a secretive manner, with its intelligence
services and military running the show in several spheres including
areas of international concern. Even when the civilians are in
charge of government, security policy remains largely in the military’s
hands, with key elements of decision-making hidden from public
view.
Pakistani
history is replete with examples of government changes through
palace coups, stolen elections, and manipulated judicial decisions.
Vehemently denied but widely known covert operations of the past
encourage speculation about similar goings on in the present.
Lack of transparency in decision-making has bred suspicion and
doubt about Pakistan, which no amount of image makeovers can eliminate.
Instead of looking for ways to make its denials more convincing,
what Pakistan really needs is to make its process of governance
more transparent. A substantive change in policy rather than another
expensive lobbying or media campaign would be the better way of
protecting Pakistan from periodic allegations of rogue-like behavior.
Pakistan
has not had a lawfully constituted elected civilian government
for some time. The 2002 election set the stage for a dichotomy
of power in Pakistan. Musharraf and the all-powerful military
wields effective power while an ineffective parliament and a weak
Prime Minister are available once more to share blame though not
the power to make critical decisions of war and peace.
A
similar situation occurred during the late 1980s and throughout
the 1990s. Under the military regime of General Ziaul Haq, a close
US ally, Pakistan developed nuclear weapons to keep up with
India’s nuclear weapons capability. To secure US aid and
by-pass American non-proliferation laws, Pakistani officials routinely
denied nuclear weapons ambitions while clearly pursuing them.
By the time Washington was ready to impose sanctions on Pakistan
in 1990, Islamabad had a civilian government that got the blame
for losing US aid though in fact it was simply the scapegoat,
with the military retaining behind-the-scenes power.
Every
state maintains a permanent national security establishment and
occasional deception and cover-ups are part of national security
requirements. But in normally functioning states most matters
affecting the lives of their citizens are in the transparent realm,
leaving only a handful of issues subject to secrecy. In Pakistan,
however, the very process of governance has been rendered mysterious.
From the doling out of plots of land to generals as part of their
service compensation to the frequent amendments to the law, nothing
is truly open.
Intelligence services do not simply seek to deal with threats
to national security. They
play a role in everything, from selection of parliamentary candidates
to decisions about civil service appointments. As a result there
is little reason for the politically minded citizen to trust the
state ‘establishment’.
On
the international stage, too, the world finds it difficult to
believe that a government run through non-transparent means is
telling the truth. From the international community’s perspective,
if successive Pakistani leaders could be economical with the truth
on matters of national security in the past, what reason is there
to believe their denials about Kashmiri militants and the Taliban
now?
It is inconceivable for a civilian
government in Pakistan to redefine relations with India or review
policies relating to nuclear and missile programs. The United
States takes a benign view of the Pakistani military’s covert
operations when Pakistan’s strategic cooperation is important
to the US, as was the case during the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance
and the current war against Al-Qaeda. But nuclear and missile
proliferation and relations with India become sticking points
in the US-Pakistan relationship when Islamabad’s strategic
cooperation becomes less significant.
The
charges about Pakistan’s support for Afghanistan’s
Taliban, exchanging nuclear know-how for ballistic missiles with
North Korea and Iran, and Pakistani sponsorship of Jihadi militants
opposing India surface in the international media sometimes without
comment from the US government. But once the indispensability
of Pakistan to Washington wanes, these very accusations could
become the basis for sanctions against a less compliant Pakistan.
The
way to break this cycle would be for Pakistan to become an open
democracy, with a constitutionally defined power structure. Then
it would be easy to pin responsibility for actions such as training
militants or buying and selling technology for weapons of mass
destruction.
Pakistanis
often wonder why Israel and India are not suspected of leaking
nuclear know-how while Pakistan is constantly under suspicion.
The international community also takes Islamabad’s periodic
accusations of Indian covert support for insurgents in Pakistan
a lot less seriously than Indian charges about Pakistan’s
backing for the Jihadis. The reason for these divergent responses
might lie in the difference of systems of governance.
Western
public opinion is pre-disposed to trusting democracies. There
is a presumption that a country with an open political system,
an honest judiciary and periodic alternation in governments is
less likely to have dark secrets than one that operates in secrecy.
The
writer is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in Washington DC. He served as adviser to Prime Ministers
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and as Pakistan's Ambassador to
Sri Lanka
