A Primer on Pakistan: Why It Matters

The New York Times reported recently that David Kilcullen, an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, worried that "within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state."

That matters to me, because I have many relatives there, along with a school and hospital that serve needy village families in my father's hometown village.

But why should it matter to you? Here's a primer that most Americans could use on the urgent relevance of that small, densely populated and troubled homeland of mine.

Q: Why is Pakistan an important ally? A: Pakistan is important because it represents Washington's bid to co-opt the very kind of country that it has feared most since 9/11: A country that defied the international community to obtain nuclear weapons, a country without a stable democracy, and country with many extremists who are close to an all-powerful army.

Q: Is Pakistan a true friend of the United States?
A: Most ordinary Pakistanis themselves aren't sure, because they are skeptical that America is a genuine friend.

The U.S. has often wooed and jilted Pakistan during its 61-year history. This was especially true during the Cold War, when Pakistan's rival to the east, India, tilted toward the Soviet Union. Since the Cold War, though, Washington has alternated between being cold, bullying and generous toward Islamabad.

Ordinary Pakistanis long admired and envied America, but that envy turned to bitterness and resentment due to their feeling jilted. Those feelings were intensified when America began cuddling with India in recent years. That has led to anti-Americanism among average citizens and the mixed messages from Islamabad that makes snide American pundits say, "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"

Q: What caused the most recent tensions in the U.S.-Pakistan alliance?
A: Washington overlooked Pakistan's nuclear program while Islamabad was funneling support to an Afghan mujahideen resistance that pummeled the Soviets to an exhausted collapse. After the Soviet collapse, Washington found Pakistan's nuke program less forgivable.

Q: What's Pakistan's side of the story?
A: Pakistan was seeking to catch up to its old rival India, which had already gone to war against it a few times in their short histories and which had a head start in developing its own nukes. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, whose daughter Benazir Bhutto also served as premier, declared, "if India develops nuclear weapons, Pakistan will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry" in order to get its own nukes.

Q: Was he right?
A: Yes. Pakistan got nukes, and most of his country ate grass or leaves. The grass-eating was to some degree caused by wrong-headed and counterproductive U.S. sanctions. (We really need to get over the idea that punishing ordinary citizens in other nations will force their government's hand.)

Q: Why has Washington been supporting an unpopular dictator such as Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, while talking about supporting freedom?
A: Pakistan has long attempted to be a democracy, but its elected governments have been beset by a culture of corruption and incompetence. This has prompted its powerful army leaders to take power on occasion, most recently by Musharraf in October 1999. He faced steadily growing domestic opposition after 9/11, when he was labeled a puppet of George Bush. He promised to reinstate democracy after making some reforms, but grew more ruthless as his own popularity has receded. Under pressure from the West, he made nice with an exiled Bhutto family.

Q: How did the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, current President Zardari, fit into this?
A: Washington liked the idea of a Harvard-educated moderate woman getting a share of power. She was Pakistan's Hillary, however -- some admired her while many despised her, due to allegations against her and Zardari of corruption on a monstrous scale during her previous stints as prime minister. The anti-Benazir crowd suspected that any resuscitation of her career would be orchestrated by the Bush administration. I wrote this a while back as a criticism of the romanticized view of the Bhuttos.

Q: How did Pakistan become such a hotbed of extremists?
The Cold War made Pakistan relevant, as it was the eastern border of Afghanistan, which was invaded by the Soviets on Christmas day in 1979. The U.S. helped finance a fanatical Muslim mujahideen to fight the Soviets.

This has widely been hailed as a move that helped bring down the Soviet empire. But the aftermath and subsequent American bipartisan neglect of Afghanistan exemplified the laws of unintended consequences. Millions of Afghan refugees poured into Pakistan and overwhelmed its struggling economy. Extremism grew in the swamp of despair, especially in the region along the Pak-Afghan border. The Taliban and al-Qaeda's roots both sprang up from the U.S.-funded mujahideen, though U.S. officials and pundits like to put most of the blame on Pakistan for allowing this to happen. Pakistan did play a role, though, figuring that the Taliban might be a safer neighbor than a government that might threaten it the way its eastern nemesis India does. As region expert Daniel Markey once pointed out in a remarkable survey of the issues, the Taliban was the Pakistani army's rebound romance after the U.S. jilted Pakistan once the Soviet threat evaporated.

The biggest reason that Pakistan is relevant is because it has somewhere between 50 and 90 nukes, and the powerful army has many leaders who sympathize with the Taliban. That is why the U.S. has been so cautious with and confounded by Pakistan -- Musharraf was not the democrat that we wanted him to be, but we can now see that the alternatives also can be disastrous.

If a major point of the Bush-era war on terror was to keep Iraq and Iran from giving nukes to terrorists within a few years, it may happen in Pakistan anyway in far less time. So Obama has inherited a conundrum.

Comments

[Strategy]

How about this:- Pakistan was / is / will be a mistake!! Jinnah was wrong. Hopefully , this will put things into perspective. But Today... I Thank Jinnah!!!!
P@kistan's detractors are "spewing venom" proportionate to the level of denial/mis­informatio­n/propagan­da being spread by "Patriotic P@kistanis!"
Not too long ago, Indian Embassy in Kabul was bombed by ISI. How many P@kistanis are willing to admit that?? And I am not talking about Mumbai yet!
What about P@kistanis sitting in US and Middle east , donating to Jaish and Lashkars for liberating "Kashmir".­..? Will it stop now,since the horrors of terrorism/extremism are becoming obvious to P@kistani people? It's very easy to play the victim card!! Thats what P@kistan does!! Yet another game plan by Pakistani-Punjabi Military. When it comes to India, terrorism becomes just another foreign policy tool.There are no signs that ISI has severed it's relationships with extremists. Why should Indians or for that matter, anyone sympathize with P@kistan??

[Tim Chambers]

More good stuff... really helpful summary of how we got here and why it matters with Pakistan..­. sometime would love to hear your views of how Richard holbrooke is doing in that region -- from your own perspective and from what you see folks in Pakistan think of his efforts...­.

[InjunTrouble]

This article basically parrots self-serving talking points of the Pakistan's government.

What the US should realize is that Pakistan is nobody's friend or ally. The interests of the Pakistani governemnt are not in line with those of the US or any of Pakistan's neighbors. Pakistan's main gaol is to become a regional military power while keeping its neighbors on edge and the only way it can do that is become an extermist Islamic state.

The only way to save Pakistan from itself is to redraw its borders and remove all Taliban control over its main province of Punjab while keeping all nukes within Punjab. Give Baluchistan to the Baluchis, the NorthWestFrontier Province and Swat valley to the Pakistani Taliban and help the rest of Pakistan hold on to Punjab and Sind. Any hope of keeping the country together the way it is, is futile and will only result in total take over by Isalmic extremists.

[Rob Asghar - Huffpost Blogger]

Injuntrouble -- I don't actually work for the Pakistani government or harbor any affection for them. But you're a bit naive if you think that the factors, as I've explained them, are immaterial the situation as it exists.

How easily do you see Pakistan ceding the territories that you want to surgically remove? Neither India nor Pakistan seem to want to give up territory. Does any nation?

And you make it sound a little too simple to contain those extremists.

[Jonni Rae]

It seems obvious that Pakistan will become an Islamist state, with the Taliban playiing a major role. Their neighbors, it seems to me, need to worry more than we do. Afghanistan is worth a shot, but if no progress is made in a year, we should just pull out of the whole region, coinciding with the pull out of Iraq. By then , maybe, we will get it together in this hemisphere to provide all the oil and gas we need, as well as sugar cane for biofuels, and new energy source development. We should wash our hands of the whole area because it is too costly in blood and treasure and we will not be able to fundamentally change these societies. They must transform themselves, if they want to get into the 21st century. Saudi Arabia is no better. They will probably fall too, to a populist movement, based on Islamist extremism. All these places treat women like subhuman creatures, do not value education or progress, and have not reconciled their religion with the changing world. Iran will take over in Iraq. Everyone knows that. Let them. Let them have their theocracies. But they will become increasingly isolated in a world that no longer needs their oil or fears their terrorism.

[Rob Asghar - Huffpost Blogger]

Jonni --when we look honestly at how the West helped import Saudi extremism into the region as a way to counter communism, we see that it's not so easy to say that "these backward societies need to transform themselves­." To use the Powell doctrine, it's important and morally right to fix what you helped break.

[mergina]

There is perhaps no greater conflict for the world to take note of than that of Pakistan. The entire world stands to lose unless the forces of pain and suffering spreading across that country are STOPPED AND STOPPED NOW.

[Rob Asghar - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Mergina, I totally agree. As I noted in my reponse to some other commenters here, I'm distressed by how so many of them are "piling on," using Pakistan's troubles as an excuse to completely marginalize the country -- which only plays further into the hands of Talibanic forces.

And in this country, a good many people recently responded to a hopeful Wash Post "On Faith" piece by Salman Ahmad by just dismissing his Muslim faith as hopelessly anti-Western. It's a reminder that some people -- here and in South Asia and all over the world -- just prefer a good fight to peace, while claiming that they fight only because the other side detests peace...

[dharma41]

Watch Robert Greenwald's brilliant new documentary on why the military escalation in Afghanistan will likely lead to further destabilization in Pakistan.

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/videos.php

[indoandcanadian]

The Islamists want to kill or convert all KUFFAR . Palestine , Kashmir and Chechneya are convenient excuses for them to keep getting money from Petro-sheiks.

[indoandcanadian]

Well said Vishi. The Pakistanis are experts in negotiating with a gun to their own heads.Many in the west have the false hope of taming the viper with milk, LOL WILL NEVER HAPPEN

[Wozzeck]

"If a major point of the Bush-era war on terror was to keep Iraq and Iran from giving nukes to terrorists within a few years, it may happen in Pakistan anyway in far less time"

It was only one of an ever changing number of neocon selling points. It was false then, and your resurrection of it is false now.

[vishix]

Wow this is complete propaganda and biased. You make it sound like Pakistan is the victim instead of a willing participant. Pakistan BEGGED the US to be her ally. Once Pakistan was created it was so insecure it looked to the strongest country to help protect it from India. Once it had American backing it spent all the aid money on weapons and war. Seriously.

It has started 3 (4) wars against India. It is a belligerent, violent and unstable state. They believed they were "The Marshal Race" that could easily defeat the Indians. Once that proved false they become bitter and disillusioned with themselves.

They have no idea what it means to be Pakistani. They are a people in search for an identity. They have no history or culture to call their own. Now they define themselves as the only Islamic nation with nuclear arms. That is their one point of pride in the world. This is very dangerous.

They are willing to use taliban and terrorists against other nations. They will kill any infidel without remorse. Indeed many of the army are more taliban than the taliban! Pakistan wasn't tricked into helping the mujahedeen. It was completely willing and 100% behind the undertaking. Now everyone wants to blame the US and make Pakistan into a victim.

It's time that pakistanis start taking some damn responsibility for their actions. Stop the denial and distractions and admit your mistakes. It's the only way you can change and move forward.

[Rob Asghar - Huffpost Blogger]

Vishix, you're completely right in how Pakistanis must take responsibility for their actions. And you're utterly biased and propagandistic in claiming that little India has been victimized by a warring Pakistani big brother.

I've argued in many places that Pakistan's paranoia re India has led to its internal collapse. But the attitude of pro-Indian commentators here is one that seeks to exploit Pakistan's collapse and to accelerate and complete it. Sorry, that doesn't make your world any better. Besides, a desperate and failing Pakistan is more likely to use nukes against India than one that India can treat with a little respect.

It's called enlightened self-interest, and we should all try it, shouldn't we? As someone who has been criticized by Pakistanis for being insufficiently pro-Pakistani, I'm truly alarmed by the venom spewed by Pakistan's detractors, who seek naively to capitalize on its hardships.