A Reassessments of Pak-US Relations

Prof Dr Shahida Wizarat, Dean CESD, HOD Eco, Director Research, Chief Editor PBR, IOBM

Current US strategy is to attack a country and at the same time accuse the victim of the attack, forcing it into the defensive rather than the offensive mode. This is followed by blackmail and submission is guaranteed. In Afghanistan NATO was pursuing Al Qaida, in Iraq it was Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) which were never found. Occupation forces go and occupy lands that do not belong to them. And when the local people resist they are branded as terrorists and killed in ruthless bombings, staged encounters, butchered and systematically annihilated. And their natural resources are then robbed by these “civilised” invaders as is happening in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. The same strategy is being applied in different areas and countries to put the victim into the defensive mode and then blackmail to enforce submission.

Three different US Presidents have applied this well rehearsed strategy to Pakistan. Pakistan has been accused of aiding and abetting the “enemy”, put in the defensive mode and then black mailed into submission. This started with George W. Bush, continued under Obama and repeated by Donald Trump. In 2001 we were accused of harbouring Taleban, putting us in the defensive mode and then black mailed into submission and taking actions which are against our national interest. George Bush narrative in 2001 is the same as Donald Trump’s narrative in 2017, this time the emphasis is on the Haqqani network. But the major contours of the strategy are using deception to put us in the defensive mode and then blackmailing us into submission and thrusting policies which will increase conflict beyond our capacity to manage and control it.

This is the strategy the US is following to subdue nations, one after the other. Every nation on the hit list faces deception followed by blackmail. But why has the Government of Pakistan has gone into the defensive mode. This is all the more surprising as the GOP has evidence of the involvement of US, UK and some other western countries in terrorist activities in Pakistan. Several CIA and FBI operatives arrested in Pakistan had links with militants engaged in terrorist acts in Pakistan. Raymond Davis, a CIA operative was arrested in Pakistan in January 2011 for killing two Pakistanis. His laptop indicated that he had links with 119 militants. An FBI operative was arrested at the Karachi airport in May 2014 from Quaid-e-Azam International airport. A British national James Alexander Mclintock was first arrested in Pakistan in 2001 and handed over to the British authorities. He returned to Pakistan again in 2004. One fails to understand how some one charged with terrorism could get out of Britain and return to Pakistan to start his activities without the knowledge of British authorities. His revisit to Pakistan points the finger at the connivance of British courts and intelligence agencies in promoting terrorism in Pakistan. The fact that all this evidence is not used to accuse countries aiding and abetting terrorism in Pakistan points the finger at connivance between the US, UK and some elements in the GOP with countries that are victimising us and accusing us at the same time.

Why are Pakistan’s highways, roads and airports being used by powers that do not share strategic objectives with Pakistan? Moreover, these resources are being used for peanuts. It would be too much to expect us to act like Turkey whose parliament refused to allow the use of Turkish soil for attack on Iraq in 2003. Turkey is a sovereign country and has earned the respect of the whole world as a result of such acts of uprightness. In case of Pakistan the same strategy of putting us in the defensive mode and black mailing us simultaneously also forces us into making our infrastructure available for peanuts to countries that are on the other side of the divide.

What is the cost to Pakistan of strategic alliance with the USA?
Even when countries share common strategic objectives they charge for the use of their air and ground passages, airports and other facilities. GOP has not been charging market rates for the use of its infrastructure. NATO has been using our facilities for peanuts, while we are short of finances. Why is the GOP unable to secure a financially rewarding outcome for the use of its services? There are two important reasons for this. One, rent seeking behaviour by those negotiating on behalf of Pakistan creates “private rents” at the expense of socially beneficial outcomes.1 Two, the defensive mode syndrome based on deception and blackmail gets maximum benefits for very little return. Both defensive mode syndrome and rent seeking prevent Pakistan from earning revenues through available means. We are then told that we have no option but to go to the IMF. So going to the IMF is not our necessity, but a fallout of excessive generosity to a super power with which the relationship is based on mutual misgivings and distrust. A super power which has fantastic budgets to embarks on wars 2 saves money by getting our infrastructure for peanuts. We pay the political price for this through destabilisation due to the presence of US in Afghanistan. Pakistan is, therefore, facilitating its own destabilisation by making its infrastructure available to its adversaries. The economic cost emanating as a result of not earning revenues through the means available to us and turning instead to the IMF are on account of reduction in the rate of growth, employment and increase in poverty that are an aftermath of borrowing from the IMF.3 Economic costs are further exacerbated due to the political fallout of installation of US selectees on important positions in the GOP and include political instability,4 reduction in limits of the country’s territorial waters, distorted development, security risk due to passing on of sensitive information and state secrets to other countries and increase in corruption since these selectees are above the law.5 And efforts by other corrupt officials to join hands with them to get on the bandwagon of corruption.

End Notes

1. The same happens when GOP negotiates commercial deals with foreign companies and countries as has been observed in many such agreements with Rekho Dick being the most notorious.
2. According to Stiglitz the real cost of the wars in Iraq was to the tune of $ 3 trillion.
3. Adverse impact of WB-IMF policies on Pakistan’s economy have been discussed in detail in Chapters 4, 16,18, 20, 24 in Wizarat (2011) and in several other countries in Griffith-Jones (1993), Clough and Manor (1993), Singer (1995), Singh (1994), Toye (1993), Mosley, Harrigan and Toye ((1991), Klein (2008), etc, etc.
4. Chapter 5 in Wizarat (2011).
5. Wizarat (2016).

References

Colclough and Manor, (1993), States or Markets? Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Griffith-Jones, Stephany, (1993), International Financial Markets: A Case of Market Failure, Ed Colclough and Manor, States or Markets? Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Klein, Naomi, (2008), The Shock Doctrine, Canada.
Mosley, Paul; Jane Harrigan and John Toye (1991), Aid or Power, London.
Singer, Hans, (1995), PJAE, Vol. XI, nos 1 & 2.
Singh, Ajit, Amitava Krishna Dutt and Kwan S. Kim (1994), The State, Markets and Development Beyond the neo-Classical Dichotomy, Elgar.
Stiglitz, Joseph, E. and Linda J. Bilmes, (2008), The Three Trillion Dollar War.
Toys, John, (1993), Dilemmas of Development, Oxford.
Wizarat, Shahida (2011), Fighting Imperialism Liberating Pakistan, CRS, Karachi.
Wizarat, Shahida (2016), How Pakistan’s Socio-political Fabric Breeds Corruption.