America’s false assumptions

The announcement of a two billion-dollar US military aid to Pakistan in Washington on Friday at the end of a US-Pakistan strategic dialogue has nothing much to do with president Barack Obama’s visit to India in November. It is not a sop to mollify Islamabad that the American president is not visiting the country this time.

Obama will be making an official trip to Islamabad in 2011. The military package is specifically intended to contain Islamic extremist groups. It would not be out of place, of course, if New Delhi were to express concerns about the arming of Pakistan army because it does have an implication for India-Pakistan relations but that cannot be the basic criterion for assessing the American decision.

The US wants, and Pakistan is willing to be the frontline state for the Western powers on the geo-political stage. Pakistan prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, speaking to diplomatic correspondents in Islamabad, bewailed the fact that Pakistan since its birth has been caught in world power games and that it had had to pay a price in terms of internal stability. But it is a view not backed by history.

Pakistan has always pitted itself against its bigger neighbour India, and it sought ways of building alliances to meet its perceived security needs. So, being an American frontline, or a client, state is not such a distasteful thing for Pakistan’s political and army leaders.

Pakistan’s dalliance with Islamic extremist groups is part of its general strategy of countering Indian influence in the region. That is why, the American belief and perception that Pakistan is a reliable and effective ally in the war against Islamic terrorism is false and the decisions made based on this are going to be counter-productive and even wasteful.

The conceptual flaw in American thinking will turn out to be fatal for the Americans as well as Pakistan’s neighbours, India and Afghanistan. The generous military aid that is being doled out to Pakistan could be used more effectively by arming and strengthening Afghanistan. This would require a radical revision of American assumptions about south Asia. Meanwhile, India has no option but to but to meet the challenge of a beefed up Pakistan army.