Pakistan, National Security, and 2012: It’s Complicated
James P. Farwell is the author of The Pakistan Cauldron: Conspiracy, Assassination & Instability. He has advised the U.S. Special Operations Command and the Department of Defense, combining expertise on Pakistani politics with a strong background as a top political consultant.
PJ Media recently conducted an interview with Farwell regarding the myriad complications with the United States’ relationship with Pakistan, and how the foreign policy dilemmas relate to the 2012 election.
Q. Why is Pakistan so critical a U.S. foreign policy issue to whomever occupies the White House in January of 2013?
It has 180 million people, a hundred nuclear warheads, and violent extremists threaten its stability and that of the region. Everyone should be concerned about the possibility of conflict between India and Pakistan and the implications, given that both are nuclear-armed.
The U.S. played a critical role in preventing a war between them within the last decade that could have escalated into a nuclear exchange. For this reason, it is imperative that we stay engaged in the region.
Q. What are U.S. interests in Pakistan?
First, support the elected civilian government and democratic institutions so as to redress the current imbalance between civilian authority and the military.
Second, foster stability. An unstable or collapsed nuclear-armed Pakistani state would represent a major threat to the region, the U.S., and to other parts of the world.
Third, work with Pakistan to achieve regional stability.
Finally, persuade it to join more vigorously in defeating violent extremism which threatens Pakistani democracy, national and regional stability, and the United States.
Having said that, our chances of success on the last one are questionable. Many Pakistanis see their interests as different from those of the U.S., and see the conflict both in Pakistan and Afghanistan as created by the U.S. They feel they have been dragged into a war not of their own choosing. It is hard to overstate how angry they are over that perception.
Q. It has been said that Pakistan is our real enemy in the Afghanistan war. Is that true?
No. Our real enemy is the Taliban and the threat posed to Pakistani stability should extremists there or in Afghanistan prevail.
Q. What are the important questions voters should ask the presidential candidates regarding Pakistan?
What do the candidates see as vital U.S. interests in Pakistan? Do they recognize the importance of Pakistan to regional stability and its implications for American security? Most Pakistanis believe that the U.S. alliance with their nation is actually just an alliance with the military and not with the Pakistani people. How can we overcome that perception? How do get around the fact that most Pakistanis believe that the U.S. and the West are at war with Islam?
Q. Which leads us into the topic of drones. How explosive an issue are the drone attacks conducted in Pakistan by the U.S. military?
America’s interest lies in eliminating al-Qaeda and violent extremist leaders. Drone attacks have taken out over a dozen top al-Qaeda leaders. Yet Pakistanis see the drone attacks as a violation of their sovereignty. Many feel the attacks kill innocent civilians. They do fuel anti-American hostility. Some fear that the attacks are radicalizing elements of the military, opinion leaders, and the middle class, and that Pakistan could reach a tipping point that enables violent Islamists to win control over the state.
Q. With the federal budget-cutting environment in Washington right now, do you think candidates should support spending $2.5 billion annually for military assistance in Pakistan?
We’ve already suspended $800 million of it. However, we ought to look very hard at the dollars we provide, especially to Pakistan’s military, to ensure that they advance our interests.
Q. The United States is also spending $1.5 billion with the U.S. Agency for International Development and another $1.8 billion in other economic assistance. Should this continue?
For civilian aid, we need to be much more vigorous in ensuring that the U.S. actually receives credit for what it does. Any publicity about a reduction in civilian aid would be ill-advised, as that would strengthen the extremist propaganda that the U.S. doesn’t really care about Pakistan.
In the meantime, civilian aid must be carefully monitored. The new conditions we’ve put on aid through the Kerry-Lugar legislation have meant that very little aid has actually been expended. However, it has been disaster assistance by the U.S. to Pakistan in the past that has bolstered the image of the U.S. the most in that country. The U.S. should both continue to respond quickly to natural disasters in Pakistan and periodically remind Pakistanis of this manifestation of our friendship.
Q. Is it plausible for the U.S. to forge a viable partnership with Pakistan in combating al-Qaeda and the Taliban?
Despite bin Laden’s presence there, Pakistan has been generally cooperative in fighting al-Qaeda, which they see as comprised of foreigners. They have been more ambivalent about the domestic Taliban. They have seen Pakistani Taliban as fellow countrymen, and dislike fighting their own citizens. Still, Pakistanis dislike violent extremists. Unfortunately, huge majorities are also hostile to the United States. The Pakistan government wants to defeat violent extremists at home, but key members want to maintain a viable relationship with the Afghan Taliban.
Q. Were you surprised when Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai recently said in a television interview “God forbid, if there is ever a war between Pakistan and America, then we will side with Pakistan.”
He is unpredictable and often retracts irresponsible statements. There may have been motivations to that remark that we don’t understand. He may be signaling to the Pakistanis that he is friendly and making amends for signing a strategic agreement with India. He may also be playing to a popular anti-Americanism.
Q. Why do you say in your book that Pakistan reflects a culture of paranoia, betrayal, and assassination?
That’s what its history shows. Until Asif Ali Zardari, the current president, each head of state died, was assassinated, forced out, or dismissed.
Because tribal loyalty comes first, the country has a weak national identity. That breeds a culture of conspiracy, paranoia, and betrayal. Another reason their politics are dysfunctional is that for too long the government has responded to the Army and Washington and not Pakistani voters. Because the culture is about power relationships and political patronage rooted in family, tribe, and clan, political party contests are mainly over who controls patronage, not ideas. The culture is an obstacle to modernization and reform.
Q. What is the story behind the bin Laden mission and has it affected Pakistani politics?
Outstanding work by the CIA and our military. Two words sum up our viewpoint: mission accomplished.
Musharraf and Bush had an understanding that if we found bin Laden, Mullah Omar, or certain other terrorist leaders, we could take them out. The U.S. always made clear to Pakistan that we would track down bin Laden, no matter how long it took. Musharraf denies that, but his denial rings hollow.
The bin Laden attack has had a huge impact on Pakistani politics. From their viewpoint, the attack put them in an untenable posture. Either they did not know bin Laden was present in Pakistan, in which case they were ignorant or incompetent. Or they did, in which case they were complicit. They feel it was another case of American arrogance in abusing Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Winston Churchill rightly stated that nations have interests, not friends. That applies to Pakistan. The question isn’t whether they love us, but how to secure mutual cooperation in fighting mutual enemies. Sometimes there is confusion over who is an enemy. That confusion is at the heart of why U.S. relations with Pakistan will remain unpredictable and why Pakistan is central to any U.S. foreign policy debate in the 2012 election.
“That breeds a culture of conspiracy, paranoia, and betrayal.” – this is what happens when Islam dominates. Every Islamic state is like this.
“How do get around the fact that most Pakistanis believe that the U.S. and the West are at war with Islam?”
Why do we want to “get around the fact” that we ARE actually at war with Islam? That is precisely the problem – dhimmitude. Playing nice with Islam is nothing but cowardice, and we should face up to the fact that we’re playing a very dangerous game with a very dangerous ENEMY; something that our current POTUS is practising with a level of cluelessness that defies all that is sacred.
India will have to show us how it’s done I guess; just like Israel will with Iran.
Ihave to agree with Husky –sucking up to Islamists doesn’t work as they consider any friendly approach to be weakness on our part. They have to be better understood by our side before trying to influence them. Perhaps a public relations campaign directly to Pakistani citizens maybe with a radio and/or internet program like Radio Free Europe which was so successful in defeating communism. Of course, the Obama regime can’t do that as their approach would be doomed from the start given its anti-American ideology. A new President and Congress might be able to pull it off if they made a serious attempt utilizing the best minds in the PR business.
I love articles like this one. First the always tell you how many of them there are. In this case 180 million. I am not impressed as the world was not impressed with Mussolini’s 8 million bayonets. The point is Pak has no resource base either.
The joke is sovereignty, of course. Either they exercise sovereignty over an area or they don’t if they do, then the bad acts then the government is responsibly. If not then they legally have no complaint if others act in self-defense.
Short of nuclear weapons, all Pak cannot project any power beyond its borders without the help of the targets. If Pak were treated like Rhodesia, it would disappear or behave.
The use of civilian aid is a joke. The military steals what it wants, and the civilians believe whatever they get is by the grace of Allah, provided from fear rather than compassion which is alien to the tradition.
As Nancy Birdsall put it, soft power has no use when doing the required might cost you power.
“The U.S. played a critical role in preventing a war between them within the last decade that could have escalated into a nuclear exchange. For this reason, it is imperative that we stay engaged in the region.”
I think it is interesting that the United States played a critical role in preventing a war between India and Pakistan, NOT the United Nations. After all, isn’t this what the United Nations IS FOR? But when the chips were down, it was the United States and brokered the peace. Just shows how useless the United Nations is and why we should get rid of that money pit of a debating society.
As for India and Pakistan, it is inevitable that a war will break out between those two countries. There is still too much hate there, too much history there, and too much tension there. It is not a question of if, but when.
I read all Mr. Farwell’s responses to the questions and just became disgusted. First, Mr. Farwell is both a lawyer and a political consultant, which explains much about his demonstrably inaccurate and/or hand-wringing answers and “observations.” So what if he has “advised the Department of Defense and U.S. Strategic Command (part of DoD, last time I checked) on matters covering the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. Bet the advice was “Lawfare” crap. Anyhow, let me respond by item
1)The U.S. has NOT played a critical role between India and Pakistan in keeping peace in the region, other than to always tell India to back down, regardless of the scope and severity of the depredations, provocations atrocities committed by Pakistan (Northern Light Infantry, Kashmir 99) or its paramilitary surrogates such as LeT (Lashkar-e Tayyiba, see Mumbai 2008). In almost every Pak-India military confrontation (meaning fighting) the U.S. has opted out, except over East Pakistan. Read up on the Kissinger cables for that one.
2) Pakistan is already unstable, always has been as a minority (Punjabi) dominated ramshackle empire, and is already a clear threat to the South Asia region. The U.S. has been trying to work with Pakistan since the beginning to increase both national and regional stability, with incredibly little success apart from what can be temporarily bought by economic bribery. Pakistan is a garrison rentier state.
3) Pakistan is not a democracy, even if it is described as a federal parliamentary republic. It is an elite oligarchic state dominated by the military. The military and politicians maintain the public chimera of an imminent Indian invasion to keep the unruly populace firmly focused away from their own economic privation, political powerlessness and elite exploitation, completely aside from the reasonable fact that India utterly does not want an additional 170 million+ irreconcilable Muslims in its population. And Islam is the potent supremacist glue and drug that holds Pakistan together against that Hindu (polytheist) “threat.” Pakistan has always been violent, paranoid and conspiratorial, stop pretending otherwise that they are a “rational international actor.”
4) The real enemy is not Taliban, which is merely a symptom, like LeT, SSP. LeJ, JI, JUI, etc. The true enemy is Islamic supremacism (see Quran Sura 3:110, 9:5, 48:16, 3:85, 98:6, etc). This is the only reason Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Choudary Rahmat Ali, Liaquat Ali Khan, Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, Ziauddin Ahmed, etc pushed for a separate and independent MUSLIM state in post-colonial India. Certainly didn’t make any economic or historical sense.
5) It is correct that the U.S. is essentially allied with the Pakmil vice the people of Pakistan. Just look at the places our “aid” to Pakistan goes to. Most of it goes to the military, much of the rest is grafted into the pockets of the power families.
6)Most Pakistanis in the Punjab or major cities like Karachi see the U.S. drone strikes as an intolerable violation of their national sovereignty, whereas many Pushtuns living in the FATA (where the strikes are taking place) see the drone strikes as a wonderful way to kill the “Arab Wahhabist cockroaches” and/or the Pushtun “badmash.” In fact, there has been some serious messaging to please intensify the drone strikes. Besides, most of the intel for the strikes comes from the Pakmil and most of the “kills” are TTP types, not Quetta Shura Taliban guys. This only benefits the Pakmil, as the TTP aren’t yet openly engaged against the U.S./ISAF (except in basing themselves in the recently evacuated Kunar/Nuristan regions of Afghanistan) but are focused almost exclusively on the Pakmil.
7) My opinion, we (the U.S.) should cut all aid to Pakistan, but we should reopen the various cultural centers we used to run across the country (we closed most of them for security reasons), giving free access to libraries, computers, the Internet, etc to the average Pakistan near these centers. As for Pakistan, let it openly depend on the Chinese and Saudis for its aid, remove all pretenses.
Let the slings and darts begin!
‘Webhead’ nailed the nails! An American lawyer claiming political consulting expertise has to be sitting in the back of the bus when it runs off the cliff if the world is EVER going to improve. What in the world are we doing justifying ANY support for a regime, any regime, that does not believe in the First Amendment? This is where all our problems arise. We cannot support the masses supporting the few in their demonic tyrannical regimes without getting their fleas and our leaders feel that we should let ever more of them in. It is no surprise to anyone that Somalian immigrants in OUR north are fighting for Islamic extremists because–we DON”T support the foundational documents of our OWN freedom. Until we define freedom with our foundational documents as the line in the sand before we support someone with visas, aid, and our military we will be supporting the enemies of freedom. Period. Let the U.N. hold that one without our dollars.
I suppose preventing a nuclear war between Pakistan and India was a moral course of conduct and commendable–provided the future consequences of that “peace” are not worse than had we allowed the war to go down. I have in mind the Munich paradigm regarding Hitler and Chamberlin’s “peace in our time.” At least in 1938 the excuse was no one was ready to do a war with Germany at the time, but that certainly can’t be said of the Americans or India and Pakistan today.
Webhead – Thank you for your clarity – reading your comments should send people rushing to get a better grip on their understanding of the Muslim world wide threat.
You did go a bit weak with your – “ we should reopen the various cultural centers we used to run across the country” – do you really think that these educational enterprises work with the ‘bomb builders for children’s wear’?
@ Rhodesway
I know that cultural centers sounds a bit weak, but it has several virtues. First, the U.S. has done this before there, second, many Pakistani’s liked those centers and used them heavily, especially as they were a window out to the world, third, its cheap, and finally, that is all I would do.
As disengagement goes, this is a nice little way to keep a small link (never cut all bridges). On the other hand, I believe that these cultural centers would likely become targets, so let Pakistan prove it can protect them.
I am not totally heartless (just mostly, when it comes to the interests and the defense of the U.S.).
No it is not complicated at all. Pakistan is an Islamic country. Therefore, like all Islamic countries in the world without exception, Pakistan is our enemy and the enemy of all non-Muslim unbelievers in the world. Hence, you don’t pay jizya to an Islamic country in the hopes they want inevitably use nukes or worse proliferate them throughout the Islamic world. Instead, you eliminate the nuclear weapons and the threat.
With respect to Afghanistan, what are we still doing over there in the first place after 10 long years. Indeed, Afghanistan is a Sharia state, thus we are in effect propping up a Sharia state that for all intents and purposes is already our enemy. Can anyone really think of anything else more counterproductive?
Indeed, lets scrap fantasy based nation building missions and the totally misguided “War on Terror” ASAP and transition instead into a new saner strategy of containing the growth and expansion of Islam instead.