Magnificent Delusions (32 page)

Contrary to Ahmed's evaluation of Pakistan having achieved domestic strength, a US National Intelligence Estimate contended that assessing the prospects for Pakistan was “unusually tricky.” It reported that “Defeated in war, beset with unrest, its eastern province lost, ruled by new leaders, Pakistan faces a most uncertain future.” It then listed several “difficult but unavoidable decisions” facing Bhutto or his successor, including making peace with India, preventing the
breakup of the country, developing a new social and economic consensus, and creating and maintaining new viable political institutions.

The intelligence forecast pointed out that “Many developments with respect to Pakistan will be determined by decisions made outside that country and over which it will have little control.” Pakistan, it said, could have a brighter future if it secured an acceptable and amicable settlement with India and achieved a stable political consensus.
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T
HE OPPORTUNITY FOR
creating a new South Asian equation came when India and Pakistan agreed to peace talks in the summer of 1972. Bhutto then traveled to Simla, an Indian mountain resort that served as the summer capital during the British Raj, to meet Indira Gandhi. But this was hardly a meeting of equals. Bhutto had to negotiate the release of Pakistani POWs with someone he had publicly derided in the past. He also had to secure the return of 5,139 square miles of Pakistani territory that India occupied. Thus, Bhutto represented a defeated country. Gandhi, however, was the leader of a victorious nation.

From India's perspective this was the moment to finally resolve the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. As East Pakistan had already become Bangladesh, West Pakistan could not realistically hope to maintain parity with India. Pakistani leaders had often said that Kashmir was the core issue that poisoned India-Pakistan relations. With this in mind, settling it once and for all when Pakistan was at its weakest could pave the way for normal relations. The bitterness of partition could then finally begin to erode, at least from India's perspective.

Bhutto was well prepared for the negotiation. He told Gandhi that Pakistan's domestic political situation did not allow him to sign a treaty settling the argument over Kashmir forever, that the Pakistani military would probably topple his fragile civilian government if he conceded Kashmir to India or signed an explicit no-war pact. Radical opinions would gain popularity in Pakistan, he argued, that
would accuse him of losing Kashmir in addition to East Pakistan. The Pakistani president pleaded for the middle ground. The two countries should start the process of de-escalation of tensions, he suggested. He could always return a few years later with a stronger hand at home in order to deal with the deeper sources of conflict.

Against the advice of some of her officials, Gandhi was persuaded of Bhutto's argument. Although she distrusted Bhutto, she saw him as preferable to likely alternatives. She calculated that a successor military regime would be even more hostile to India than was Bhutto. For India, domestic unrest or the balkanization of Pakistan, with its impact spreading to neighboring countries, could not be a favorable development. Gandhi concluded that it was better to postpone a final agreement on Kashmir's status than to push for Bhutto to accept India's demands immediately.

The compromise was to declare that “the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations.” This effectively precluded war. The cease-fire line in Jammu and Kashmir was declared the Line of Control (LOC). Indian signatories interpreted this to mean that actual control was now synonymous with legal possession. Bhutto claimed later that he had saved Pakistan from the ultimate humiliation of completely giving up its claim on Kashmir.
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The Simla accord also facilitated the exchange of thirty-six thousand Bengalis remaining in Pakistan with ninety thousand Pakistani prisoners of war in India. Pakistan also got back the territory it had lost in the west. The
Washington Post
proclaimed that the “achievements registered at the first Indian-Pakistani summit, at Simla, surpassed all expectations.” It complimented Indira Gandhi and Bhutto for building the “diplomatic foundation for a regional structure of peace such as the south Asian subcontinent has not known in the 25 years since British power retired.”

Bhutto, the paper said, left Simla with something substantial—and politically necessary—to show to his countrymen. “Pakistan could not reasonably be expected to surrender its traditional claim on all of Kashmir at this time,” it pointed out, adding, “Mr. Bhutto may come
to that eventually but for him to come to it immediately would almost surely precipitate another military coup in Islamabad.”
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US diplomats concurred. Sober said he saw Bhutto seeking a “new relationship with India to replace the quarter century of confrontation.” But, he observed, the historical atmosphere of suspicion and distrust hampered the effort. Bhutto was willing to come to terms with the post-Bangladesh realities as long as there was no compromise on Pakistan's prestige. Thus, the future of India-Pakistan relations would be grim “if Bhutto fails in moving from confrontation to peaceful coexistence as specified in the Simla agreement.”

According to Sober, in addition to a degree of normalization with India, the main planks of Bhutto's foreign policy were good ties with the United States, close relations with China, and increased participation in the “third world club.”
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Although the Simla agreement with India was by all accounts a major success, Pakistan's religious nationalists did not perceive it as such. Anti-India hard-liners portrayed it as a sellout. As with the peace concluded at Tashkent after the 1965 war, rumors and conspiracy theories circulated about secret clauses and undisclosed side agreements. The Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, orchestrated protests against the eventual recognition of Bangladesh, as its members observed the anniversary of the fall of Dhaka as the “Day of Vengeance.” But by the year's end Bhutto appeared to have the levers of power firmly in his control.

T
HE UNITED STATES
provided $165 million in economic assistance to Pakistan in 1972, including 600,000 tons of wheat, to be paid for in Pakistani rupees instead of foreign exchange. Bhutto asked for an additional 400,000 tons, but the United States could immediately offer only 250,000 tons. The reason behind the US hesitation in meeting Pakistan's demand in full was the Soviet Union's large-scale purchase of American grain, which left less wheat available for supply on concessional terms to other countries. But Bhutto interpreted it as a deliberate slight.

He timed the announcement of Pakistan's withdrawal from SEATO in November 1972 to coincide with conveying his anger over the US response to his wheat request. At the same time Pakistan recognized North Korea, North Vietnam, and the procommunist government in exile of Cambodia. A memo to Kissinger from Harold Saunders and John Holdridge, members of NSC staff, informed him to expect Bhutto to present a sizable shopping list for military equipment. They also sought instructions on “whether or not we want him to understand that he has taken a step which is not consistent with U.S. interests.”
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Kissinger considered it prudent not to overreact to what he saw as Bhutto's attempts to seek greater attention.

In February 1973 Pakistani commandos raided the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad to uncover a cache of arms that Pakistan claimed was intended for ethnic Baloch separatists. For any government to violate an embassy's diplomatic immunity is most unusual, but on this occasion Bhutto had a wider agenda. He used the discovery of the arms as justification for dismissing the provincial government of Balochistan, whom he accused of complicity in a conspiracy to foment armed rebellion against the Pakistan government. Members of the National Awami Party (NAP), a group that had support among Pakistan's Baloch and Pashtun ethnic groups, ran the provincial government.

Historically NAP had sought autonomy for Baloch and Pashtun ethnic groups just as Mujib's Awami League had championed autonomy for the Bengalis. As such, coming so soon after the Bangladesh war, Bhutto's allegations about designs against Pakistan's integrity appealed to the dominant Punjabis. The slogan of “Pakistan in Danger” was almost as effective for Bhutto as “Islam in Danger” had been for Jinnah before 1947.

Bhutto wrote to Nixon, describing the Iraqi arms intrigue and connecting it to the Soviets. Then he approached Sober to seek his help in working out a compromise with Baloch politicians, some of whom the US diplomat knew. Because conducting dialogue between the government and an opposition faction is not part of an embassy's normal functions, Bhutto acknowledged that he had made
an extraordinary request.
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Sober conveyed Bhutto's message to the former governor of Balochistan only to have Washington instruct him not to play a role in the domestic conflict.

Sober bowed out as political negotiator, telling Bhutto that he did not want opponents of US-Pakistan relations to misconstrue his part.
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The unusual episode thus reflected Bhutto's bid to ascertain his standing with the Americans. Dulles and Johnson had stood by Ayub, and Nixon's tilt toward Pakistan was partly a function of his regard for Yahya. Bhutto wanted to determine whether similar goodwill existed among Americans for him. He was disappointed to learn that the United States did not consider him a friend.

Kissinger tried to explain his understanding of Bhutto's moves to Nixon after receiving the letter speaking of the “Soviet-Indian design on the integrity of Pakistan.” Bhutto had said that the Soviets were behind the clandestine arms shipment uncovered at the Iraqi embassy and that it was intended for dissidents whose ultimate aim, in collusion with the Indians and Afghans, was the final dismemberment of Pakistan. Bhutto had closed his letter to Nixon by appealing “for your Government to take a clear and firm decision on your great country's attitude toward my country.” Pakistan, he said, “must know where we stand with our friends.”

According to Kissinger, there was no evidence of an active Soviet effort to supply arms to dissidents in Pakistani Balochistan. Kissinger had asked the CIA to review its evidence on this subject, and they had checked “thoroughly in the field and here,” finding that there had been no indication of a recent increase in Soviet-supported subversive activity in Pakistan. Kissinger cited the possibility that the Iraqi arms were destined for Baloch dissidents in southeastern Iran. He then observed that “The important aspect of this letter is its general expression of concern by Bhutto rather than the specific instance itself.”

Bhutto's letter, Kissinger said, showed his “growing uneasiness over the future of his relationship with the U.S.” Rogers believed that Bhutto was simply trying to set the stage for the visit of a special envoy he was sending in order to push his request for American weapons. Kissinger thought that the Pakistani leader's disquiet “may have been exacerbated by the absence of a decision on military supply
policy over the long term and the fact that Pakistan is still without a US ambassador after ten months.”
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Islamabad stayed without an American ambassador until fall. At that time Henry Byroade, a career foreign service officer who had served as ambassador to Egypt almost eighteen years earlier, filled the position. As assistant secretary of state for Middle East and South Asian affairs during the Eisenhower administration, Byroade had dealt with Pakistan's earlier requests for military aid. He had served as ambassador in South Africa, Afghanistan, Burma, and the Philippines. Byroade's arrival in Islamabad was meant to reassure Bhutto. But it came only after Bhutto made an official visit to Washington in September 1973.