Magnificent Delusions (41 page)

Zia somberly spoke to a string of American visitors, including journalists, of the danger the Red Army's presence next door posed. But he did not move any troops from Pakistan's border with India to its border with Afghanistan. No one asked him why the Pakistan army was not immediately reconfigured. Without moving the troops, Zia could not confront the Soviets, whom he accused of planning to cross the Khyber Pass and reach the Arabian Sea through Pakistan. There would have to be at least some Pakistani resistance before American and other Western troops came to Pakistan's defense.

For Zia the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan brought an international recognition that had eluded him since his ascent to power. The Americans initiated discussions about augmenting Pakistan's defenses with several countries. Brzezinski and Christopher traveled to Saudi Arabia and got the kingdom's concurrence for a unique arrangement. The Saudis would match dollar for dollar anything the United States spent on arming the Mujahideen. They would also provide cash for military equipment that could be provided to Pakistan only on the basis of cash sales. In return Pakistan would provide “military input to Saudi security.”
⁵³

Defense Secretary Brown told China's vice premier, Geng Biao, in Beijing that the United States planned to resume economic and military assistance to Pakistan despite the nuclear problem. The United States will continue to object to the nuclear program, Brown said, but “We will now set that aside for the time being and concentrate on strengthening Pakistan against potential Soviet action.”
⁵⁴
Given Pakistan's close ties with China, Brown's message was bound to reach Islamabad even before the defense secretary had returned to base.

The US policy that emerged immediately after Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan revolved around Pakistan. As Vance wrote in his memoir, Carter was willing to seek congressional approval to waive the legal prohibition on military aid to Pakistan. At the same time the United States would reaffirm its nuclear nonproliferation policy and press Pakistan to provide acceptable guarantees that it would not develop a nuclear weapon. But the first step was to reach agreement with Pakistan on the terms of an assistance package.
⁵⁵

The relationship between the United States and Pakistan had flipped. The
New York Times
headline “Pakistan Is No Longer the Ardent Suitor, but the Prize to Be Courted” captured it exactly.
⁵⁶
Zia handled the new situation with panache. He was eager to partner with the United States, but he made it seem like a difficult decision. He emphasized Pakistan's “strategic position” and its being the “backdoor to the Gulf” and praised the United States as the champions of the free world.
⁵⁷
But he also spoke of the vulnerability of Pakistan to Soviet and Indian pressures.

Zia wanted to bargain for the maximum support from the United States while accepting the minimum of conditions. He told a group of newspaper editors that he was reluctant to accept US arms because “We have had bitter experiences” with US aid in the past. He said he wanted to know from Washington just what kind of military aid it was considering sending to Pakistan and on what terms. “Zia has told associates that a limited amount of U.S. aid is meaningless,” reported the
Washington Post
.

Pakistan's wish list for military equipment included advanced fighter-bomber aircraft, artillery, communications equipment, and “either more and better tanks or sophisticated antitank weapons to allow it to defend itself against a tank attack.” On the list were planes that would “not be fully supplied to the U.S. Air Force until the mid-1980s.” Pakistan, as before, could not afford to buy the sophisticated weapons it required. It wanted the United States “to either give it the weapons or to arrange for favorable credit terms. Pakistan feels the US owes it this.”
⁵⁸

These weapons were ostensibly being sought in view of the threat posed by the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. But items such as tanks could not conceivably be used along Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan; they were clearly intended for the plains of the Punjab and Sindh, along the border with India. In fact, Pakistan had been asking for American tanks since it lost many in the 1965 war, long before any Soviet soldier had crossed into Afghanistan. No sooner had Zia asked for US weapons than Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi voiced her fears that these might eventually be used against India.

Zia was finally getting his wish of US involvement in the Jihad Pakistan had initiated in Afghanistan. Pakistan's interest in the project had been to force Afghanistan into settling its claims on Pakistan's Pashtun territories. But now that the Soviet military move had shocked the Americans into paying attention, Zia played hard to get. He was aware that at least some people in the US government would not mind paying a higher price for Pakistan's cooperation in bleeding the Soviets.

The Pakistani dictator added assurances against a possible threat of attack from India to the list of his demands from the United States before accepting aid against the Soviets. Brzezinski publicly reassured Pakistan “that the United States stands behind them” and reiterated the terms of the 1959 US-Pakistan mutual defense treaty, which committed the United States to come to Pakistan's aid in case of communist attack.
⁵⁹

Brzezinski wrote later that “the Pakistanis were rather concerned that they might be the next target of Soviet military aggression.”
⁶⁰
But he still stated plainly that the United States could not guarantee support in the event of an Indian attack. Zia realized that the Americans were interested primarily in the covert war that would bleed the Soviets. He bargained hard for favors for Pakistan without shutting off the clandestine program of assistance to the Mujahideen. This won him the support of anticommunist hard-liners in the United States.

The covert program expanded dramatically to include new weapons and advanced training for the Mujahideen. Thus, the insurgents were totally dependent on Pakistan. Arms deliveries had stepped up as a result of funding from Saudi Arabia and the CIA.
⁶¹
Zia wanted to convince the United States of the value of supporting the Afghan Mujahideen while he also wanted to send the message that the hopes of creating a Vietnam-like quagmire would remain unfulfilled without meeting Pakistan's demands.

Zia then went on an offensive in the US media. He said he would not risk the wrath of the Soviet Union without “a good treaty of friendship and in conjunction with others, economic and military assurance in that order of priority.” He also rejected as “peanuts” the offer of a $400 million two-year economic and military aid package that the Carter administration was cobbling together. “If this is true,” he said, “it is terribly disappointing. Pakistan will not buy its security with $400 million. It will buy greater animosity from the Soviet Union, which is now more influential in this region than the U.S.”
⁶²
Shahi, the Pakistan foreign minister, separately said that Pakistan expected “several billion dollars” in US military aid to “build up its
defense along its western border with Afghanistan.” Playing the bad cop, Shahi also said, “We are sick of depending on the political whims of the U.S. and U.S. public opinion which from time to time puts Pakistan in the doghouse.”
⁶³

The Pakistani message was designed for maximum effect in Washington. “All that we are trying to do is enable us to stand on our own feet and fight for ourselves,” Zia said, appealing to the American respect for self-sufficiency. He claimed that he was only seeking “moral help,” a sort of “hand on my back” so that “I can really put my chest out and say ‘No I am not alone. We have friends in this world'.”

In response, skeptics pointed out that Pakistan had received significant amounts of US aid in the past. Zia replied that it had not been enough, “otherwise we wouldn't have been in bad economic trouble.” He reflected Pakistan's overall attitude toward US assistance, that it was somehow owed to Pakistan. When a reporter reminded him that economic aid since 1948 totaled $5 billion, Zia looked surprised. “Unfortunately it hasn't been effective, partially due to our own fault. Our own economic policies haven't been that effective,” he said.

Zia insisted that Pakistan was the only country where the West still had influence in a broad crescent stretching “right from Turkey down to Vietnam.”
⁶⁴
If the United States wanted to help Pakistan, it needed to give an assurance about Pakistan's security and integrity, he told
ABC News
. “If any country like Soviet Union attacks Pakistan it will be war with the free world or with the United States and the United Kingdom.” Zia argued that if United States could give security guarantees to South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, and Egypt, why could it not provide one for Pakistan?
⁶⁵

Few Americans, including many considered experts on South Asia, remembered that Liaquat had sought a similar guarantee in 1950 when there were no Soviet troops in Afghanistan—little had changed in Pakistan's security thinking in thirty years. The Pakistanis had either not understood or did not want to understand the reasons for US unwillingness to go to war for Pakistan, especially against its principal foe, India.

The Americans were willing to ignore the fact that Pakistan's primary security concern was still a country with which the United States had no major conflict. It was only a matter of time before Pakistan's usefulness against the Soviets would subside and the old argument—about the United States deserting Pakistan in dealing with India—would resurface. Zia's message was targeted at those Americans who did not bother with details about other countries' history or with their long-term strategic thinking.

In one interview Zia insisted that “connivance” of the Soviet Union and India in 1971 had bifurcated Pakistan, glossing over Pakistan's domestic circumstances that led to Bangladesh's secession. He also insisted that he could prove that “there is a great conspiracy against Pakistan” to “strangulate Pakistan.”
⁶⁶

Zia also voiced the belief that Israel and “their friend India” were involved in an “organized conspiracy against Pakistan” at a time when India and Israel did not even have full diplomatic relations.
⁶⁷
But US policy makers did not pay attention to these manifestations of a conspiracy-theory mindset. There were a few voices, some echoed in the columns of major American newspapers, that warned that close military ties with Pakistan would lead to entanglements that the United States could do without. But within the administration there was consensus that fueling Jihad in Afghanistan could be useful for US interests, and for that reason Pakistan had to be armed and funded.

From Zia's perspective, getting American attention was just the first step; the next was getting enough support. He was looking for a latter-day Dulles, not the cautious officials of a reluctant superpower, which was how he saw Carter's administration. Americans knew a little more about Pakistan now than they did in the era of Dulles. But Pakistan also had more friends in the United States than it did earlier, Zia thought. The head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al-Saud, was also guiding the Pakistani military regime in handling the Americans. Zia wanted to negotiate a deal that would get American backing not only for the immediate needs for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan but also for Pakistan's longer-term requirements.

Bombarded with the pros and cons of aiding Zia and Pakistan, the US media reflected the debates among American policy makers. The
Washington Post
said that the United States had to accept Zia for what he was: “the man running Pakistan now.” It supported giving Zia's regime “the kind and amount of help that will make plain that the U.S. understands its larger stake in the security of Pakistan, and then—eyes open—to try to limit the collateral damage.”
⁶⁸

Conversely, the
New York Times
reminded the administration that “the understandable desire to discourage further Soviet advance in Asia” should not be at the expense of nonproliferation goals. “Preventing the spread of nuclear arms in Asia is no less important to world security than containing the Soviet Union,” the paper said in an editorial. “Pakistan should not be misled about the depth of the American commitment to non-proliferation,” it insisted.

The
Times
also questioned the wisdom of seeking India's “tolerance for aid to Pakistan” by way of opening “shipments of nuclear fuel for its American-built reactor.”
⁶⁹
Meanwhile, India said that the “induction of arms into Pakistan” would convert South Asia into “a theatre of Great Power confrontation and conflict.” The Indian government felt that once Pakistan again started receiving sophisticated US weapons, it would “de-accelerate” the process of normalization with India.
⁷⁰

Zia made no effort to address India's concerns; instead, he repeated the Pakistani mantra: Pakistan wanted “equality to be the determining factor” in India-Pakistan relations.
⁷¹
For Indians, this was code for an aggressive posture toward them, as it had been in the past. They protested vehemently that the United States was about to make a mistake. Pakistan's military preparedness, the Indians argued, would only exacerbate Pakistani jingoism against India. Carter sent former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford to India in an effort to placate Indian leaders.