Magnificent Delusions (47 page)

In fact, the Pressler Amendment had been written to help Pakistan get around the provisions of the Symington and Glenn Amendments. It had allowed Pakistan to continue to receive aid as long as the US president could certify that Pakistan had not crossed the red line. Thus, Pakistan was not being victimized so the United States could help India. The issue was Pakistan's dependence on US aid: India had pursued nuclear weapons without making specific commitments to the United States because it did not accept conditional aid as Pakistan had done.

Americans had repeatedly told Pakistani leaders that Pakistan could not make the bomb and get aid at the same time, and Pakistan made and broke several promises about its nuclear program so as to keep the aid flowing. Bush had been “genuinely sad” when he could no longer certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear device.
¹⁸

The administration had even tried to delay sanctions “to give the government the Pakistanis would elect in October 1990 a chance to deal with the nuclear problem.”
¹⁹
But congressional opposition had prevailed, arguing that lowering standards for Pakistan would lead to an erosion of nuclear proliferation standards for all nations.

When the Pressler sanctions were imposed, Pakistan was the third-largest beneficiary of US aid. Despite Pakistan's protests that the sanctions amounted to an American abandonment of Pakistan, the United States softened the blow by continuing to disburse $1 billion in economic assistance for ongoing projects. Nonetheless, Pakistan lost approximately $300 million in annual arms and military supplies, although it did receive the remaining portion of the economic aid package for another three years after the sanctions went into effect. Pakistan was also allowed commercial purchases of military equipment until 1992.
²⁰

But after 1990 all that the Pakistani government told its citizens through the mass media was how the United States turned away from Pakistan and victimized it after Pakistan had helped America
defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The United States made no serious effort to explain its perspective to Pakistanis. Over time even Americans started believing that the Pressler sanctions were somehow an American mistake that created a breach in an otherwise functional alliance.

Washington and Islamabad were still deadlocked over the nuclear program when the ISI escalated the Kashmir insurgency soon after Sharif's inauguration as prime minister. Afghanistan also continued to simmer, with the ISI continuing to push for an Islamist government in Kabul. US hopes of winning back Pakistan were raised somewhat when Sharif clashed with Beg over Pakistan's response to Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

Beg wanted Pakistan to tilt in Iraq's favor and told an audience of Pakistani military officers that the Gulf War was part of “Zionist” strategy.
²¹
He spoke of the need for “strategic defiance” by medium-sized powers such as Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, with the help of China, against the dictates of the United States. Such defiance, he argued, would protect the sovereignty of smaller nations. Islamists marched in Pakistani cities protesting against the United States, supporting Beg's point of view.

Sharif's associates suspected that Beg wanted to take over in a military coup after massive anti-American protests. But the Gulf War involved Saudi Arabia's interests, so for economic reasons, Sharif did not want to rupture relations with the kingdom. With the backing of the Pakistani president and several generals, Sharif named a successor to Beg two months ahead of his scheduled retirement date. American officials considered the new army chief, General Asif Nawaz, friendly toward the United States.

Seeing an opening, Sharif tried after the Gulf War to break the stalemate over the nuclear question. Foreign Secretary Shehryar Khan and I traveled to Washington to bridge the credibility gap in Pakistan's previous claims on the subject. Shehryar admitted on the record in an interview with the
Washington Post
that “Pakistan had the capability to make a nuclear bomb.”
²²
We expected that the United States and Pakistan could now discuss Pakistan's nuclear ambitions honestly instead of being bogged down in incredible denials.

However, the United States did not see the official Pakistani admission as an opportunity to negotiate. This worked to the advantage of the covert operatives in Islamabad; the ISI argued that coming clean with the Americans was a mistake. Sharif was accused of going behind the backs of the army and the ISI to cut a deal with the United States. As had been the case with Benazir Bhutto, the national security establishment was unwilling to trust a civilian prime minister's conduct of foreign relations without the ISI scrutinizing him. By then Pakistan had became mired in what American journalist Steve Coll described as a “political culture of shadow games,” in which the acronyms of intelligence agencies, such as MI (Military Intelligence), ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and IB (Intelligence Bureau) became part of everyday vocabulary. According to Coll, “Unproven reports” of secret wiretappings, video tapings, and sexual blackmail schemes were ubiquitous. “And nearly everyone of prominence believes his or her telephone is bugged,” he added.
²³

The intelligence services had become Pakistan's kingmakers in addition to controlling insurgencies in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Developments in the former communist bloc in Europe, which culminated in the breakup of the Soviet Union, distracted the Bush administration. Pakistanis felt that their country and Afghanistan had fallen off the US radar. Sharif's ambassador to Washington, Abida Hussain, observed that at this stage US interest in Pakistan was no more compelling than the Pakistani interest in the Maldives.

Like several other judgments in Islamabad, this was also not an accurate reading of American policy. However, Pakistan dodged sanctions when Bill Clinton was elected US president in November 1992.

C
LINTON HAD
“a fascination with India,” according to Strobe Talbott, who served as his deputy secretary of state.
²⁴
India had adjusted to the collapse of the Soviet Union more effectively than had Pakistan. It had backed away from socialism, opened its markets, and recognized the new status of the United States as the world's sole superpower. Clinton saw India's “resilient democracy, its vibrant
high-tech sector, its liberal reforms that had begun to revitalize a statist and sclerotic economy, and its huge consumer market—as a natural beneficiary of globalization.” He considered India “potentially a much more important partner for the United States than was then the case.”
²⁵

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Foreign Office completely missed the emerging US-India entente. The army and the ISI insisted on demanding American engagement on the basis of Pakistan's “services” during the Cold War, and several US diplomats and generals still had good memories of their past interaction with Pakistanis. But they could not move relations forward solely on the basis of nostalgia for Kissinger's China trip or even the war that bled the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Benazir Bhutto's election for a second term as prime minister in 1993 provided an opportunity for a more realistic Pakistani foreign policy. Bhutto had little affection for Islamists who hated her and questioned her right to lead the country as a woman, though she had been dismissed from office previously for disagreeing with Pakistan's military. This time she wanted to exercise greater caution.

Sharif had put Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, in prison on myriad corruption charges that were withdrawn once Sharif's government was removed. Zardari had been targeted because jailing him was easier than arresting the more popular and charismatic Bhutto. But now he was seen as a political figure in his own right. He joined the government, first as minister for environment and then as minister for investment. Although he was portrayed and perceived as a venal figure, Zardari played an important role in defining economic growth as the Bhutto government's top priority.

The first spouse traveled around the world, soliciting investment. He proposed numerous changes in Pakistan's economic policies, making the country attractive for international business. Bhutto declared publicly that instead of soliciting aid, Pakistan would try to become more competitive in the global economic arena. But both Bhutto and Zardari had to contend first with Pakistan's stigma of terrorism. They soon discovered that opening up Pakistan for business was not going to be easy: the Pakistan military wanted to settle
the Afghan and Kashmir issues before allowing the civilians of Pakistan to be part of globalization.

While India expanded its high-tech sector and allowed multinational corporations to set up shop, Pakistan focused on acquiring weapons from various sources. The Pentagon discovered Pakistan purchasing air-to-air missiles and their components from China in addition to extended-range antiship and antitank missiles.
²⁶
The CIA reported nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and North Korea. An expensive submarines deal with France and a tanks purchase from Ukraine followed.

Bhutto struggled to rebuild the frayed relations with the United States. She handed over Ramzi Ahmed Yusuf, the key figure in the 1993 bombing of the New York World Trade Center, who was arrested in Pakistan on a tip from US intelligence.
²⁷
Although this step earned praise from the US government, it was not enough to secure the removal of Pressler sanctions. But Bhutto managed to settle another Pakistani complaint with the Americans.

At the time of the aid cutoff in 1990 Pakistan had paid $658 million for seventy-one F-16 aircraft that could not be delivered once the sanctions were imposed. Assuming that the sanctions would end soon, the Pakistan military had not asked for the money back. Pakistan ended up paying for storage of twenty-eight planes at an American air base for over three years.

During a meeting with Clinton Bhutto secured an agreement to reimburse Pakistan in full with a combined package of military aid and cash. The military aid, worth $358 million, would be in the form of P-3 surveillance aircraft and TOW antitank missiles. The twenty-eight F-16s in storage would be sold to a third country, thus enabling Pakistan to use the cash to buy fighter jets from France.

Then, relations with the United States came to at a standstill when the ISI decided to end the Afghan civil war by supporting the Taliban. The Mujahideen groups had fought amongst themselves since 1992, when the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in the end of the Najibullah regime in Afghanistan. Although Pakistan had extensively supplied weapons and advice to its protégés in the civil war, Mujahideen groups favored by Pakistan had failed to prevail. It was
time for Pakistan to change tack. Instead, the ISI put its weight behind a group of religious students (Taliban is Pashtu for “students”) who had challenged the warlords in the southeastern province of Kandahar.

The constructed narrative at the time presented the Taliban as pious, naïve, and well-meaning villagers who were reacting to the excesses of the warlords. But soon after their rise the US government received reports about “Pakistan's deep involvement in Afghan politics and Pakistan's evident role in the Taliban's recent military successes.” US intelligence learned that the government of Pakistan and the ISI were “deeply involved in the Taliban take over in Kandahar and Qalat.” Pakistan's efforts were meant to sabotage UN peace efforts by Mahmoud Mesteri, special envoy of the UN secretary general for Afghanistan.
²⁸

The ISI briefed Bhutto about the Taliban's rise as a local phenomenon. She worried about their reported misogyny and their propensity for violence. She asked me for my views on the ISI's analysis that they could bring peace to Afghanistan and secure Pakistan's interests. I said that the ISI had previously said the same thing about Pashtun warlord Gulbeddin Hekmatyar. Bhutto agreed but laughed, saying that we civilians could not stop the ISI even if we wanted to.

Another Bhutto adviser, Ijlal Zaidi, voiced concern about the Taliban's core beliefs. Zaidi had served among Pashtuns as a civil servant. He wondered whether madrasa students with a narrow worldview and no modern education were equipped to run a country. “They will ruin whatever is left of Afghanistan. They will kill Shias and then they will come after Pakistan,” he said. The ISI's major-general, Aziz Khan, said he could not understand why so many people in the Bhutto government were so averse to the spread of Islam.

The Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan's territory and eventually marched into Kabul. Bhutto's interior minister, Nasirullah Babar, became the public face of Pakistani support for them. Initially the United States was also unperturbed by a strong Pashtun force unifying Afghanistan. American oil company Unocal started negotiating a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan.
²⁹
But by 1996 the Taliban's human rights violations and their
hosting of Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network made the United States and the Taliban implacable foes.