Dr. Tariq Rahman

Book Review

Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.470. Price Rs. 495/--

The United States evokes the most extreme and contradictory emotions among Pakistanis. On the one hand there are long queues of Pakistanis outside the immigration and visa section of the U.S embassy and young people are mesmerized with Hollywood, American eating places and American English; but on the other are crowds of people in an angry mood burning American flags and chanting ‘Death to America’. The press is full of stories about American affluence as well as perfidy. There are images of American truck loads of food cheek by jowl with those of American missiles poised to strike in nearby Afghanistan (in October 2001). What exactly is the history of the U.S-Pakistan relations? This is the question which the book under review purports to answer.

The author, who is a retired State Department South Asia Specialist, begins with the involvement of the U.S. with Pakistan immediately before its creation to the Clinton era. In the beginning, in common with most British and other observers, American officials felt that the creation of Pakistan would jeopardize the defence of South Asia against Soviet or Chinese moves in the area. However, once Pakistan was created the Americans reconciled themselves to the existence of this new reality and established diplomatic relations with the country (chapter 2). Soon, however, they found that India was neutral and Pakistan could serve as an ally against Communism. Chapter 3 describes in detail how President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, made Pakistan an important ally. Pakistan readily agreed because the bureaucratic-military establishment which was ruling Pakistan wanted American military and economic help to strengthen the country, and especially its army, against India. As India had occupied Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated state to which Pakistan lays claim, Pakistani decision-makers thought it was necessary to get America to back them. However, as Dennis Kux clarifies, the Americans never committed themselves to Pakistan’s foreign policy goals. They wanted the alliance to further their own national interest which was the containment of Communism.

Ayub Khan, the military ruler of Pakistan from 1958 to 1969 further strengthened the relationship of Pakistan with the U.S.A. Ayub’s main aim was to build a strong army and he did manage to do this. However, American military aid was given with the understanding that it would only be used to fight Communist attacks and not India. The beginning of the Ayub era was the high point of U.S-Pakistan friendship but the relationship became strained by the middle sixties. One reason was that Z.A. Bhutto, the new foreign minister, started looking to China as a possible ally creating much alarm in Washington. The second and main reason was Pakistan’s 1965 war with India. This was a consequence of Bhutto’s aggressive gambit of persuading Ayub to send in guerrillas into Indian occupied Kashmir in the hope of inciting an uprising. This did not materialize but India retaliated by launching its army against Pakistan. The Americans were annoyed that Ayub should have made such a mistake thus using their military equipment against India. They stopped military aid to both Pakistan and India---an act which appeared as betrayal to ordinary Pakistanis because they neither knew that their government had started hostile activities in India nor that the American arms were supposed to be used only against Communist aggression. By the time Ayub fell in 1969, the ordinary Pakistani was disillusioned with the U.S.A.

In 1971, contrary to popular belief in Pakistan, American policy was not to betray Pakistan in the face of Indian aggression in its Eastern wing. Indeed, after the Pakistan army’s crackdown on the Bengali dissidents in March 1971 the American public opinion was against Pakistan. The U.S. government did not respond to this hostile opinion because the U.S.A wanted to use the services of Pakistan’s military ruler, Yahya Khan, to establish a new relationship with China. President Nixon of the U.S.A, therefore, ordered a ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan which made America issue no condemnation of Pakistan for the military action. Even arms exports continued to Pakistan despite a ban and in December 1971, when India appeared to want to continue the war in West Pakistan, Nixon warned the Russians as follows:

If the Indians continue their military operations [against West Pakistan], we must inevitably look toward a confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union has a treaty with India; we have one with Pakistan (P.201).

Nixon also ordered the aircraft carrier Enterprise to proceed towards the Bay of Bengal. It was not meant to fight but it was a symbolic gesture to threaten India so as to prevent it from advancing any farther. Despite all these steps public opinion in Pakistan became even more disillusioned with America. The Pakistani public had been brought up on notions of (clan) and fidelity and not on those of modern statesmanship. Thus they judged the U.S. from their criterion of friendship i.e friends help each other to fight.

When Bhutto took power in 1971 he wanted American help and toned down his anti-U.S rhetoric. However, Bhutto also wanted to acquire nuclear capability. This became a source of new conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan. General Zia, the army chief who ousted Bhutto and hanged him, pursued the same policy antagonizing the U.S.A. further. However, when the Soviet army marched into Afghanistan in 1979 the Americans wanted Pakistan’s help to oust them. Thus General Zia got economic and military help and held on to power for ten years despite pursuing his policy of making a nuclear device. When Zia was killed in 1988 the U.S had already moved away from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan this too was seen as betrayal and anti-American feelings increased.

Chapter 11, entitled ‘Bush---the Partnership Collapses’, tells us how the U.S.A imposed sanctions on Pakistan under the Pressler Amendment. Now that Pakistan had the nuclear bomb and it was no longer an ally in the Cold War, the Americans imposed sanctions for nuclear proliferation. Despite this Pakistan became an ally of the U.S.A during the Gulf war against Iraq. However, as in the case of friendship with China, Pakistan did not obey the U.S.A when it went overtly nuclear in 1998 despite President Clinton’s efforts to prevent this from happening. More sanctions were imposed. The relationship did not collapse and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif withdrew fighters from Kargil in July 1999 upon American advise. When, possibly as a fallout of this, General Musharraf took over as Pakistan’s military ruler in October 2000, the U.S. again imposed sanctions. However, the policy of wait and see was adopted and it is at this note that the book ends.

The book’s major strength is that it is the most comprehensive, most well documented, most thoroughly researched study of U.S-Pakistan relations to date. The author has used archival material not yet used by any other such study. He has also had access to many actors in the field and has benefited from their interviews. Above all, he was himself an observer-actor in South Asia and has actually seen the way these relationships have worked. From the perspective of the discipline of international relations, or modern history, this is an excellent study. It does not, however, explain why ordinary Pakistanis have such ambivalent feelings for the U.S.A.

To understand these the author should have read the Urdu press extensively and listened to the common people. He might then have gathered that, while sophisticated specialists in world politics understand that nations act out of national interest, ordinary people have tribal and medieval notions of ‘friendship’. Moreover, the author has not mentioned how the Suez Canal issue, America’s perceived help to Israel, the Gulf War and the issues of Bosnia, Chechenya and Kashmir are perceived in the bazaar in Pakistan. The emotional attitude towards these issues should have been taken into account to give a complete picture of how ordinary Pakistanis see the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. So, while the book is excellent in demolishing ordinary Pakistani myths and perceptions about America, it does not address itself to how such myths are created. However, perceptions are all people have to go by. So, whatever the truth may be, it is important to understand people’s perceptions and to change them if a really good relationship is required between the two countries. This kind of understanding, however, comes from an understanding of society as a social psychologist.

In this case, to be fair, it should be remembered that the author is a scholar of international relations and not a social psychologist. And, as a work on international relations, this work is outstanding and will remain a landmark for many years to come.