In my last article I had spoken of the burning of the American Embassy as the low point in US-Pak relations. In one sense this was so but at the same time another cooperative relationship had developed. Pakistan had been concerned about the Saur revolution of April 1978 in which President Daoud’s regime had been overthrown and an overtly Marxist government had come to power. This had happened at a time when Pakistan was hoping that President Daoud had come around to the view that the Durand Line issue needed to be settled given the pressure that the Shah of Iran was exerting and given the pressure Bhutto was capable of exercising through the anti–Daoud dissidents to whom Pakistan had provided shelter and who Daoud feared could be used to destabilize his regime. A Marxist regime, moreover, was anathema to Pakistan because of the long held fear that Afghanistan would under the influence of the Soviet Union not only activate the “Pushtunistan” issue but would also seek to undermine Pakistan’s territorial integrity by seeking control of Pakistani Baluchistan through which it could access the warm waters of the Arabian Sea.
The Taraki and subsequently the Hafizullah Amin regimes followed foolish policies seeking to implement orthodox Marxist ideology reforms in a country in which deeply ingrained tribal customs and traditions and selective application of religious injunctions determined the relationship between people and between the people and the government. There was immediate resistance and a spreading insurgency, which Pakistan, faced with an influx of refugees, felt compelled to support. Secretly aid was transmitted to the insurgents and was partly routed through the dissident elements already in Pakistan.
The Americans too were concerned. This was a time when the Soviet Union appeared to be on the march. In Angola and Mozambique Soviet backed forces appeared to be making advances. The Soviets had for the first time showed that they were capable through airlifts of projecting power far beyond their borders. The Americans, still demoralized by Vietnam, did not want the image of the Soviet Union as ten feet tall to be promoted by a successful “coup” in Afghanistan. I recall more than one conversation with American diplomats in which I, as a foreign ministry official was advised to push for a policy of seeking American cooperation to reverse the Marxist takeover in Afghanistan. Much before the Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan, President Carter’s national security adviser Dr. Brzezinski sought and secured Carter’s approval to provide secretly a modest amount of aid to the insurgents in Afghanistan and to channel this through Pakistan.
The American embassy was burnt in November 1979 but by then the signs were clearly evident that the Soviets, mistrustful of Hafizullah Amin and fearful of the domestic policies he was following, intended replacing him and providing the military wherewithal needed to make this possible. There was not therefore the break in relations that could otherwise have been expected. When the Soviet troops did move in, bringing with them Mr. Babrak Karmal as the new leader of Afghanistan the Americans saw this as a golden opportunity to avenge the humiliation that had been visited upon them in Vietnam and they were aware that for achieving this objective an alliance with Pakistan was essential.
Pakistan’s security establishment saw this Soviet move as a prelude to moving into Pakistani Baluchistan and finally securing through this the access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea that in the traditional thinking of geo-strategists had been a key objective of Czarist Russia and successor regimes. Subsequent publication of the discussions in the meetings of the Politburo seemed to show that such expansionist objectives were far from the minds of Soviet leaders. All they wanted was to prop up a socialist regime and their hope was that their military intervention would be of no more than a year or year and a half duration. This however was not the perception in December 1979.
President Ziaul Haque however saw other personal advantages to opposing the Soviet move. At that time after having executed the former Prime Minister his regime was regarded as a pariah in the international community. He faced great internal opposition and had no base of popular support relying entirely on the army to stay in power. Opposition to the Soviet move into Afghanistan enabled him to get a better image in the Muslim and Western world, to repair relations with the USA and do away with the sanctions imposed, to pursue the ongoing nuclear program with the objective of getting nuclear weapon capability and equally importantly securing an international standing which would enable him to propagate within Pakistan an extreme version of Islam and thus win the support of the religious parties in Pakistan’s body politic.
Once again the US- Pakistan alliance came into being when the main objective was the same but the motivations were very different. This became evident when the then President of the United States proclaimed his opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and pledged to defend the region against any further “Soviet aggression” in the famous “Carter Doctrine”. He stated that “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” As regards Pakistan however the commitment to its defense was far less unequivocal. The President said, “We’ve reconfirmed our 1959 agreement to help Pakistan preserve its independence and its integrity. The United States will take action consistent with our own laws to assist Pakistan in resisting any outside aggression”
I know that the then National Security Adviser, Dr. Brzezinski had originally proposed that the commitment to defend Pakistan should be just as unequivocal as the commitment to the defense of the Persian Gulf but other elements of the security establishment opposed such a commitment even though it was apparent that this was the country that would be most at risk.
The decision of the alliance that came into being between the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to assist the ‘Mujahedeen” in reversing the Soviet occupation and in doing so to use the slogan of “Islam in Danger” rather than “Afghan nationalism” had consequences that were detrimental to the medium and long term interests of both the United States and Pakistan even though they served the short term interests of President Ziaul Haque. It logically led to the invitation to all Arab governments to send their fanatic Islamists to fight the Jihad in Afghanistan. It led to the establishment of religious schools (Madrasahs) first in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and then throughout the country to train both Afghans and Pakistanis for the Jihad. These foreign Mujahedeen and these Madrasahs gave added strength to Pakistan religious parties and promoted the extremist ideology that Ziaul Haque was seeking to impose on the tolerant and moderate domestic polity.
Many in the United States were concerned about this development believing that this promotion of an extremist ideology would be detrimental eventually to Pakistan but also to the rest of the Islamic world. But the overwhelming sentiment was that if this was the tool to defeat the Soviet Union or at least to bleed the Soviet Union just as the United States had bled in Vietnam then this risk was worth taking.
My point in reciting the history of the second phase of US-Pak relations is to emphasize that as in the first phase so too in the second the US-Pakistan relationship was not based on a genuine convergence or commonality of interest. Pakistanis experienced a strong sense of betrayal when shortly after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed the United States reneged on its commitment to provide additional F-16 aircraft and stopped all aid on the ground that Pakistan was in possession of a nuclear device. Of course Pakistan had developed nuclear weapon capability by that time but this had been known to the United States much earlier. Stopping the aid when the Americans did confirmed to Pakistanis that the United States had used them and then discarded them once their objective had been achieved. But this was to be expected when the relationship did not flow from a genuine commonality of interest.
