<<  <  >  >>

There were no signs that Musharraf's pol-

"constructively disengaging" from Pakistan,

icy was strengthening Pakistan's position in

while trying to advance in South Asia a new

Washington in the months preceding

strategic agenda based on strengthening

September 11. President Clinton gave

America's ties with India.

Musharraf's regime a diplomatic cold shoul-

In that context, Pakistan, as a client state,

der; during a South Asia tour, Clinton spent

should have been presented with a clear

five days in India and only five hours in

choice: adapt your policy to the goals of your

Pakistan.45 The new Bush administration

American benefactor or end up paying the

continued the process of marginalizing

costs of your refusal--being truly "ditched"

Pakistan and establishing more solid ties with

by Washington. Instead, Washington's inter-

India, as part of a strategy to contain China

ests were sabotaged by an uncontrollable

and expand ties with India's huge democracy

client state, ruled by a military dictatorship

and emerging market. All this occurred

in the process of establishing a theocracy and

against the backdrop of growing U.S. ten-

mismanaging its corrupt economic system.

sions with radical Islam and Washington's

That client state was spreading terror to

strengthening of ties with Israel and secular

Kashmir; strengthening the Taliban, the

Turkey, which only helped to highlight

world's most anti-Western regime; and

Pakistan was

Pakistan's pariah status. There was no indica-

acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

spreading terror

tion--strategic considerations, economic ties,

Such developments pointed to a major

ideological commitment, cultural bonds--

dilemma that the United States faces when it

to Kashmir;

that Washington needed to continue to main-

has to manage its relationship with a client

strengthening the

tain Pakistan as a client state. Conversely,

state in a unipolar international system.

Taliban, the

Pakistan seemed to be losing its leverage over

During the Cold War, the bipolar system pro-

U.S. policy, a clear reversal of what occurred

duced systemic pressures on the two super-

world's most

during Zia's years. The relationship between

powers to restrain their respective client

anti-Western

America and Pakistan was being normalized.

states. The United States and the Soviet

The dog was in control. In fact, the dog was

Union sent signals to each other that helped

regime; and

discovering that it had no need to regularly

to set diplomatic and military "red lines,"

acquiring

wag that particular tail.

which forced each superpower to place

weapons of mass

restrictions on its client states. For example,

the United States, facing Soviet pressure,

destruction.

The Pakistani Tail Tries to

stopped Israeli military advances in Egypt in

Wag the American Dog

1973. Similarly, the Soviets, during the

Cuban missile crisis in 1962, acceded to the

Again

pressure of the Kennedy administration.

Following

September

11

and

If the Soviet Union hadn't collapsed in

Washington's pressure on Pakistan to back

1991, it is quite conceivable that it would

the United States in the war against al-Qaeda

have set similar "red lines" on U.S. support

and the Taliban, Musharraf and other

for the Pakistani-backed insurgents in

Pakistani officials complained that the

Afghanistan, leading perhaps to the creation

United States had "abandoned" them after

of a neutral regime in Kabul or to the divi-

the withdrawal of Soviet forces from

sion of the country into spheres of influence,

Afghanistan in 1989. "We were left high and

which would have given Islamabad no choice

dry, and it started to settle on the people that

but to abandon its grand strategic designs. In

we were ditched," Musharraf told an

short, in a unipolar system, a client state may

American group. That was an exaggeration. A

be able to exert more influence on its global

clear U.S. realpolitik position, based on an

benefactor in the short term and the

accurate reading of U.S. interests at the time,

midterm, as Pakistan did for a while, creating

should have led to adoption of a policy of

conditions for the Taliban victory in Kabul.

13