Another US visit…more hype and nonsense

Islamabad diary

What’s wrong with us Pakistanis? Why do we overplay things American? The indefatigable traveller that our PM is was in New York recently to attend the UN General Assembly session. He is crossing the oceans again to be in the US. And here in Pakistan the media and government have been talking about this visit as if the fate of the mountains hangs on its outcome.

By all means go for an audience at the White House when the chance beckons. But why drum up the hype? Especially when all that our PM will get for his pains is 30 minutes of President Obama’s time during which, as expected, the American president will be doing most of the talking.

The jazz will be limited, with no lunch or dinner at the White House. Not that our PM is not familiar with this routine, having been at the Oval Office last year when he had a hard time shuffling the papers in his hands as he prepared to say a few lines for the benefit of the cameras.

If we keep that as a yardstick, a few lines uttered for the cameras this time without relying on notes should be counted as a great leap forward.

But what exactly is he setting out to achieve? What will the PM say that the Americans don’t know already or haven’t heard from other quarters? Pakistan’s nuclearism, the deteriorating Afghan situation, problems with India – what fresh light will our PM throw on this standard fare?

Netanyahu goes to the US for a purpose. Last time he was there his aim was to scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran. Putin went to the UN General Assembly to queer the pitch for his military intervention in Syria. What exactly is our PM going to Washington for?

The ruling party, the PML-N, has a well-stocked stable of paid and unpaid scribes singing its praises and extolling the achievements of its leadership. But even from this band of hooters there has been precious little on the purpose of the PM’s visit.

One purpose is clear to most Pakistanis. On his way to the US the PM will have a layoff in London and another layoff on his way back. On these all too frequent stops in what must be his favourite city – even more than that other favourite city, Jeddah – he no doubt refreshes his understanding of British history and the workings of parliamentary democracy. But lugging it across the oceans for nothing in particular, is it still worth all the strain and effort?

It’s not as if this is peculiar to this PM. Every Pakistani leader travels the same route, glad for a few moments in the Oval Office. Do they get a shot of vitamin in that hallowed space? Does it do something to their ego, their sense of self-importance?

Forgetting the distant past, Zafarullah Jamali was happy to go on a trip to Washington although it beats the understanding what exactly he would have said there. Before the cameras on his way out, he said Pakistan was marching towards democracy and would reach the goal of democracy with some help from the US. Even the Americans laughed in some embarrassment when he said this.

Shaukat Aziz, one of Pakistan’s most distinguished carpetbaggers – afraid no other word for his exploits – also visited the Oval Office for a few minutes of George Bush’s time. It’s a fair bet that George Bush would be hard put to remember his name.

Gen Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s Ataturk in the making, was feted and pampered during his rather long trip to the US last year. There is word in the media that the general – more a generalissimo now – may be off on another American visit later this year. Whatever for? Doesn’t he receive enough American visitors in his GHQ office?

This overplaying of things American denotes a psychological weakness, a form of dependence, which time and again has pushed Pakistan into cutting bad and one-sided deals with the United States. It’s not that we should be selling our services and be like streetwalkers. But business is business, as Americans themselves understand better than anyone else. We have done things at American bidding at huge cost to ourselves…and one feckless leader after another has been satisfied with crumbs and pittances in return.

The first Afghan ‘jihad’ against the Soviets in Afghanistan could not have got off its feet without Pakistani help. We could have played for higher stakes but the Zia regime settled for a paltry package which was hailed by a kept and subservient press – there was no media then – as a singular achievement.

Such was the climate of the times that if we had pressed the point we could have got F-16s for free but, reportedly, Agha Shahi, the then foreign minister, insisted that as a self-respecting country we would pay the market price. The Americans had some difficulty understanding this lofty sense of pride.

When that ‘jihad’ was over, the Americans lost no time in imposing nuclear-related sanctions on Pakistan and cutting off all aid. Again acting as a self-respecting nation we kept paying for the remainder of theF-16s without getting them. The Clinton administration, in a flush of generosity, returned some of that money, not all. The balance was settled in the form of soya bean oil (no kidding), which must have been the most expensive soya oil in the world.

Come Musharraf and 9/11, true to our salt, we again sold ourselves short, stretching our necks out for the Americans, giving them the freedom of our country and the wherewithal including airbases and the free use of our airspace for their assault on Afghanistan, and settling for peanuts once more.

Hosni Mubarak for joining the American-led coalition in the first Gulf War asked for a write-off of the entire American debt that Egypt owed. The Americans happily complied. For their invasion of Iraq the Americans asked the Turks for access across their land. The Turks, made of tougher material, referred the matter to their parliament which put a price tag of 25 billion dollars on the American request. The Americans backed down…and Turkey is still friends with the US.

Every cockamamie American official who wants to twist Pakistan’s arm says that Pakistan has been amply rewarded for its services. How much has Pakistan received for allowing its territory to be turned into an extension of the Afghan war? About 20 billion dollars spread over 14 years.

To put this in perspective, please to remember that at the height of their Afghan involvement the Americans were spending seven billion dollars a month – repeat month – and during Gen Petraeus’ surge, 10 billion a month, to keep their troops in Afghanistan. The spending on the small force that remains is about 14 billion dollars annually. And Pakistan for turning its land into a battleground received about two billion dollars or thereabouts a year.

For years the Americans kept telling us ‘do more, do more’ even when their own occupation army couldn’t do a damn thing to defeat the Taliban. Pakistan for its own sake has done the kind of fighting in Waziristan and other parts of Fata which the American military could never bring itself to do in Afghanistan. But such is American arrogance, and such our psychological weakness, that American officials – National Security Advisor Susan Rice for one – can’t do without giving Pakistan lectures on what it should be doing.

American policy has created a mess in the Middle East. Perhaps this was the intention. It all suits one country: Israel, and American policy in that region most of the time seems an extension of Israeli policy. Still, given this turmoil and their hand in it, who are the Americans to give us lectures?

If you cut through the flim-flam, resisting the tide of extremism is not the US but a phalanx of three countries: Iran, Pakistan and, hold your breaths, Russia. The rest is all talk and shadow-play.

Will Nawaz Sharif be explaining all this to his hosts?

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com