Daniel S Markey Read online

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  x

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  978-1-107-04546-0 - No Exit from Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad Daniel S. Markey

  Frontmatter

  More information

  Acknowledgments

  This book is a hybrid, born of experiences in academia and government. I could

  only have written it while working at an institution that values both. Few come

  as close to that ideal as the Washington, D.C., office of the Council on Foreign

  Relations (CFR). I am forever grateful to CFR President Richard N. Haass,

  who hired me at the State Department as well as at CFR, and who supported

  this project from its earliest conceptual stages. Thanks also go to CFR’s director

  of studies, James M. Lindsay, who fulfilled the dream of every author: he freed

  me to research, think, and write, then offered candid, constructive criticism of

  every chapter along the way.

  Four research associates dedicated their time, energy, and impressive intel-

  lectual talents to this book. Daniel Simons and Robert Nelson contributed

  good ideas and research as the project was just starting to germinate. Later,

  they graciously made time to read and respond to the entire manuscript despite

  the demands of new government jobs. The greatest burden of research and

  editorial assistance fell to Kunaal Sharma, and later, to Kevin Grossinger. Each

  handled these tasks in his own way, but always masterfully and with good

  cheer. Kevin’s enthusiasm and attention to detail were invaluable down the

  home stretch. Joining the task for shorter stints were several generations of

  bright CFR interns: Azmat Khan, Reyad Allie, Arsla Jawaid, Emilie Shumway,

  Emma Barnes, Bradley Saunders, Jesse Sedler, Edward Krasniewski, Mashal

  Shah, and Sikander Kiani.

  I hope this book reflects well the lessons I have learned from U.S. gov-

  ernment colleagues, particularly the policy planning directors, staffers, and

  officers of the embassies and consulates in Pakistan, India, and China. U.S.

  embassy Islamabad, in particular, has welcomed and assisted me during vari-

  ous research trips. If this book also reveals a measure of academic wisdom, it

  is because I have benefited from my time at Johns Hopkins and Princeton, and

  xi

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  978-1-107-04546-0 - No Exit from Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad Daniel S. Markey

  Frontmatter

  More information

  xii

  Acknowledgments

  especially from the teaching and guidance of Professors Steven David and Aaron

  Friedberg.

  As part of the editorial process, I was fortunate to convene a group of top

  experts on Pakistan and U.S. foreign policy chaired by George Perkovich. Their

  responses to the manuscript, as well as those of two outstanding reviewers,

  Stephen Cohen and Ashley Tellis, helped me to revise and strengthen the final

  product. The help of Dennis Kux and Alan Kronstadt was invaluable as I pulled

  together the historical threads in U.S.-Pakistan relations. Others, including

  many U.S. officials from administrations past and present, generously agreed

  to sit for interviews but were not always able to be cited by name in the text.

  Thanks to all, and also to my colleagues at CFR and elsewhere, including Paul

  Stares, Michael Krepon, Dick Sokolsky, Howard and Teresita Schaffer, Anita

  Weiss, Lisa Curtis, Amanda Catanzano, Patricia Dorff, Amy Baker, Janine Hill,

  Elliott Abrams, Jakub Grygiel, Edward Lacey, Eric Lupfer, and Gary Samore.

  Many other intellectual debts are paid in footnotes.

  My gratitude is even deeper for the many Pakistanis who have so generously

  opened their offices and homes to me over the years. Whatever troubles may ail

  Pakistan, many of its people remain unfailingly hospitable and willing to share

  their perspectives. Numerous prominent Pakistanis are profiled in this book,

  but my appreciation of their political significance was informed by hundreds

  of conversations with knowledgeable Pakistani diplomats, politicians, schol-

  ars, journalists, officers, civil servants, and concerned citizens from across the

  political spectrum. For many reasons, I will not name them here. However,

  one of my guides to Pakistan deserves special mention: Tariq Zaheen. Tariq is

  an idealist of boundless energy and patience. I know I still have much more to

  learn from him.

  Thanks to Cambridge University Press and to my editor, Lewis Bateman, for

  his quick and unstinting support of this project. The entire team at Cambridge

  deserves great credit for managing the publication process with impressive

  speed and skill. The book was made possible with financial support from the

  Rockefeller Foundation, Starr Foundation, and other generous donors. If not

  for these sorts of institutions and the people who sustain them, serious and

  policy-relevant research would be an American hobby, not a profession.

  Thank you to my parents, who have always been a vital source of love and

  strength, and to my grandmother, Sophie Fischer, who at one hundred years

  of age expresses her affection by urging me to stay closer to home. The joy of

  spending time with family and close friends provides the greatest incentive to

  heed her advice. This is especially true for my wife, Robyn, and our children,

  Zachary and Chloe. Fortunately, Robyn understands my devotion to this line

  of work. For that understanding and her love, I thank her most of all.

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  978-1-107-04546-0 - No Exit from Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad
Daniel S. Markey

  Table of Contents

  More information

  Contents

  Maps

  page ix

  Acknowledgments

  xi

  1

  No Exit

  1

  2

  The Four Faces of Pakistan

  29

  3

  Why Do They Hate Us?

  72

  4

  U-Turn to Drift: U.S.-Pakistan Relations during the

  Musharraf Era

  105

  5

  Great Expectations to Greater Frustrations: U.S.-Pakistan

  Relations after Musharraf

  136

  6

  From the Outside-In: U.S.-Pakistan Relations in the

  Regional Context

  169

  7

  America’s Options

  200

  Index

  239

  vii

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  1

  No Exit

  During the final dark days of the Second World War, the French philosopher

  Jean-Paul Sartre first staged his play, Huis Clos, in Nazi-occupied Paris. In English, the title is usually translated as No Exit.

  Sartre’s drama featured three sinners, all dead to the world, who learn to

  their surprise that hell is not a land of fire, brimstone, and devils, but an oddly

  furnished living room where they are subjected to eternal torment by each

  other. The more they interact, the more the sinners come to appreciate that

  they are perfectly suited to the task, each vulnerable to precisely the psycho-

  logical torture meted out by the others, and each capable of inflicting similarly

  devastating punishment in return.

  In a moment of epiphany, one of Sartre’s characters exclaims, “Hell is other

  people!” And yet, when the living room door swings open and the three have

  a chance to make a run for it, they cannot. The moment the escape option

  is presented, the sinners recognize it as an illusion. The only possible path to

  salvation is through struggle against their special tormentors. And that means

  there is truly no exit; they are stuck “for ever, and ever, and ever.”

  For American and Pakistani diplomats, policymakers, military officers (and

  a handful of think tank analysts like this author) who have been condemned

  to work with one another, this vision of perpetual mutual torment strikes

  close to home. For much of the past decade, Pakistan has been rocked by

  internal turmoil and exceptional levels of violence. Over the same period,

  relations between Washington and Islamabad have run from frustrating to

  infuriating.

  This is nothing new. Well before Pakistan so routinely made headline news

  in America, the relationship was also a tortured one. Like Sartre’s sinners,

  the United States and Pakistan have tormented each other for decades, if in

  very different ways. Both sides believe they have been sinned against. Even

  1

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  2

  No Exit from Pakistan

  at high points in the relationship, there were still underlying irritations and

  disagreements that got in the way of building any sort of strong, sustainable

  cooperation.

  In the early Cold War era, when Pakistan joined America’s global effort

  to contain the Soviet Union, contentious negotiations over the scale of U.S.

  assistance nearly derailed the nascent alliance. Later, during the1980s when the

  two sides worked hand in glove to assist the Afghan mujahedeen in their war

  against the Soviet Union, the Pakistanis secretly pursued a nuclear weapons

  program that Washington opposed. When the Cold War ended, Pakistan’s

  nuclear program moved ahead at full steam as the U.S.-Pakistan relationship

  fell into a disastrous, decade-long tailspin.

  At the lowest points in the relationship, such as the late 1970s, the two sides

  behaved more like adversaries than allies. When Pakistani student protesters

  ransacked the U.S. embassy in Islamabad in 1979, Pakistan’s ruling general Zia-

  ul-Haq cynically decided to let the protest burn itself out rather than to venture

  a serious rescue attempt. Two Americans died that day, and only the stout walls

  of the embassy vault and some lucky timing allowed another 139 American

  and Pakistani personnel to escape the smoldering embassy grounds alive.1 Had

  the story ended differently, an already tense relationship between Washington

  and Islamabad might have collapsed into outright hostility.

  Few Americans or Pakistanis now recall that episode in 1979, but many

  young Pakistanis are taught to recite a litany of other low points in the rela-

  tionship. These include several instances of what they call American “abandon-

  ments,” such as when the United States did not adequately rise to Pakistan’s

  defense in its wars with India in 1965 or 1971, or in 1990 when Washing-

  ton slapped sanctions on Pakistan for pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

  American historians describe these events differently. They correctly observe

  that Pakistan’s own choices – to go to war and to build a nuclear arsenal – led

  to predictable American responses, not betrayals.

  Thus, Pakistanis and Americans tell conflicting versions of their shared his-

  tory. There is at least a nugget of truth to the Pakistani lament that America has

  used their country when it suited the superpower’s agenda and then tossed it

  away when inconvenient. Ever since Pakistan gained independence from British

  India in 1947, Washington has viewed the country as a means to other ends,

  whether that meant fighting communism or terrorism. When Pakistan was

  helpful, it enjoyed generous American assistance and attention. When Pakistan

  was unhelpful, the spigot was turned off.

  Yet, for all the Pakistani complaints about how the United States has never

  been a true friend, the fact is that Pakistan also used America. Pakistani lead-

  ers dipped into America’s deep pockets to serve their purposes, sometimes

  1 For a full account of the attack on the Islamabad embassy, see Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 21–37.

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  No Exit

  3

  parochial or corrupt, oftentimes driven by persistent geopolitical conflict with

  neighboring India.

  Above all, the Pakistani military viewed relations with the United States as

  a means to balance against India, Pakistan’s larger sibling with which it has

  maintained a more or less hostile relationship since birth. The Indo-Pakistani

  relationship explains a great deal about how the Pakistani state views the world,

  and more than a little about how it functions at home as well. When the United

  States failed to provide money, diplomatic backing, or equipment that would be

  useful against India, Pakistan hardly reconsidered its hostile stance. Islamabad
>
  simply looked elsewhere to meet its perceived needs: to nearby China, to an

  independent nuclear weapons program, and even to nurturing violent anti-

  Indian insurgents and terrorists. Pakistan took these steps even when it knew

  full well that they would anger Washington and threaten the basis of any lasting

  alliance with the United States.

  In short, the United States has been the more fickle partner, its approach to

  Pakistan shifting dramatically across the decades. Pakistan, however, has been

  guilty of greater misrepresentation, claiming support for American purposes

  while turning the U.S. partnership to other ends. As a consequence, both sides

  failed repeatedly to build a relationship to serve beyond the immediate needs of

  the day. Theirs was neither a special relationship of the sort that exists between

  America and Britain, nor a mature alliance like the United States has developed

  with countries such as Japan and South Korea.

  Worse, the on-again, off-again pattern of U.S.-Pakistan cooperation resulted

  in growing mistrust. That historical pattern and its implications for anti-

  American sentiment in Pakistan is the central theme of the third chapter in

  this book. In Pakistan, mistrust of the United States extended well beyond

  the foreign policy elite. Today, Pakistanis high and low wade in a swamp of

  anti-Americanism. The muck seeps into every debate over how best to man-

  age relations with the United States, but it does not stop there. In their public

  and private conversations, Pakistanis routinely hold America responsible for

  an enormous range of events inside their country, sometimes by way of tangled

  conspiracy theories. Whether the conversation turns to government corruption,

  suicide bombers, or routine electrical blackouts, the United States usually takes

  a share of the blame.

  Differences of perception and interest, not to mention a litany of historically

  bound grievances, now divide the two countries. No U.S. public relations cam-

  paign, no matter how sophisticated, will redefine Pakistani attitudes. That said,

  few Pakistanis hate Americans for who they are or what they believe. Tens of

  millions of Pakistanis would gladly live in a society that allowed the personal

  freedoms and opportunities afforded in America. This leaves a narrow but

  important space for hope. Pakistani anti-Americanism is a noxious by-product

  of the interplay between U.S. foreign policies, wider trends within the Muslim

  world, and Pakistan’s own domestic politics. If some or all of these dynamics

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