I've spent almost three years now arguing that Pakistan ought to be a top foreign policy priority for the U.S. Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, had - alas, "has" is really more accurate - extensive ties with the Taliban and militant Islamic groups, including A.Q. The ISI is an extremely powerful and not completely controlled force within Pakistan, which itself has a highly dysfunctional political system. And the country is a nuclear power locked in a multi-generational dispute with a neighbouring nuclear power. If you think Iraq was more dangerous than that explosive combination, or even that it was rational to think that Iraq was more dangerous than that explosive combination, I give up on you. I think it's also fair to say that the U.S. has not made Pakistan a top foreign policy priority, and rather that it has tended to downplay some of the more serious concerns about the country.
So I was predisposed to look favourably on a recent piece in the Guardian by Michael Meacher arguing that the U.S. was looking the other way when it came to Pakistan's ties with A.Q. And it isn't a completely bad piece. But then I ran smack into one of the stupider paragraphs I've read in a while:
It has been rumoured that Pearl was especially interested in any role played by the US in training or backing the ISI. Daniel Ellsberg, the former US defence department whistleblower who has accompanied Edmonds in court, has stated: "It seems to me quite plausible that Pakistan was quite involved in this ... To say Pakistan is, to me, to say CIA because ... it's hard to say that the ISI knew something that the CIA had no knowledge of." Ahmed's close relations with the CIA would seem to confirm this. For years the CIA used the ISI as a conduit to pump billions of dollars into militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan, both before and after the Soviet invasion of 1979.Oh, it is rumoured, is it? Well then. What more could we need? How about some speculation about the rumours? And in comes Ellsberg with the speculation. Ellsberg may have hidden wisdom behind those ellipses, but his remarks as presented here are nonsense.
I set the following exercise for the reader: Try and think of a major event during the 90s involving Pakistan which caught the CIA completely off guard. Got it? Now ask yourself: Did the CIA look monstrously stupid for failing to know about it beforehand? Did the ISI manage - somehow - to keep the secret from the CIA? What light might that shed on Ellsberg's claim (as it is presented by the Guardian writer)?
Oy vey.
Moving on, the writer points to the CIA's twisted relationship with the ISI over the years. There is indeed much in that relationship to lament, and I am all in favour of setting the record straight on the long-term damage done to Pakistan (and the rest of the region) as a result of its pawn-status during the Cold War. But if Meacher checks his history books, he will find that the the Soviets withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 1989. Pakistan's geopolitical significance to the U.S. diminished considerably with their departure. Over the 90s, the United States tilted increasingly towards India. The tit-for-tat nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998 prompted the U.S. to impose trade sanctions on both countries, but reflecting long-term interests, the U.S. was decidedly icier towards Pakistan. (The tit-for-tat nuclear tests caught the CIA completely by surprise. That, of course, is the answer to the exercise above.) And the coup which brought Musharraf to power sealed its status as a semi-pariah state. The drift was only reversed by 9/11 which forced both parties to quickly reevaluate their usefulness to one another, and to reforge old ties.
Now, throughout all this, the CIA no doubt maintained contacts with the ISI - institutional contacts of this sort can be awfully stubborn, and they are also useful. Still, the general trend for the last decade and a half has been decidedly in the other direction, and reaching back over that decade and a half to ground claims about the CIA's omniscience is, I think, simply dishonest.
All the same, I would not be at all surprised if the U.S. really was looking the other way as Pakistan covered up some deeply embarrassing pre-911 connections to A.Q. What, in that case, would the motive be?
I think it's obvious: The U.S. has decided that Pakistan's ongoing cooperation - or rather, grudging semi-cooperation - is preferable, all things considered, to a rift brought on by forcing Musharraf to come clean about everything. We can quibble about the terms of the deal (I would). But that does seem to be the deal, and we don't need to play games with highly dubious inferences to explain it.
This kind of silliness drives me nuts, precisely because I desperately want a full and public airing of the history of the U.S.'s relationship with Pakistan. It's a sordid tale, but it is full of lessons about the limits of realpolitik and the law of unintended consequences in foreign policy. What it does not require is embellishment and irresponsible speculation. That only makes it harder to get at the truth, and to convince other people that you've got it, once you have.
Posted by Chris at July 23, 2004 09:26 AM