ANALYSIS: The KL bill is our mistake —Moeed Yusuf

[fatman17]

ANALYSIS: The KL bill is our mistake —Moeed Yusuf

The failure lies in the absence of domestic debate at our end, not in the US having passed a bill they were told (by our government) Pakistanis would welcome. Perhaps next time, the Pakistan government should make it a priority to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page before they send a signal to DC

Pakistan has been the talk of Washington for the past week, with the Kerry-Lugar (KL) Bill at the centre of all discussions and debates. Current Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani has been busy holding press briefings trying to deflect criticism on the KL Bill. Former Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi was also asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Foreign Minister is already in Washington. And next week, a high-powered, unofficial Pakistani delegation is arriving to discuss the Pakistan-US relationship with the DC official enclave and expert community.

Ever since the KL bill was approved, the mood in Pakistan has been militant. The media has gone berserk in opposing the bill and opposition parties and the GHQ have joined the choir. Not many realise that things in Washington are even more charged. Capitol Hill, the White House, and the think tank community alike are taken aback by the reaction in Pakistan. Many, especially in the expert enclave, have a hawkish take: this is American money and if Pakistanis are not happy with what they are getting, perhaps the offer should be withdrawn.

This disconnect between what Pakistan thinks it deserves and what the US is willing to give has serious implications — more serious than most can imagine.

America’s entire outlook towards Pakistan since 9/11 has been based on the ‘buy-out’ model: pay them enough money and get the job done. And our leaders have obliged. Failure of KL would signify a collapse of this model. A rupture will surely hurt US interests in the region. And while this will please many in Pakistan, the more important question for us is how it would impact our interests.

Perhaps the most apt analysis of US and Pakistani interests in Afghanistan in the near term was provided by former Ambassador Lodhi in her recent testimony. In a nutshell, the message was that neither American military escalation nor an abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan was the answer; only a path towards reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban and long-term support to Pakistan to win hearts and minds would do the job. A continuing Pak-US relationship is a prerequisite for this. It is obvious that without Pakistani support, no dialogue with the Afghan Taliban will work. Moreover, there is little the US can do to support Pakistan once the relationship ruptures over the terms of aid.

In essence, while we have tremendous leverage over the US at this point, turning our backs on them serves neither ours nor their interest. Loss of Pakistani support will force the US to look for even more sub-optimal solutions. Perhaps a knee-jerk escalation will occur; failed reconciliation attempts may lead to an abrupt withdrawal. Consideration of Pakistani sensitivities would have gone out of the window by the time things cooled down and America’s Afghan policy will send trouble across the Durand Line even more so than at present. Al Qaeda will gain immensely.

This is precisely the outcome that today worries Pakistani experts who understand the dilemma the Pak-US relationship is in. Lodhi’s testimony is a case in point; any warning against an abrupt US withdrawal or against a policy that ignores the need to support Pakistan is animated by all the above concerns.

If persisting with a healthy relationship with the US is in our interest and if KL’s failure implies a rupture, the obvious next step is to examine whether we can live with the Kerry Bill or get it suitably amended. The latter is out of the question. The current mood in Washington leaves no doubt that if the Bill goes back to Congress, it will be nixed. Also, we hardly have a rebuttal for the question US legislatures are sure to ask were they pushed to reconsider: why did Pakistan not object (in fact why did the Pakistani government and its representatives in DC pursue the Bill so enthusiastically) if these conditionalities were not acceptable? After all, the bill(s) has been floating around for months, and in the case of the Berman bill, with more stringent conditionalities than KL includes in its final shape. This is a valid point.

At Pakistan’s end, the reality is that the PPP government has supported this Bill all along. Many including Ambassador Haqqani genuinely believed that Pakistan was getting a good deal and that the conditionalities were essential to put Pakistan on the right path internally. It is the opposition and GHQ that reject this view. Be that as it may, this is an internal debate, a fight we should have fought at home much before the Bill was passed. Whether those who are opposing it now did not have enough information or chose not to speak up despite knowing what was coming is irrelevant to what happens in Washington.

The Americans are right in contending that they are responsible for dealing with the government, not with the cross-section of Pakistani society. The failure lies in the absence of domestic debate at our end, not in the US having passed a Bill they were told (by our government) Pakistanis would welcome.

So what about KL as it stands; a few simple facts should be kept in mind when deciding whether the Bill is worth it.

One, the total sum promised is meagre if the idea is to rebuild Pakistan. However, spent wisely it can begin to have visible micro-level development impacts. Two, this is despite the fact that no more than 50 percent of the money will contribute to Pakistani development. The rest will be consumed by ‘Beltway bandits’ in DC, Pakistani consulting firms, overheads, etc.

Three, since there is no trust whatsoever in the capacity or sincerity of the present Pakistani authorities to spend the money transparently, a number of projects may be initiated outside the public sector’s control; USAID and Pakistani private entities may have a greater role.

Four, some of the conditionalities should raise serious alarm; concern stems from the fact that we are giving Washington carte blanche on pulling the trigger on aid when it so desires. For instance, the next terrorist attack in India could be swiftly blamed on Pakistan and used to threaten a reversal of the aid. Moreover, ultimately, some of the conditionalities do give the US a greater say in Pakistan’s internal affairs.

Five, the alternative at this point is no money, which our government tells us will put Pakistan in a quandary; if we forego whatever benefit we may have received from this aid, those most vocal in opposing the Bill will be the first to bring the government down for poor economic performance.

Six, rejecting the aid would lead to a flurry of diplomacy on both sides as the US tries to salvage the situation; ultimately, with an amendment from the Hill off the table, the result will be a rupture of the economic relationship.

At this stage, the only give lies in one, requesting the US to increase the proportion of money that will actually reach Pakistan’s development sector; two, funnelling more money through the government so that it has leeway to spend in line with its priorities; and three, getting some unofficial or rhetorical commitment that the conditionalities will not be used as a political tool, as the US did in the case of the Pressler Amendment in 1990.

We should push for the first option and get it our way. The second option no Pakistani wants as our trust in the government is perhaps lower than our trust even in the Americans. The third option, we could try for, but there will never be a guarantee, especially since those negotiating the Bill from the Pakistani side view these conditionalities as politically advantageous.

The bottom line: the Bill is far from ideal but a rupture is worse. Perhaps next time, we could ensure that all Pakistani stakeholders are on the same page before we send a signal to DC. To do so, the government will have to take all views into account and the opposition will have to speak up before the fate of any issue is all but sealed.

The writer is a research fellow at the Strategic and Economic Policy Research (Pvt Ltd.) in Islamabad. He can be contacted at myusuf@sepr.com.pk

 

[EjazR]

DAWN.COM | Columnists | The bad old KLB

SO then, the Kerry-Lugar bill has been signed into law by President Obama. While there are still some squeaks emanating from various ‘quarters’ to the effect that it is a national disgrace to ‘accept’ it, not one voice is saying any of the ‘quarters’ will turn down any moneys that come their way under the self-same Bad Old Bill.

Well, gentlemen, now is the time to say in another press release that you simply will not accept even a single Pakistani paisa (let alone all those luscious, mouth-watering, hundreds of millions of US dollars!) until the language of the bill is changed by the US Congress so that it no longer remains ‘insulting’ and the more ‘furious’ among you are mollified.

And while you are at it, perhaps a separate press release refusing in advance to accept American weapons and equipment surplus to, or left over from, the Iraq mission, including transport such as Humvees and jeeps and heavy vehicles which press reports tell us will be transferred to Pakistan upon American withdrawal from that country.

Whilst some of our Rommels and Guderians who are ‘furious’ today were not even in the army when the great CJ-3 and CJ-5A jeeps and Dodge and 3 and 5-Tonner trucks served us so well, they will have heard how tough and resilient those vehicles were. By the way they were surpluses/used vehicles from the Korean War. One did not detect any ‘fury’ then.

However, American security assistance simply must be rejected by the ‘furious’ because Shah Mehmood’s ‘rushing’ (as friend Ardeshir Cowasjee so well puts it) hither and yon much as a headless chicken, apart from costing the national exchequer another couple of million rupees in expenses has brought us zilch in terms of ‘amending’ the bill.

If I know my English, we received a well-deserved kick in the pants when the Americans said right at the outset of the ‘explanatory’ note that all they were attempting to do was to explain the language of the bill. Indeed, two hours after Shah Mehmood’s claim that the explanatory note would be attached to, i.e., become part of the bill, the White House spokesman said no way was that happening.

As veteran aid receivers (!), we should know that the US, or for that matter any aid-giving country, will attach conditions to that aid. The important, indeed critical, question to ask is why we make such fools of ourselves at regular intervals, making a spectacle of ourselves before the world which well knows us and our shenanigans?

Why do we, most particularly our Guderians and Rommels, forget that during all the years of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s President Reagan used to annually certify to Congress that Pakistan was not in the process of producing nuclear weapons? Where was our ghairat (honour) then? Where was our ‘fury’? Or is it merely the case that there was no grandstanding then because one of their own was ruling the roost?

Or is it the case that the only reason the American boot has landed on the proverbial cat’s tail is because the US Congress wants to see more civilian control of the military; its budget; its promotions to higher ranks et al, all of which happens in democratic, civilised countries? (By the by, in India, promotions and postings of brigadiers/commodores/air commodores and above are subject to approval by the civilian authority.) But no, not in our country where the army considers itself above all else, and arrogates to itself the right to rule supreme. It forgets, of course, that its sycophant’s songs of praise notwithstanding, it has always left the country in a bigger mess than it was in when it took over.

This brings me to a totally misplaced, almost dishonest, likening of the ISPR’s ill-considered press release with the protest of Foreign Office (FO) officers to prevent the posting of a junior DMG officer to Paris as ambassador. How are the two similar, please? The FO did not come out with a statement by its spokesman opposing the appointment. What happened there was that retired ambassadors wrote articles in the press and some FO officers went to court in opposition to the posting. In which way are the two actions comparable?

Also, what is so wrong with the Americans demanding the army stay within the limits imposed upon it by the constitution of Pakistan when all of us have been demanding the exact same for years? Furthermore, it is none other than successive American administrations, mainly Republican, who have supported military dictators against the people of Pakistan – remember the struggle to restore our superior judiciary?

So, if the present American administration under the wise leadership of Barack Obama is trying to cleanse our polity why are we protesting? Remember (as I illustrated last week) the symbiotic relationship, albeit subservient, of our army with the Americans.

But seriously, aid-givers do what they will; aid-receivers should do what they will. The Kerry-Lugar bill was passed by the US Congress, not by the Pakistani parliament. The language used is because the $15bn that were pumped into the country during the Commando’s time in the sun were not accounted for properly. I might add that I was among those who repeatedly pleaded with the Americans through these very columns not to give a single penny to us without setting clear benchmarks and milestones so that the money was used for the purpose it was meant to serve and not diverted elsewhere leaving us in the same hole we were in already, i.e. at the mercy of the yahoos.

If someone doesn’t like the language, let him/her refuse the money. It is as simple as that. Beggars as we all know, cannot be choosers. Finally, let me say that I am all for doing without any aid whatsoever; I am for stepping back a little, and learning to stand on our own feet. If we have to beg for diesel for our tractors why not use bullocks instead? I am serious.

In the end, might I exhort President Asif Zardari to immediately implement the Charter of Democracy?

 

[fatman17]

^^^Kamran Shafi "rant, rant, rant"

---------- Post added at 11:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 AM ----------

Pak civil, military leaders on same page: Kerry

* US senator has ‘positive’ meetings with civil, military leadership
* Don’t play to cheap galleries
* US not forcing Pakistan to take money

 

[A.Rahman]

Its too late now, pani sir sey uper guzar chuka hey.

Right after 9/11 attacks Pakistan should have told Americans that we would not be their pawn in "war of terror".

"Musharraf first" mentality has doomed us all, would take decades to undo the damage.

 

[All-Green]

^^^Kamran Shafi "rant, rant, rant"

---------- Post added at 11:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 AM ----------

Pak civil, military leaders on same page: Kerry

* US senator has ‘positive’ meetings with civil, military leadership
* Don’t play to cheap galleries
* US not forcing Pakistan to take money

Kamran Shafi is indeed ranting now...he is hellbent on bashing the military whereas the issue is not about military...the issue is about the language which clearly could have been avoided without any compromise on the so called values which Kamran Shafi so vehemently supports...

That the US aid is tied to democratically elected government should have been adequate.

That Pakistan should take action against any terrorist organization operating within its boundaries should have sufficed.