US Attitude To Pakistan: The Bin Laden Factor is by B. Raman, Additional Secretary (Retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and at present Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai (former Madras). He can be reachedby e-mail at: corde@vsnl.com. The article was dated 10/8/1999 and published at the website of South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG) at: www.saag.org. This article has a section entitled: ‘US, Pakistan And Bin Laden: A Chronology (Developments Since September,1998)’.

 

US ATTITUDE TO PAKISTAN: THE BIN LADEN FACTOR
B. Raman

 

EXECUTIVE ASSESSMENT

 

It would be over-optimistic to view the USA's supportive attitude to India during the recent Kargil conflict essentially as an indicator of India's enhanced importance in the US perception.

 

The US attitude, which definitely helped India in finding an end to the conflict earlier than initially apprehended, was partly the result of US concerns over the implications of an armed conflict between two countries with newly-acquired nuclear weapons capabilities, but without as yet well-established safeguards against their unthinking or irrational use and partly a reflection of the increasing exasperation of the US policy-makers in dealing with a Talibanised Afghanistan and a Pakistan, which due to the contagion from a self-created Taliban, runs the risk of degenerating from a progressive Islamic State, as it was valued hitherto, to an epicentre of all the destabilising extremist and terrorist forces of the region, if not the world.

 

The exasperation arises from the non-cooperation of Pakistan with the US in moderating the policies of the Taliban and in bringing to justice Osama bin Laden and the terrorist groups which have gathered around him under the protection of the Taliban and from the constraints on the US which prevent it from dealing punitively with Pakistan in the same way as it normally deals with other perceived proliferators of terrorism.

 

These constraints are due not only to Pakistan's role as a faithful ally in the past and to the importance which Pakistan still enjoys in the eyes of the US as a window on Iran, Iraq and the Muslim majority Xinjiang province of China and as an important US platform in its operations against narcotics production and smuggling, but also to fears that any ill-advised punitive action against Pakistan could prove counter-productive by pushing the nuclear Pakistani State and society further into the hands of extremist and irrational forces .

 

How to guard its still considerable influence over Pakistan's political, military and intelligence leaderships, without letting it be eroded by Pakistani perceptions of an unsympathetic US attitude in Indo-Pakistani matters and, at the same time, how to ensure that the USA's reluctance for punitive action against Pakistan does not encourage it on an adventurist course against India---that is the dilemma facing US policy-makers.

 

This dilemma has been increasingly evident in the case relating to the proliferation of terrorism from Afghanistan and Pakistan in general and to the as yet uncontrolled activities of bin Laden and his groups in particular. Between February,1998, when bin Laden announced the formation of his International Islamic Front for Jihad against the US and Israel and the US bombing of the training camps of these groups in Afghanistan in August,1998, the US pressure was mainly on Afghanistan.

 

Since September,1998, the pressure has been exercised equally on Pakistan in order to make it moderate the activities of the Taliban and induce it to co-operate with the US in bringing bin Laden and his groups to justice. Anger that instead of responding to this pressure, the Pakistani leadership tried to use these groups against India in the Kargil sector was an important factor in the US decision to lean heavily on Pakistan in order to force it to call off its adventurist action.

 

The Taliban's stand is that the US has not been able to produce any credible evidence against bin Laden and that, even if it did, it would like to have him tried under Islamic laws either in Afghanistan itself or in another Muslim country. It is opposed to his being tried in the US or any other Western country under Western laws.

 

Pakistan argues that its influence over the Taliban has been over-stated and that, since bin Laden is in Afghan territory, the matter has to be sorted out by the US directly with the Taliban. Pakistan highlights its co-operation with the US in the arrest and deportation to the US of Mir Aimal Kansi, wanted for the murder of two CIA officers in Washington, Ramzi Yousef, a participant in the New York World Trade Centre bombing in 1993 and an Arab follower of bin Laden allegedly involved in the Nairobi blasts of last year and says it is helpless in the case of bin Laden as he lives in Afghan territory.

 

There are limits to the efficacy of US economic sanctions against the Taliban since the Taliban-led Government in Kabul has managed to run the country since September,1996, without any foreign assistance, mainly with the help of narcotics money and the proceeds of the large-scale smuggling to Pakistan of foreign goods imported into Afghanistan through Karachi without duty under the transit trade agreement with Pakistan.

 

The US has difficulty in declaring Afghanistan as a State sponsor of terrorism since the Burhanuddin Rabbani Government, which controls only 10 per cent of the territory, is still recognised by the UN as the legal Government of Afghanistan and it has no nexus with bin Laden and his groups.

 

Declaring Taliban as an international terrorist organisation also poses a problem for the US since though the Taliban has given shelter to bin Laden and his groups, there is no evidence of its direct involvement in acts of terrorism in foreign countries.

 

Even though allegations are often made in India of the involvement of the Taliban in acts of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir, the Taliban has strongly denied them. It says that while it supports the right of self-determination for the Kashmiris, it would not be in a position to assist them on the ground till it is able to extend its control over the entire Afghan territory.

 

Taliban sources allege that the large number of Afghans operating in Kashmir are the followers of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar of the Hizbe Islami, who have been sent there by the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan, and accuses them of masquerading as Taliban members in order to have it further discredited in the eyes of the world as a terrorist organisation.

 

The limits to the efficacy of US pressure on Pakistan arise from the fact that so many religious organisations, governmental agencies, political parties, non-governmental organisations and senior officers of the military and the intelligence, serving as well as retired, are so inextricably involved with the Taliban, bin Laden and his groups that even if the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr.Nawaz Sharif, wants to co-operate with the US, he might find it difficult to operate through these never-ending layers of protection enjoyed by them.

 

Non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and of terrorism, particularly the State-sponsored variety, has been an important objective of state policy of successive US administrations. These two objectives have acquired an added urgency in the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan because of reports of bin Laden and his groups looking for WMD and of US concerns over the possibility of irrational pro-bin Laden elements in Pakistan's military and scientific establishments helping him in acquiring this capability.

 

The consequent US pressure on Pakistan has been indirectly beneficial to India, but it would be incorrect to jump to the conclusion therefrom that Indo-US relations have taken a turn for the better to the detriment of Pakistan.

 

The attached chronology traces how the US has been steadily building up pressure on Pakistan on this issue since the end of last year.

 

B.RAMAN (10-8-99)

 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com ).