Pakistan’s former envoy Husain Haqqani is convinced that Islamabad will use the upcoming US supply of nearly $1 billion worth of helicopters, missiles and other
military hardware against India instead of the professed objective of battling jehadists.
“Pakistan’s failure to tackle its jehadist challenge is not the result of a lack of arms but reflects an absence of will,” Haqqani writes in a scathing opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, cautioning the Obama administration: “Unless Pakistan changes its worldview, American weapons will end up being used to fight or menace India and perceived domestic enemies instead of being deployed against jehadists.”
In the article, titled “Why Are We Sending This Helicopter to PakistanIJ”, Haqqani writes: “It’s a mystery why the President (Barack Obama) suddenly trusts Pakistan’s military — after mistrusting it at the time of the Navy SEAl operation in May 2011 that found and killed Osama bin laden living safely until then in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.”
“If the Obama administration believes Pakistan’s military has really changed its priorities, it should consider leasing helicopters to Pakistan and verify where they are deployed before going through with outright sales,” suggests Haqqani, who was Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US from 2008 to 2011 and is currently director for South and Central Asia at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.
“Given Pakistan’s history, it is likely that the 15 AH-1Z Viper helicopters and 1,000 Hellfire missiles — as well as communications and training equipment being offered to it — will be used against secular insurgents in southwest Baluchistan province, bordering Iran, and along the disputed border in Kashmir rather than against the jehadists in the northwest bordering Afghanistan,” he writes.
After the Peshawar school massacre last December, the Pakistani military has gone all-out against terrorist groups responsible for mayhem inside Pakistan. “But the destruction, demobilisation, disarmament or dismantling of Afghan Taliban and other radical groups is clearly not on the Pakistani State’s agenda,” Haqqani says, noting: “There has been no move against Kashmir-oriented jihadist groups.”
Haqqani, who has had a running battle with the Generals back home for years, believes competition with India continues to be the overriding consideration in Pakistan’s foreign and domestic policies.
And the US, by aiding Islamabad to the tune of some $40 billion since 1950 (according to the Congressional Research Service), has only “fed Pakistan’s delusion of being India’s regional military equal”, he says, noting that while seeking security against a much larger neighbour is a rational objective but seeking parity with it on a constant basis is not.
“Clearly, with the latest military package, the Obama administration expects to continue the same policies adopted by several of its predecessors — and somehow get different results,” Haqqani notes, remarking: “Instead of selling more military equipment to Pakistan, US officials should convince Pakistan that its ambitions of rivaling India are akin to Belgium trying to rival France or Germany.
India’s population, after all, is six times larger than that of Pakistan and India’s economy is 10 times bigger, he says, pointing out that while India’s $2 trillion economy has managed consistent growth, Pakistan’s $245 billion economy has “grown sporadically and is undermined by jihadist terrorism and domestic political chaos”.
“Pakistan also continues to depend on Islamist ideology — through its school curricula, propaganda and Islamic legislation — to maintain internal nationalist cohesion, which inevitably encourages extremism and religious intolerance,” Haqqani writes.