TARIQ, ali - The Duel

  PRAISE FOR The Duel

  “Ali applies his caustic pen to descriptions of [Pakistan’s] leaders. . . . Ali offers strongly argued opinions on the past, and his preferred future, of Pakistani politics.”

  —Booklist

  “Ali carefully examines Pakistan’s long, troubled relationship with America . . . intense, closely observed commentary on perilous developments in an unstable nation.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This is a provocative history . . . the narrative is analytical with an undertone of love for a people. . . . The Duel is an important book. . . . It is written in an engaging and accessible style. As the U.S. widens its war against those who would defy its designs into Pakistan, it becomes essential reading for anyone who refuses to accept the Orientalist narrative spewed by the policy makers in Washington, D.C.”

  —Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch

  “Hard-hitting . . . a must-read.”

  —Atlantic Free Press

  “The Duel is a strongly written, well-argued, and readily accessible work.”

  —The Palestine Chronicle

  “The Duel offers a detailed and impassioned history.”

  —Mohammed Hanif, The Guardian (UK)

  “This sprightly romp should be read by anyone who wants real insights into Pakistan. It is as good a primer on Pakistani politics as you will find.”

  —The Spectator (London)

  The Duel

  PAKISTAN ON THE FLIGHT PATH OF AMERICAN POWER

  TARIQ ALI

  SCRIBNER

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  Copyright © 2008 by Tariq Ali

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  First Scribner trade paperback edition September 2009

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008018358

  ISBN 978-1-4165-6101-9

  ISBN 978-1-4165-6102-6 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4165-6118-7 (eBook)

  Map on p. xvi is courtesy of the New Left Review.

  for

  Tahira, Tauseef, Kamila, and Mishael,

  four generations of Lahoris

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  1. Pakistan at Sixty: A Conflagration of Despair

  2. Rewinding Pakistan: Birth of Tragedy

  3. The Washington Quartet: The Man Who Would Be Field Marshal

  4. The Washington Quartet: The General Who Lost a Country

  5. The Washington Quartet: The Soldier of Islam

  6. The Washington Quartet: The General as Chief Executive

  7. The House of Bhutto: Daughter of the West

  8. On the Flight Path of American Power

  9. Operation Enduring Freedom: Mirage of the “Good” War

  10. Can Pakistan Be Recycled?

  Epilogue: The Zardari Interregnum

  Index

  PREFACE

  BOOKS HAVE A DESTINY. THIS IS MY THIRD STUDY OF PAKISTAN. The first, Pakistan: Military Rule or People’s Power?, was written in 1969 and predicted the breakup of the state. It was banned in Pakistan. Critics of every persuasion, even those who liked the book, thought it was going too far in suggesting that the state could disintegrate, but a few years later that is exactly what happened. Just over a decade later I wrote Can Pakistan Survive? The question mark was not unimportant but nonetheless struck a raw nerve in General Zia’s Pakistan, where to even pose the question was unacceptable. The general himself was extremely angry about its publication, as were sections of the bureaucracy, willing instruments of every despotism. Zia attacked both me and the book at a press conference in India, which was helpful and much appreciated by the publisher’s sales department. That book too was banned, but to my delight was shamelessly pirated in many editions in Pakistan. They don’t ban books anymore, or at least not recently, which is a relief and a small step forward.

  When I left in 1963, the country consisted of West and East Pakistan. Eight years later the East defected and became Bangladesh. The population of the Western wing was then 40–45 million. It has grown phenomenally ever since and is now approaching the 200 million mark. The under-thirties constitute a majority.

  This book centers on the long duel between a U.S.-backed politico-military elite and the citizens of the country. In earlier years the State Department would provide the seconds for the duel, but with U.S. troops now in neighboring Afghanistan and U.S. bombs falling on homes inside Pakistan, the conflict is assuming a more direct form. Were it to proceed further, as some have been arguing in Washington, there is a distinct possibility that serious cracks would threaten the much-vaunted unity of the Pakistan military high command. The relationship with Washington, always controversial in the country, now threatens the Pakistan army. Political commentators in the United States together with a cabal of mimics in Pakistan regularly suggest that an Islamist revolution is incubating in a country that is seriously threatened by “jihadi terrorists.” The only function of such a wild assertion is to invite a partial U.S. occupation and make the jihadi takeover a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  The most important aspect of the duel is not the highly publicized conflict in Waziristan, but the divide between the majority of the people and their corrupt, uncaring rulers. This duel is often fought without weapons, sometimes in the mind, but it never goes away. An important reason for the deep hostility to the United States has little to do with religion, but is based on the knowledge that Washington has backed every military dictator who has squatted on top of the country. With Pakistan once again a strategic asset, the fear is that Washington will do so again, since it regards the military as the only functioning institution in the country, without showing any signs of comprehension as to why this is the case. This book might help in this regard.

  What explains my continuing interest in Pakistan? I was born and educated there. Most of my family still lives there, and in periods when I haven’t been banned from entering the country, I visit regularly. I enjoy running into old friends and acquaintances, especially now that most of them have retired from important positions and can speak openly and laugh again. I never feel alone in Pakistan. Something of me stayed behind in the soil and the trees and the people so even in bad times I am welcome.

  I love the mountains. At least they can’t be skyscrapered and forced to look like Dubai. Palm trees, Gulf kitsch, and the Himalayas don’t mix, not that it prevents some from trying. The cityscapes are something else. They have greatly changed over the years; new unplanned and poorly designed buildings have wrecked most of the larger towns. In Islamabad, the capital, one of the U.S. architects who built the city in the late sixties, Edward Stone, was unhappy with the site because it sat on a geological fault line and had weak soil. He advised that no building higher than three stories should ever be built there. He was ignored
by the military dictator of the day. When a massive earthquake hit the country in 2005, buildings trembled all over Islamabad. I was there during the aftershocks, which were bad enough.

  It was not only the earthquake that hurt Pakistan. This latest tragedy brought other wounds to the surface. A deeper and darker malaise, barely noticed by the elite and taken for granted by most citizens, had infected the country and was now publicly visible. The earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people shone a light on a country tainted by corrupted bureaucrats, army officers, and politicians, by governments rotten to the core, by protected mafias, and by the bloated profits of the heroin industry and the arms trade. Add to this the brutal hypocrisy of the Islamist parties, which exploit the state religion, and the picture is complete. Many ordinary people on the street, unsurprised by tales of privilege and graft, viewed the disaster in this context. At a state school in Lahore, students collecting toys for the children who’d survived the tragedy were asked whom they would like to address them. They voted unanimously against any politician, army officer, or civilian bureaucrat. They wanted a doctor.

  None of this, of course, explains the urge to keep writing about a country. The reason is simple. However much I despise the callousness, corruption, and narcissism of a degenerate ruling elite, I have never allowed that to define my attitude toward the country. I have always harbored a deep respect and affection for the common people, whose instincts and intelligence, despite high levels of illiteracy, consistently display a much sounder appreciation of what the country requires than those who have lorded it over them since 1947. Any independentminded Pakistani journalist or writer will confirm this view.

  The people cannot be blamed for the tragedies that have afflicted their country. They are not to blame for the spirit of hopelessness and inescapable bondage that sometimes overcomes them. The surprise is that more of them don’t turn to extremist religious groups, but they have generally remained stubbornly aloof from all that, which is highlighted in every election, including the latest, held in February 2008. Given the chance, they vote in large majorities for those who promise social change and reforms and against those in power. They are always disappointed.

  COLIN ROBINSON, my long-standing editor, first at Verso, later at the New Press, and now at Scribner, was strongly convinced that I should write this book long before I was. His persistence paid off. His instincts were better than mine. As I was working on the book, Mary-Kay Wilmers, stern janitor of the London Review of Books, plucked a lengthy extract from the work-in-progress on Benazir Bhutto’s return home. It was, as readers will discover, sharply critical. Two weeks after I delivered it, as I was working on this manuscript, Bhutto was assassinated. Sentiment dictated I soften the prose, but despite my sadness and anger at her death, I resisted. As the German writer Lessing once remarked, “The man who presents truth in all sorts of masks and disguises may be her pander, but never her lover.” And truth usually visits Pakistan in whispers. We owe it to the people to speak our minds. The death of Benazir, whom I knew well over many years, was undoubtedly tragic. But not sufficient reason to change my assessment. That she handed over her party to her husband till her son came of age was a sad reflection on the state of democratic politics in Pakistan and confirmed my judgment. The country needs a break from uniforms and dynasties.

  My thanks are due to numerous people in Pakistan from all walks of life, from peasants and trade unionists to generals, civil servants, and old friends, who spoke without inhibition during my trips over the last few years. Naming them would not necessarily be construed as friendly. Thanks also, as always, to Susan Watkins, my companion for almost three decades, a friendly but firm editor of the New Left Review, as many contributors (myself included) have discovered.

  When I began to write this book a London friend asked, “Isn’t it reckless to start a book while the dice is still in the air?” If I waited for the dice to fall, I would never have written anything on Pakistan.

  TARIQ ALI

  APRIL 5, 2008

  The Duel

  1

  PAKISTAN AT SIXTY

  A Conflagration of Despair

  THE TWENTIETH CENTURY WAS NOT KIND TO PAKISTAN. THE LAST three decades, in particular, had witnessed a shallow and fading state gradually being reduced to the level of a stagnant and treacherous swamp. Business, official and unofficial, flourished at various points, but without the aid of education, technology, or science. A tiny number of people acquired gigantic fortunes, and the opening of a Porsche showroom in Islamabad in 2005 was greeted with loud hurrahs and celebrated as one indicator among others of a country that had, at long last, achieved modernity. What was forgotten were the latest malnutrition statistics that revealed a startling fact: the height of the average citizen was on the decline. According to the latest United Nations Population Fund figures, 60 percent of children under five were moderately or severely stunted.

  Few among the rich cared about the underprivileged. The needs of ordinary people, their tattered lives, the retreat to religion, a thriving black market, armed clashes between different Muslim factions, war on the western frontier, and assassination of political leaders—none of this affected the rich too much. The thunder of money drowned out all other noises. Most of the mainstream political parties, like their Western cousins, no longer subscribed to programs rooted in ideology, but instead became dependent on cronyism, clientilism, and soulless followers. The organizational goal has become strictly personal: sinecures, money, power, and unquestioning obedience to the leader or, in some cases, to the army as collective leader. Notables in each party are hostile to every genuine talent. Political positions as well as parliamentary seats are rarely determined on merit. A pure character or a sharp intellect is virtually a disqualification.

  When an individual turns sixty s/he gazes in the mirror and is either pleased or filled with discomfort. It’s a great pity that a country cannot view itself in similar fashion. It becomes necessary for someone else— artist, poet, filmmaker, or writer—to become the mirror.

  The sixtieth anniversary year of Pakistan, 2007, when power appeared to be draining away from the dictator, seemed a good moment to observe the country firsthand. The cities of the plain are best avoided in August, when the rains come and transform them into a huge steam bath. When I lived there, we usually fled to the mountains, where the Himalayan breezes keep the atmosphere permanently refreshed. In 2007 I stayed put. The monsoon season can be hazardous but needs to be experienced once in a while, simply to access the old memory bank. The real killer is a debilitating humidity. Relief arrives in short bursts: a sudden stillness followed by the darkening of the sky, thunderclaps sounding like distant bombs, then the hard rain. Rivers and tributaries quickly overflow. Flash floods make cities impassable. Sewage runs through slums and wealthier neighborhoods alike. Stench transcends class barriers, and even those accustomed to leaping from air-conditioned rooms to air-conditioned cars can’t completely escape the smell.

  The contrast between climate and the hopeless world of official politics could not be more striking. The latter is a desert. The reliction is complete. Not even an imaginary oasis in sight. Popular disillusionment and resentment is widespread. The large hoardings promoting the cult of the Big Leader (General Musharraf)/Small Leader (provincial shadows with no personality of their own) have assumed a nauseating and nightmarish quality. One of the older sources of official legitimacy—the cultivation of anti-Indian/anti-Hindu fervor—has also run dry. August 14, the country’s red-letter day marking its independence, is even more artificial and irritating than before. A cacophony of meaningless slogans impress nobody, as countless clichés of chauvinistic self-adulation in newspaper supplements compete for space with stale photographs of the country’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the eternal poet laureate, Allama Iqbal, that have been seen on hundreds of previous occasions. Add to this banal panel discussions in the videosphere, all reminding us of what Jinnah had said or not said. As ever, this is accompani
ed by a great deal of whinging about how the perfidious Lord Mountbatten and his “promiscuous” wife, Edwina (her love affair with Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru is treated as a political event by Pakistani blowhards), had favored India when it came to a division of the spoils. It’s true, but who cares now? The odd couple can’t be blamed for the wreck that the country has become. In private, of course, there is much more soul-searching, and one often hears a surprising collection of people who now feel the state should never have been founded.

  Several years after the breakup of the country in 1971, I wrote a book called Can Pakistan Survive? It was publicly denounced and banned by the dictator of the day, General Zia-ul-Haq, the worst ever in the country’s history. Under his watch the country was heavily “Islamized,” its political culture brutalized with dissidents flogged in public. His ghastly legacy appears to have left a permanent mark. My book was pirated in many editions and, as I was later told, read carefully by a number of generals. In it I argued that if the state carried on in the same old way, some of the minority provinces left behind might also defect, leaving the Punjab alone, strutting like a cock on a dunghill. Many who bitterly denounced me as a traitor and renegade are now asking the same question. It’s too late for regrets, I tell them. The country is here to stay. It’s not the mystical “ideology of Pakistan” or even religion that guarantees its survival, but two other factors: its nuclear capacity and the support it receives from Washington. Were the latter to decide that Pakistan needed a soft balkanization—for instance, the detachment of the North-West Frontier Province and its merger with a NATO-occupied Afghanistan—then China might feel obliged to step in to preserve the existing state. One of the basic contradictions confronting the country has become even more pronounced: thousands of villages and slums remain without electricity or running water. The wooden plow coexists with the atomic pile. This is the real scandal.