THE revelation by Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf that in the days after the 9/11 depravity, a senior US official threatened that if Pakistan did not cooperate in the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taleban it would be “bombed back into the Stone Age” is astonishing evidence of the thoughtless and thuggish outlook that has governed the Bush administration. True, at the joint press conference with Musharraf yesterday, the world has by now realized that the man’s words are to be taken with a healthy degree of skepticism.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, America was the beneficiary of a worldwide tidal wave of sympathy and support. The enormity of the crime meant that every right-thinking person, regardless of race or religion, was prepared at that moment to do whatever it took to track down the perpetrators. Pakistanis were no exception. So, for the former US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, to have issued this appalling threat to a longtime friend and ally was deeply repugnant and offensive.
It says much for the dignity and statesmanship of Musharraf that while doing what he knew to be right in aiding the Taleban ouster and the break up of Al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, he has said nothing of the insult until this moment. The Taleban and other Mujahedeen fighters against the Soviet occupation were originally armed and financed by the Americans with the support and assistance of Pakistan. It is one of the great historical ironies that Washington actually helped Osama Bin Laden and his terrorists come into being by training them and arming them to kill Russians. When the United States finally paid the terrible price for this blunder, they immediately turned on the country that had behaved as a loyal ally in their plan. Pakistan had done nothing to deserve being threatened and blackmailed. Among the moves demanded by Armitage in this high-handed manner was that Musharraf’s administration hand over control of Afghan border posts and suppress any popular demonstrations against the US. Islamabad rightly rejected such meddling in its internal affairs.
Pakistan has behaved as it has very largely because confronting the evil of terrorism and those who sponsor it is the right thing for any decent and humane state to do. In so doing Musharraf has taken considerable personal risks, surviving at least one assassination attempt probably mounted by Al-Qaeda. The country helped America defeat the Taleban and has since done its best to isolate resurgence of the Taleban in eastern Afghanistan. But Washington has shown little appreciation. Bush runs a know-nothing, learn-nothing White House and this week proudly announced to the world that he would capture Bin Laden wherever he was, even if it meant going into Pakistan to get him.
America should not think that the way to win and keep allies is to kick them in the face. The harsh truth, now clearly apparent, is that America is increasingly friendless and isolated. And the leadership in Washington endures under the false notion that, if it deems it necessary, it can do anything it wants unilaterally.
