Obama’s Pakistan plan

By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, 07 Apr, 2009

WITH his March 27 address televised live from the White House as Secretaries Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates stood by his side, President Barack Obama embarked on America’s fourth venture in Pakistan.

The previous three had not ended happily. This time the Americans may have greater success if they are careful about learning some lessons from their previous engagements.

America’s first deep involvement in Pakistan was in the early 1960s. It was designed to curb the advance of communism into the heartland of Asia. Pakistan signed on to become a link in the chain that the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower was throwing around the communist world. According to today’s rates some $5bn flowed into Pakistan from the US in the 1960-65 period. It included both military assistance and economic aid.

One of the monuments to that engagement is the large cantonment at Kharian built to American specifications. The assumption was that if the American troops needed to move into Pakistan they would have a place from where they could operate. However, this association between the two countries came to an abrupt end when Pakistan went to war with India in September 1965. The US refused to side with its ally and significantly scaled down its involvement in Pakistan. The second engagement came in the 1980s when Pakistan was recruited as an active partner in America’s campaign to dislodge the Soviet Union from neighbouring Afghanistan. This time the American support was directed at achieving three goals: energising and equipping the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets, helping the Pakistani military improve its operational capability just in case the Soviets extended their reach to Pakistan, and providing some support to the economy.

About $12bn of American money, again in today’s prices, flowed into Pakistan. The American effort ended abruptly once the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan.

Washington’s mission had been accomplished and it did not need Pakistan any more. The third American effort was launched after 9/11. It was meant to secure Pakistan’s cooperation to remove the Taliban and the Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. About $12bn worth of assistance was provided to Islamabad over the years between 2000 and 2007.

Although the military was the main beneficiary, Washington helped Islamabad ease its external debt burden. Pakistan’s debt to the US was written off and other western capitals were encouraged to follow suit. These measures created fiscal space for the central government in Pakistan which allowed it to pump money into the stagnating economy.

This engagement has not ended. In fact, it has morphed into a different kind of involvement.

This time President Obama has promised to be involved in Pakistan’s affairs in a different way. The objectives of engagement spelled out by him on March 27 are limited in scope but extended in time. What limits the involvement is the need to ensure that Pakistan’s territory, in particular its wild west, is not used by Islamic extremists of various hues to launch attacks on America and its assets in different parts of the world.

What is likely to be an involvement over an extended period of time is the goal of modernising the Pakistani society, polity and economy.

This will help America with the world of Islam since Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country in the world. Not only that, it occupies an exceptionally delicate geographic space, one that is very important for America’s strategic interests. Obama did not call his enterprise nation-building since that term was thoroughly discredited by President George W. Bush’s unfortunate and ill-advised Iraq adventure.

America’s planned association with Pakistan, this time under the direction of President Obama, comes with the promise of a steady flow of a decent amount of money. As much as $1.5bn a year is being promised and an act of Congress will ensure that it will not be suddenly halted. The initial promise is for five years.

This amount is of about the same order as provided in the three previous periods of American involvement. But there are differences. This time the recipient of aid will be a democratically elected government and the main purpose will be sustained economic and social development. That said, a number of questions await answers. Among them: how will this money be used, who will use it, how will its use be monitored, what institutional mechanisms will be deployed to ensure its effective use?

Pakistan has a good record of using foreign money for implementing large projects. The most impressive example of this are the Indus Water Replacement works executed over a period of 10 years at a cost of $10bn in current dollars. It has, however, a poor record of using external funds for social development and also for bringing about long-postponed structural changes in the economy.

The most obvious example of the failure of a multi-billion dollar soft programme is the World Bank’s Social Action Programme, the SAP, which was expected to significantly increase enrolment of children in primary schools, provide basic healthcare to the poor, and socially and economically empower women.

SAP failed almost totally. The main reason was that those who designed the programme failed to strengthen the institutions that were to bring about these changes. In other words, Pakistan seems to be able to handle ‘hard’ projects but not ‘soft’ programmes. But if President Obama’s speech is an indication of the direction the new American programme is likely to take, it is the soft side of development that will receive very high priority.

The theory behind this approach is simple; it is also correct. It has now been concluded in Washington that the use of force alone will not eliminate the danger posed by extremism in places such as Pakistan. The destructive ideology pursued by a segment of the population is attractive for the youth who have lost faith in their future. This has happened because they have not benefited from the economic growth that has taken place since most of its rewards were captured by a few.

In recent years, interpersonal and inter-regional disparities have widened considerably creating an enormous amount of resentment among those who have been left behind and also in the regions of the country that have done less well. It is these deprived people that have taken up the cause of Islamic extremism and they are most active in the more backward regions of the country.

For the new American effort to succeed in Pakistan and for President Obama to achieve the objectives, the ground will have to be carefully prepared before money starts flowing in. How this should be done is the subject I will turn to next week.