Pakistan as a bridge state?

By C. Raja Mohan

HAVING APPOINTED himself the President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrives here next month as the all powerful leader of Pakistan. Many in India would want to hold their noses at receiving a man who has so contemptuously ground into dust the last vestiges of democracy in Pakistan.

But may be there is a silver lining. Could India find an interlocutor in Gen. Musharraf who holds all the levers of power and is in a position to deliver on a lasting understanding with the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, at Agra?

In crowning himself the constitutional dictator of Pakistan, Gen. Musharraf has buried Pakistan's experimentation with democracy in the last decade. But that is one more tragic episode in Pakistan's history. Would India want to be detained by that? There may be very little India can do about supporting democracy in Pakistan. Instead, the immediate question the Government would want to address is the following: What does Gen. Musharraf's consolidation of power mean for the Indian diplomatic strategy at Agra?

The Indian debate on the extent of Gen. Musharraf's control over Pakistan should now come to an end. President Musharraf is here to stay, for the foreseeable future. His ``capabilities'' to deliver on any understanding with Mr. Vajpayee may no longer be in any doubt. What remains to be tested is whether he has the necessary intentions.

The story of the Agra summit will be less about public posturing on the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir and other contentious issues. It will be more about getting a fix on the future direction of Pakistan, and a first-hand assessment on where Gen. Musharraf wants to take his nation. It is also about finding out if Pakistan is interested in a normal relationship with India.

The decision to have Gen. Musharraf and Mr. Vajpayee retreating to Agra is indeed a smart move. Even in its original conception at religious seminaries, retreats were about getting away from the mundane and the tiresome. They were about taking the opportunity to rethink the basics, reflect in calmer surroundings about the future, and quietly pray together for peace and goodwill.

For decades now, all Indian attempts to build peace with Pakistan have turned out to be Sisyphean. India does not have the option of giving up on Pakistan. But once in a while it is worthwhile for India to rethink the strategy towards Pakistan. Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, should provide the setting, and steady monsoon showers the moment, to step back from daily diplomatic posturing and think of the future.

The key questions about Pakistan are obvious. Is Gen. Musharraf serious about setting a different direction for Pakistan? Is he willing to turn the traditional national strategy of Pakistan on its head? Put simply, does Pakistan want to become a ``bridge state'' that thrives by linking three strategic regions of the world? Or would it want to remain a state that revels in militarism, jihad and political blackmail?

Both options involve exploiting Pakistan's geographic inheritance. Pakistan would have amounted to nothing in world politics but for its location. Pakistanis are acutely conscious of their geostrategic significance. The history of Pakistani foreign policy is about putting geography to maximum political use.

The thin strip of territory on the western fringes of the subcontinent turned out to be a very suitable piece of real estate for the West. Pakistan was important for three reasons. One, it was to be the rampart in the Anglo-American defence of oil fields of West Asia (in the famed ``wells of power'' thesis of Sir Olaf Caroe). Two, Pakistan was also to be a ``frontline'' state against Communism in Asia and the staging post to undermine the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union. Third, Pakistan would act as a check against any hegemonic aspirations of India that was drifting away from the West.

Throughout the Cold War, Pakistan derived maximum benefit from its location. And in the decade that followed the Cold War, Islamabad has sought to expand its strategic depth by developing new instruments of intervention - that combined the well known tactics of insurgency and subversion with the potent idea of jihad. But the very success of this strategy may have sown the seeds of Pakistan's destruction.

The jihadis, invented by Pakistan and the West to fight the ``Godless Communists'' in the Soviet Union, have now turned against the United States. They also confront conservative Islam in Saudi Arabia, fight sectarian battles with Iran, and wish to create a caliphate in Central Asia and the Caucasus. While this strategy has given Pakistan an extraordinary leverage against India and other neighbours, it has also created grounds for isolating Pakistan on the international arena.

The creation of a `jihadi international' in the area of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become a burden rather than a benefit for Rawalpindi. It has sullied the image of Pakistan as a nation on the verge of collapse. Coming at a time when the Pakistani economy has not been performing well, the politics of jihad has put Islamabad at the mercy of international financial institutions.

All this has brought Pakistan to a fork in the road. Does it want to continue with jihad and leverage it to change territorial status quo? Or does Pakistan want to become a ``bridge state'' that will link the subcontinent, the Gulf and Central Asia in beneficial flows of trade, commerce and energy? The Pakistani strategic establishment never tires of proclaiming the importance of its geopolitical location. That now begs the question what does Pakistan want to do with it?

The logic of pursuing Pakistan's enlightened self-interest would suggest it would choose to become a bridge state. That by definition would demand a fundamental change of political course in Pakistan.

First, a bridge state puts greater store by geo-economics. But for five decades the Pakistani establishment has believed geopolitics is everything. Its motto was simple: get the geopolitical equations right and economic requirements will take care of themselves. But in an age when globalisation dominates over the traditional politics of balance of power, the Pakistani elite has found itself a fish out of water.

It has taken more than a decade for the Pakistani Army to figure out, in the words of Gen. Musharraf, that there may be a glaring ``incompatibility'' between Pakistan's standing as a nuclear weapon power and its parlous economy. The logic of becoming a bridge state would demand that Pakistan shed its ideological adventurism and adopt economic pragmatism.

Second, a bridge state would go out of the way to either dampen or resolve its real and potential conflicts with the neighbouring states. A bridge state seeks economic prosperity and political influence by ensuring harmonious relations with its neighbours. But the politics of jihad has put Pakistan at odds with not just India but with long-standing friends like Iran, caused alarm among other old allies like China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The bridge state, by choice, would have to be ideologically moderate, put the worship of commerce a little above that of God? Think of Singapore in South-East Asia and Dubai in the Gulf. Does Pakistan have what it takes to become such a bridge state in our region. Is it ready to resolve the outstanding regional conflicts on a reasonable basis?

If Pakistan wants to be a bridge state that is ideologically moderate, economically pragmatic and supportive of regional stability, it would want to end the five-decades-old policy of compulsive hostility against India. It would want to build normal relations with a neighbour.

If the answer from Gen. Musharraf is positive, it is within the realm of diplomatic possibility to structure an understanding at Agra on how to move forward on all issues, including the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.

If Gen. Musharraf, on the other hand, says he is irrevocably committed to jihad and a redrawing of the subcontinental borders in blood, India will have no option but return to a policy of active containment of Pakistan.

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