Pakistan

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is under increasing pressure from NATO and the United States to clamp down on Taliban militants, but internal resistance from Pakistani Islamists is preventing him from acting more forcefully.

Taliban fighters have stepped up their attacks along the Afghan-Pakistani border as the United States hands over control of southern Afghanistan to NATO forces, freeing up American troops to try, once again, to stem the flow across the frontier.

As President Bush heads to Pakistan, security in the Islamic nation is a primary issue. Under President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan has made strides to curb extremism and reform Islamic education. But critics say the Pakistani security services are not doing enough to prevent members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda from using bases in Pakistan to conduct armed attacks on neighboring India and Afghanistan.

This publication is now archived. Could the October 8 earthquake help bring peace between India and Pakistan?India and Pakistan have clashed over the disputed region of Kashmir since 1947, when the two countries were partitioned into separate states following the end of British colonial rule. The devastating earthquake—which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and struck the Pakistan-controlled region of Kashmir—killed tens of thousands of people and left millions homeless. It has also triggered international attention on the region’s peace process, which experts say could be accelerated in the wake of the Kashmir quake. There are some precedents: The 1999 earthquake in the Marmara region of Turkey prompted Greek expressions of sympathy that improved relations between the traditional rivals, and the Indonesian government and Aceh separatists agreed to a peace deal after the December 2004 tsunami ravaged the region. “As a general rule, these kinds of large-scale natural disasters do tend to have an impact, directly or indirectly,” says Stephen Cohen, senior fellow in foreign policy studies and a South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution. Has India offered Pakistan aid since the earthquake?Yes. Pakistan has accepted twenty-five tons of food, medicine, tents, blankets, and plastic sheets from India, but rejected India’s offer of helicopters to assist with relief efforts. Islamabad has also been cool to the possibility of conducting joint military-rescue operations. Experts say Pakistan has long been suspicious of its neighbor and will not allow Indian military helicopters to fly over its territory.  “It’s very telling which one Pakistan accepted,” says Mahnaz Ispahani, adjunct senior fellow for South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. What is the basic conflict over Kashmir? Each side claims the mountainous province, home to about 10 million people, as its own. At the time of partition, Kashmir’s maharaja chose to join India, a primarily Hindu state, though the majority of the prince’s subjects were Muslim. India claims this decision, as well as elections held since then in Kashmir, make the province an integral part of India. Islamabad argues that the people of the province would choose to join Pakistan if given the choice; in 1948, UN Security Council Resolution 47 called for a plebiscite to let Kashmiri citizens decide which country to join. This vote never took place, man experts say because India rejected the resolution’s plan for a truce. Islamic militants have led an insurgency in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir since 1989. India accuses Pakistan’s government of supporting the militants; Pakistan denies the charge. The two countries fought wars over Kashmir in 1947, 1965, and 1971. In 2002, escalating tensions—caused, at least partly, by an attack against India’s parliament building by Islamic militants—led each country to amass hundreds of thousands of troops along Kashmir’s de facto border, the Line of Control, which brought the nuclear-armed nations to the brink of war. Has any progress been made in negotiations?Not much, experts say. Since relations began warming between India and Pakistan in the spring of 2003, the steps forward have been small and slow. Negotiations on issues from trade to transportation links have yielded some symbolic successes—like the April 7, 2005, opening of a bus line that crosses the Line of Control—but few concrete gains have been made on the most important areas of conflict. “The Indians don’t want to make concessions and don’t think they have to; the Pakistanis feel that after investing fifty-five years trying to get a change in Kashmir, they should get some concessions,” Cohen says. Pakistan has suggested India withdraw some of the 350,000 troops it has stationed in Kashmir; India refuses. “The criteria for an agreement is that both sides can declare victory,” Cohen says; experts say the two sides are far from reaching such a point, but remain hopeful some sort of reconciliation can be reached. Despite the October 29th bombings in New Delhi, which India blames on Pakistani militants who are against Indian rule in Kashmir, the two countries have made concerted and uncharacteristic efforts to maintain good relations. Just hours after the attack, which killed at least fifty-nine people, the two governments agreed to open five points along the Kashmiri Line of Control to help reunite families and transfer relief supplies to the devastated region. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who denies his country’s involvement in the attacks, was quick to condemn the terrorist act and promised "unequivocal support for the investigation." How did the earthquake impact Islamic militant groups in Kashmir?The leader of the militant group Hezb-ul-Mujahadeen called for a ceasefire October 11 in the Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir affected by the earthquake. While ceasefires are “always relevant,” Ispahani says, she and other experts question if this one will have a lasting impact. It could be a political ploy, they say, because most of the militant bases are on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control and likely have been destroyed by the earthquake. While Pakistan has repeatedly denied Indian accusations that it supports and arms Kashmiri militants, experts say it could do more to stop them. “If Musharraf wanted to crack down on the militants, he should do it now,” Cohen says. “But [he won’t], because people in his government would then say, ‘What leverage do we have over India?’” Is there political will on both sides to reach an agreement?Experts agree that, in order to reach an agreement on such a longstanding and intractable problem as the status of Kashmir, both Indians and Pakistanis must have a change of heart about their neighbors. This hasn’t quite happened, experts say. Ispahani says Pakistani news announcers still denounce the “Indian occupiers” in Kashmir, and India seems equally unwilling to compromise. “It’s an important time for those concerned with pushing [negotiations forward] to think about how to make that a priority,” Ispahani says. “[The earthquake] should have an impact. Whether it will or not depends on the political will on both sides.” Is there precedent for natural disasters affecting politics in Pakistan?The 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed more than half a million people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and the 1974 earthquake that hit the northeastern Pakistani town of Patan, killing 5,000, hurt the credibility of the country’s leadership, under General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, respectively. In the current disaster, experts say the slow pace of relief efforts—which are increasingly being criticized by the earthquake’s victims—could hurt Musharraf. His critics and political rivals, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, could say, “It’s a military dictatorship, but where are the results?” Cohen says. That pressure, in turn, “might weaken Musharraf and make him less able to negotiate” with India, he says.

India and Pakistan have disputed the mountainous territory of Kashmir since the end of British colonialism led to independence and the partition of the two states in 1947. India controls about 55,000 square miles of the territory, Pakistan about 32,000 square miles. The province is divided by an unofficial border known as the Line of Control. The majority of Kashmir’s 10 million residents are Muslim. Clashes over Kashmir have caused two of the three wars between the two countries in the last half-century; fighting in the region has killed at least 65,000 people since 1989. William Milam, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan (1998-2001) and Bangladesh (1990-93) and currently a senior policy scholar on South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars talks to cfr.org’s Esther Pan about the impact of the recent earthquake on India-Pakistan relations. Please give an assessment of the October 8 earthquake’s potential impact on relations between India and Pakistan. It could go either way. India rushed to offer aid and Pakistan accepted, which will make things a little easier. But I’m not certain it will have much impact at all [in the long run]. I hope it does, but it’s not clear to me that it will help move things along. The difficulties are deep, and there are still hesitations on both sides. Was it unprecedented for Pakistan to accept relief aid and food from India? I don’t know if it’s ever happened before. It hadn’t happened in my time. Why was Pakistan willing to accept relief supplies but not helicopters or helicopter flights from India? Was that a military issue? Pakistan has always been very suspicious of letting Indians fly over their territory. There was a period when airplanes weren’t allowed to fly out of Delhi or even Islamabad; foreign airlines weren’t allowed to fly over some parts of Pakistan. I remember the flights had to go further north to get to Western Europe. One of the leaders of an Islamic Kashmiri resistance group, the Hezb-ul-Mujahadeen, which is based on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, called a ceasefire October 11 in areas of Indian-controlled Kashmir affected by the earthquake. What impact will that decision have? It’s a nice move. One of the major issues for the Indians is the continuance of cross-border terrorism [across the Line of Control]. They keep bringing it up in the meetings with the Pakistanis. Has there ever been this kind of ceasefire called? I’m not certain the Hezb-ul-Mujahadeen has ever called a ceasefire. There have been ceasefires along the Line of Control between the two armies, and still are, but in terms of the insurgencies, I haven’t heard of it. Do you think this earthquake could play the same role as the recent tsunami in Indonesia—that is, bring the two sides closer together and potentially lead to an agreement? Both sides have to really change their mindset about the other side and about the situation in Kashmir. But it seems as if the cooperation and goodwill on both sides during this crisis will help move that mindset forward. On both sides, I might add. What about the timing? India and Pakistan have been making quite a few friendly steps lately and the rhetoric over the last six months or so seemed much more welcoming than at other points in the past. On the Pakistani side there’s a definite will to move beyond where they were two years ago, and I think there’s been a good deal of forward movement. I don’t like to say anything that kills so many people is opportune in any way, but the peace process was progressing anyway, slowly. Whether [the earthquake] will speed it up or not is unclear to me. The tragedy itself is so devastating, that’s where the focus will lie for the next few weeks. You mentioned political will on the Pakistani side. Do you think the same political will exists on the Indian side? I’m not an expert on Indian affairs. I can only tell you I’ve heard a lot of my Pakistani sources and friends keep wishing there was quicker movement on the Indian side to acknowledge there needs to be some mutually-agreed solution in the future. And what about steps like starting the bus service across the Line of Control? Those are all helpful, but I think many of the Pakistanis are concerned—and I don’t speak for them, of course—that while India is very willing to being forthcoming on things like bus and train and communication links, it seems not to have moved in an intellectual way on the core issue, which is [the fate of] Kashmir. Is a major issue allowing Kashmiris to vote for which country they would like to join, as called for by the 1948 UN Resolution 47? Not at all. Pakistan has already moved beyond the position of the UN referendum. I don’t want to put too much meat on those bones, but many thinking Pakistanis worry the Indians are not moving quickly enough with regard to the mindset they need to be in to have a final resolution of this Kashmir problem. It will take many years, anyway. It’s a long, drawn-out process. But you feel like the willingness is there on the Pakistani side? Willingness to move into a process, yes. I’m not sure the Pakistanis have yet understood—and may not for a long time—that there will have to be some trades on both sides.

This publication is now archived. Is Pakistan an effective ally of the United States? Yes and no, experts say. President Pervez Musharraf accommodated U.S. requests for assistance after 9/11, especially in the search for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. "The United States and [President] Bush have confidence in Musharraf. He’s seen as the best alternative in Pakistan," says Mahnaz Ispahani, senior fellow for South and West Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. At the same time, many experts say Musharraf is not doing enough to crack down on Islamic radicals in Pakistan who have strong ties to theTaliban and sympathies for al Qaeda. What has Pakistan done in the war on terror? Pakistan joined the U.S. war on terror and broke relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban government, to the chagrin of many Pakistanis. In June 2003, Bush announced that Pakistan had arrested more than 500 Taliban and Qaeda members. One of the most significant catches: the March 2003 arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former No. 3 leader of al Qaeda and the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Pakistan has also deployed 25,000 troops to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the mountainous region that borders Afghanistan, to track Qaeda fugitives. Why do critics say it hasn’t done enough? Many critics doubt the loyalty of Pakistan’s armed forces and the military’s intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence; some members of both have openly sympathized with al Qaeda and its fight against the West. Pakistani military officers have recently been arrested for alleged ties to al Qaeda, including a solider who reportedly sheltered Mohammed. And politicians in Musharraf’s government express open admiration for al Qaeda. In addition, the government hasn’t been able to locate bin Laden or other Qaeda figures thought to be hiding out in border regions. That’s partially because many locals revere bin Laden and his fellow extremists. "Nobody will turn them over," says Kathy Gannon, Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Associated Press Pakistan and Afghanistan bureau chief since 1989. What were U.S.-Pakistan relations like before 9/11? Chilly. Experts point out that Pakistan used to be a world pariah: censured and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, which culminated in five successful nuclear tests announced on May 28, 1998. It also actively supported the Taliban and was one of very few countries to recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan as legitimate. What effect did 9/11 have? Pakistan sided with the United States in the war on terror and, as a result, regained the strategic importance it had during the 1980s, when it was a base for U.S. aid to Islamic militias fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. On June 24, 2003, President Bush hosted Musharraf at Camp David and announced a $3 billion aid package for Pakistan, as well as $1 billion in loan forgiveness, in recognition of its assistance to the United States in fighting al Qaeda. Is the aid package what Musharraf wanted? Yes and no. The amount pledged almost equals the sum given to Pakistan under Ronald Reagan’s administration, when fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan was a regional security concern. It will certainly help Pakistan pay down its crushing debt burden, which in 2001 was 115 percent of its gross domestic product. However, the aid package announced by Bush does not include 28 F-16 fighter jets that Pakistan ordered from the United States 13 years ago. The sale has been blocked since then by the U.S. Congress because of concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear program and Musharraf’s path to power. Is Musharraf the elected leader of Pakistan? No. He seized power in a 1999 military coup. Tensions between then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf were exacerbated after Sharif in July 1999 ordered Pakistani troops to retreat from their positions on the Indian side of the Line of Control, which divides the disputed territory of Kashmir. That decision was highly unpopular with the army. The crisis came to a head when Musharraf, then the head of the army and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, was flying home from Sri Lanka in October 1999 and Sharif’s government denied his plane permission to land. With fuel running low, the plane was at risk of crashing. Musharraf supporters stormed the palace, took over the airports, state radio, and television, and allowed the plane to land. They also took Sharif into custody. Where is Nawaz Sharif now? Living in exile with his family in Saudi Arabia. Sharif accepted a 10-year exile in return for his release from prison after the coup. Another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, also lives in exile abroad. She was convicted in absentia of corruption, and faces arrest if she returns to Pakistan. When did Musharraf become president? Musharraf named himself president of Pakistan before meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in July 2001. He resisted calls for elections at that point, but engineered a referendum in 2002 that confirmed him as president for five years. He also changed the constitution to grant him increased powers over parliament and the new government. Is Musharraf a reliable partner for the United States? Experts aren’t entirely sure. "We’re dependent on someone who has done a lot of distorted and anti-democratic things to get into power," says Ispahani. "I don’t think we can rely on one man, especially a military man." Gannon says that Musharraf will not sacrifice either his domestic or regional agenda--particularly the twin issues of Kashmir and nuclear weapons--for the United States. At the same time, Musharraf has given the United States almost everything it’s asked for since 9/11, including public support, the use of military bases, and a crackdown on local militants--at significant domestic political cost. What are the political costs? There is a "deep and wide anti-Americanism in Pakistan today," Ispahani says. The country, officially an Islamic republic, is more than 97 percent Islamic, and many Pakistanis are angry that Musharraf has joined forces with the United States to hunt down Muslims. Pakistani Muslims are, by and large, moderates, and the country has a history of secularism and freedom of religion, Ispahani says. However, radical fundamentalist groups are gaining in both strength and numbers. What happened in Pakistan’s October 2002 elections? Religious parties made large gains, in part due to Musharraf’s maneuvering, some analysts say. Instead of running against Bhutto and Sharif, whom he probably would have defeated, Musharraf banned them from participating. This left their supporters in the secular political parties--Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Sharif’s Muslim League--disorganized, and created an opportunity for Muttahida Majlis e Amal (MMA), or United Action Front, an alliance of religious parties. The MMA polled 11 percent of the vote, which gave it control of 20 percent of Pakistan’s parliament. It now also governs the North-West Frontier Province and shares power in Baluchistan province. What’s the status of Pakistan’s parliament? Stymied. Last year, members of Parliament objected when Musharraf named himself president, because the Pakistan constitution forbids the head of the army from becoming president. Musharraf promptly sidelined them. Parliament still meets but exercises little power. Do some of Pakistan’s religious parties have links to terrorism? Yes. One political party, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), is part of the powerful Deobandi sect that controls 65 percent of nation’smadrasas, or religious schools. As many as 15 percent of the students at madrasas are thought to be foreigners. The party is also associated with Harakat-ul-Mujahadeen, the first Pakistani group to be put on the U.S. list of terror organizations. The JUI has a large component of ethnic Pashtuns, the tribe many Taliban belong to, and both groups have strong ties to the Taliban. What is the biggest issue for Pakistan’s religious parties? Kashmir. The predominantly Muslim province has been a point of contention and the cause of three wars between India and Pakistan since Partition in 1947. Pakistan supports an army on the Line of Control and is accused by India of funding armed militants who cross it into Indian territory. "Kashmir allows a playing field for jihadis," Ispahani says. Many Islamists in Pakistan also oppose the government of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, which they think is biased against Pashtuns and which, Gannon says, is seen in the region as "hugely corrupt." Why is Kashmir important? "Kashmir is the focal point of extremism" in the region, says Gannon. "The radicals can claim,’Islam is under attack,’ and rally everyone under the Kashmir banner." She says there must be progress on resolving the Kashmir problem in order for Pakistan’s military and intelligence service to be "de-radicalized." The international community has to make a commitment to settling the Kashmir dispute, Gannon says, before Musharraf can face down Islamic parties at home and reduce their influence. Does Musharraf face personal risk from radical groups in his own country? Yes. He cannot travel safely in Pakistan, says Ispahani, and has faced several assassination attempts. But, she points out, "he’s survived so far, and that’s a great sign."

This publication is now archived. How will the capture of A.Q. Khan affect the international nuclear black market?Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, confessed on February 4 that he had shared nuclear designs and information with other countries, confirming experts’ long-held suspicions. "Pakistan is absolutely the biggest and most important illicit exporter of nuclear technology in the history of the nuclear age," says Jim Walsh, executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His capture will likely slow down the international black market, experts say, driving participants even further underground--but, they warn, probably not for long. Who benefited from the black market?Pakistan, North Korea, Libya, and Iran. Pakistan traded nuclear technology to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missile technology, says Robert W. Nelson, the MacArthur fellow in science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. Libya acquired highly restricted centrifuge and warhead designs and components that nearly constituted "turn-key"--or functional--fuel-enrichment systems, Walsh says. Iran built illicit plants to enrich uranium. And experts suspect that other countries also benefited from the market, but they can’t prove which ones. "At this point, we don’t know who else" has nuclear materials, says Walsh. "Khan went out there and offered it--what happened after continues to be unclear." Are nuclear materials still available?Possibly. Experts worry that nuclear material--including 600 metric tons of highly enriched uranium and plutonium still left in the former Soviet Union, according to Walsh--is vulnerable to theft or could be sold or traded by disaffected scientists or opportunists. And the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has warned that several other nuclear stockpiles around the world have inadequate security, Walsh says. How did Khan’s network operate?The Pakistan-based network traded everything from blueprints for centrifuges that enrich uranium--creating fuel for nuclear weapons--to weapons’ designs and parts. It also included a sophisticated transportation system to move the goods from the supplier to the buyer. How was it different from previous proliferation networks?Experts say that before Khan, proliferators bought bits and pieces of nuclear components from private middlemen, then had to assemble them to set up functional nuclear systems. Khan changed all that, experts say, by creating a centralized "one-stop shop" that offered technical advice, parts, and customer support. The network’s efficiency led Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, to call it the "Wal-Mart of private-sector proliferation." Khan’s eponymous Khan Research Laboratories, a government-supported nuclear facility outside Islamabad, reportedly offered 24-hour technical assistance to customers and even had color brochures printed up--advertising centrifuges and other components for sale--to give to prospective clients at arms fairs, says Walsh. How was Khan’s network discovered?Experts had suspected Khan for a long time, but couldn’t confirm their suspicions until October 2003, when Italian authorities seized a German ship carrying 1,000 centrifuges headed for Libya. The parts were made in Malaysia and shipped through the Middle East, according to news reports. Libya was able to get nearly complete centrifuges through the network, as well as blueprints for a Pakistani-designed nuclear warhead. What has the Libya probe found?Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi’s December 2003 decision to give up his country’s nuclear program and cooperate with international inspectors gave authorities access to a mother lode of information. Documents turned over by the Libyans included centrifuge designs and plans for a nuclear bomb, wrapped in plastic bags from an Islamabad dry cleaner, The New York Times reported February 9. The documents also revealed the source of the nuclear components that Libya bought: Scomi Precision Engineering, or SCOPE, in Selangor, Malaysia. What is known about the Malaysian company?SCOPE is part of a publicly traded oil and gas conglomerate whose largest shareholder, Kamaluddin Abdullah, is the son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. "The evidence suggests that the Malaysian factory was able to manufacture parts to Pakistani designs for centrifuges that could then be shipped on to Libya and Iran," Shannon Kyle, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Stockholm International Peace Institute, told The South China Morning Post. Kamaluddin Abdullah has not commented on the case, but the prime minister said at a news conference February 5 that "there is no capability within the country or within the company concerned to produce nuclear bombs or any complete components to make nuclear weapons." How were the illicit goods transported?The Libyan investigation has revealed a sophisticated transportation network spanning the globe from East Asia to Africa. The centrifuge shipment that authorities seized last October was arranged by a middleman named B.S.A. Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman based in Dubai, according to The New York Times. Tahir is the controlling shareholder in Gulf Technical Industries, a Dubai-based concern that received the centrifuge shipments from Malaysia, then loaded them onto a German ship to send to Libya by way of Italy. In Khan’s confession, he said middlemen in Sri Lanka, Germany, and the Netherlands helped transport plans, parts, and materials to his international clients. What has the Khan probe found?That Khan sent hardware, designs, and technology to countries around the world from the late 1980s until he was forced to retire in March 2001, according to experts and Khan’s confession. "There’s no question that the nexis of this exchange has been Pakistan," says Lee Feinstein, deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Experts say the traded items included:Blueprints for Pakistani centrifuges, which were swapped for North Korean ballistic missile technology. Paul Leventhal, founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute, says the centrifuge design Khan shared with others is based on a model that he stole from the European consortium URENCO, which produces enriched uranium for nuclear power, when Khan worked there as a scientist in the 1970s.Blueprints for a crude nuclear bomb that Khan designed.Designs and parts for centrifuges that can enrich uranium. Experts say Libya was buying parts of--and sometimes whole--sophisticated centrifuges able to spin at twice the speed of sound and separate isotopes of U-235, or enriched uranium, from naturally occurring U-238. (As the centrifuge spins, the lighter U-235 concentrates in the center, while the heavier U-238 moves toward the outside.) The steel used in the tubing for the centrifuges, which rotate at hundreds of thousands of revolutions per minute, must be perfectly balanced and milled to exact specifications, according to Nelson. The level of sophistication required precludes the material from other, legitimate uses, such as medical or pharmaceutical research, he says. And because each centrifuge enriches the uranium only slightly, thousands of them used in sequence are needed to produce enough fissile material for one nuclear bomb. What happened to Khan?Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pardoned him on February 5. Experts say Khan’s revelations have damaged the international nuclear black market. In a speech at the National Defense University on February 11, Bush said, "Khan and his top associates are out of business... other members of the network [who] remain at large ... will be found and their careers as proliferators will be ended." Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said in a speech on February 5, "Khan[’s] ... network is now answering to the world for years of nuclear profiteering." How much did the government of Pakistan know about Khan’s activities?Musharraf has denied that his government had any involvement in Khan’s dealings. The scientists involved in the nuclear program "moved around with full autonomy in a secretive manner," Musharraf said on January 25, adding that the program "could succeed only if there was total autonomy and nobody knew." But many experts doubt that, in a country run by the military, these transactions were kept truly secret. "It’s becoming increasingly implausible that these kinds of things could have gone on without Musharraf knowing," Leventhal says. Musharraf was the head of the army when he seized power in 1999; he is scheduled to give up control of the armed forces at the end of this year. "It borders on the incredible that the military leadership did not know." What did the Malaysian government know?Malaysian authorities have denied knowledge of nuclear trafficking. Officials of the Scomi Group, SCOPE’s parent company, confirmed that they made "14 semi-finished components" and sent them to Dubai in four shipments between December 2002 and August 2003 in a transaction worth $3.4 million, according to the Associated Press. But they say they didn’t know the parts were headed to Libya and point out that centrifuges are used in many other procedures, from water treatment to protein separation for molecular biology. Najib Raza, Malaysia’s defense minister, said on February 5 that Malaysia has no nuclear weapons program and has "absolutely" no intention of becoming a nuclear power. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told investigators to look into charges involving his son Kamaluddin, 35, "without fear or favor." But some experts are wary of the Malaysian government’s intentions. "Any state that has the capability to manufacture centrifuges to enrich uranium has the capability to enrich uranium to weapons grade," Leventhal says. Who else could be buying nuclear technology on the black market?Walsh says a joke is making the rounds of the nuclear anti-proliferation community: "If you want to know who’s a proliferator, follow A.Q. Khan’s travel schedule." Khan has long argued that Muslim countries are entitled to the bomb. He traveled freely for years, meeting with officials in other countries. Experts warn that many of these nations are now potential proliferation suspects, including:Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, one of the Gulf emirates, which experts say both helped finance the Pakistani nuclear program;Algeria and Syria, which have expressed nuclear ambitions;Malaysia and Indonesia;Myanmar (Burma), where Khan reportedly met with officials;Egypt."Basically, any major member of the Muslim world is unfortunately now suspect," Walsh says. Most worrisome to experts are terrorist groups like al Qaeda, which could also be involved in buying or trading nuclear components. "We’ve known for many years that there’s a market for nuclear technology with weapons applications," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. What other countries could be a source of illicit nuclear technology?Experts say the following countries could be trading nuclear information on the black market:Pakistan, where some of Khan’s associates and military elements are thought to be sympathetic to Islamic extremism;Countries in the former Soviet Union, including Russia and the Ukraine, from which nuclear materials could be stolen;India, which has a much better security record on proliferation than Pakistan but what experts call insufficient security for its nuclear program;China; andNorth Korea. "It’s still true that North Korea is the one to be worried about," Nelson says. "If they don’t use it, they could sell it." Why is this information coming to light now?After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration devoted intensive efforts to combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and particularly to keeping them out of the hands of terrorists, experts say. The U.S.-led war in Iraq in March 2003 was fought in large part over the issue of Saddam Hussein’s WMD, which experts say made other countries take note that U.S. policymakers were willing to go to war over illicit weapons. In addition to recent revelations from Libya and Pakistan, Iran has also revealed significant information about its nuclear supply routes, experts say, under pressure from the United States and the IAEA. What’s being done by authorities to combat the nuclear black market?A Proliferation Security Initiative, announced by President Bush on May 31, 2003, is an agreement between 11 developed countries to stop and search vessels in their territories suspected of carrying banned weapons or technology in order to "stop the flow of such items at sea, in the air or on land." The initiative gives countries broad powers to board vessels and seize illicit cargo. It was under this initiative that authorities seized the centrifuges headed for Libya last fall. On February 11, President Bush proposed expanding the initiative and announced a new proposal to limit the number of nations allowed to produce nuclear fuel. He appealed to the Nuclear Suppliers Group--a 40-nation group that cooperates on proliferation issues--to refrain from selling nuclear equipment to any country not already allowed to produce nuclear fuel.Walsh says U.S. and Pakistani authorities are doing "old-fashioned police work" on the Khan case, including reviewing his travel records and tracking his phone calls and money transfers to find out who his other clients were. In his February 11 speech President Bush praised U.S. and British intelligence agencies, saying their officers had uncovered the network, identified the key individuals, followed transactions, and monitored the movement of material.Experts say the current IAEA safeguards against nuclear proliferation need to be strengthened, and the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bans the sale or transfer of prohibited items, extended even to countries that have not signed--including India and Pakistan. Some experts say the threat of the nuclear black market highlights the need to disarm countries like Pakistan of nuclear weapons entirely. "There has to be some hard thinking about how long [Pakistan’s nuclear] program can be tolerated," Leventhal says.

This publication is now archived. What’s the debate over outsourcing?Shifting jobs to lower-wage countries--a form of what is known as offshore outsourcing--is an increasingly popular practice among U.S. businesses seeking to cut operating costs. Outsourcing has also become political shorthand for presidential candidates to describe what is perceived as unfair international trade and its costs for U.S. workers. The issue has become highly emotional because of outsourcing’s two dramatically different effects: it leads to layoffs and dislocations for thousands of U.S. workers, even as most economists say it will ultimately strengthen the U.S. economy. Why has outsourcing become a major political issue?With the U.S. economy still in recovery from a recession, many people argue that now is not the time to be sending jobs overseas. In addition, the kinds of jobs that are vulnerable to offshore outsourcing--also known as offshoring--have increased dramatically over the past five years. Advances in technology and low-cost telecommunications now mean that a computer programmer, data entry specialist, or help-desk operator answering calls for a U.S. company can work as easily from India or the Philippines as from Iowa--and save parent companies some 30 percent to 70 percent in costs, analysts say. This has led to considerable anxiety in some segments of the U.S. workforce that feel vulnerable to competition from well-educated workers abroad willing to work for, in some cases, one-tenth of the wages paid to Americans. Why has outsourcing been in the news recently?Media attention began to focus on the rising trend of white-collar outsourcing about a year ago, and since then, economists, labor leaders, business journalists, and politicians have been debating the practice’s pros and cons. The pitch of the discussion rose further on February 9, when President George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, N. Gregory Mankiw, released the annual Economic Reportof the President and praised offshoring of U.S. service jobs as a "good thing." "Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," he told reporters, adding that the practice is only "the latest manifestation of the gains from trade that economists have talked about" for centuries. The reaction from both sides of the political aisle was fierce. "They [the Bush administration] have delivered a double blow to America’s workers, 3 million jobs destroyed on their watch, and now they want to export more of our jobs overseas," said Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the leading Democratic presidential contender, who has made outsourcing a major issue in his campaign. "I understand that Mr. Mankiw is a brilliant economic theorist, but his theory fails a basic test of real economics. We can’t have a healthy economy unless we have more jobs here in America," said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois). President Bush later appeared to try to distance himself from Mankiw’s comments. What are the numbers behind this trend?No one knows how many service jobs have been outsourced abroad, because U.S. companies are not required to maintain such statistics. And, if outsourcing leads to the creation of jobs elsewhere in the economy, as many economists argue, that is also difficult to quantify. Most estimates of U.S. jobs lost come from consulting companies or industry groups directly involved in outsourcing. Boston-based consultancy Forrester estimates that 400,000 service jobs have been lost to offshoring since 2000, with jobs leaving at a rate of 12,000 to 15,000 per month, says John McCarthy, the company’s director of research. Other estimates say up to 20,000 jobs a month may be moving overseas. This is in addition to the 2 million manufacturing jobs that are estimated to have moved offshore since 1983. These numbers are predicted to rise. Management consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s economic think tank, the McKinsey Global Institute, predicts that white-collar offshoring will increase at a rate of 30 percent to 40 percent over the next five years. By 2015, Forrester predicts, roughly 3.3 million service jobs will have moved offshore, including 1.7 million "back office" jobs such as payroll processing and accounting, and 473,000 jobs in the information technology industry. How do these numbers compare to the total number of jobs in the economy?Economists say they are relatively small. The United States employs some 130 million non-farm workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Over the past 10 years, even factoring in the recent economic downturn, the U.S. economy created an average of 3.5 million new private-sector jobs a year, according to a McKinsey analysis. On the other hand some analysts argue that, in the longer term, the latest wave of outsourcing will lead to a significant shift in the kinds of U.S. jobs, even as the total number of jobs continues to increase. Just as the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to overseas markets has caused layoffs and difficulties for millions of American workers, so will this latest round of offshoring cause thousands of white-collar service employees to lose their jobs and seek new ones. Is offshoring to blame for the slow job growth in the U.S. economy?Many economists say that outsourcing of white-collar jobs is not the primary, or even a major, reason the U.S. economy is not creating enough new jobs to make a significant dent in the unemployment rate. Some argue that the practice is helping to stimulate the economy. However, these economists also concede that the low level of job creation in recent years has made it more difficult for workers who lose their jobs to outsourcing to find new ones. Some 3 million private-sector jobs have been lost since the U.S. economy peaked in 2000, most of them in manufacturing. These economists say the drop in employment, however, is primarily explained by factors other than outsourcing, such as:the bursting of the tech bubble and its effects on Wall Street;the general downturn in the business cycle;the consolidation of retailing under mega-companies like Wal-Mart;technological advances that have made some jobs obsolete;and the chilling economic effects of the September 11 attacks and subsequent events."There’s no evidence that outsourcing caused the recession, and there’s no evidence that it’s making it worse," says Erica L. Groshen, an assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Not all analysts agree with this assessment. Thea Lee, assistant director of public policy at the AFL-CIO, says outsourcing is a major cause of job loss since 2000. And, she says, "outsourcing is one of the causes for the truly dismal job performance since the recession has ended." What steps are politicians attempting to reverse outsourcing?There have been a variety of responses. Kerry is sponsoring legislation that would require operators answering help-desk calls for U.S. consumers in other countries to identify their location. He also wants to give tax incentives to American companies to keep jobs in the United States, close tax loopholes that he says encourage U.S. employers to move jobs overseas, and require other countries to meet more stringent environmental and labor standards so that employing people in those countries will cost more. Some states have proposed bills barring the export of some kinds of taxpayer-funded work, such as the processing of welfare checks. In addition, a Senate bill sponsored by George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming) would limit the outsourcing of some work done for the federal government. What is the reaction of economists to these ideas?Many economists say that these steps are a form of economic protectionism that will only further slow the U.S. economic recovery. As an example, Benn Steil, the acting director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, points to the overall negative economic effect that subsidies for the struggling U.S. steel industry had on the economy. Protecting the industry from lower-cost imported steel hurt U.S. carmakers and other domestic industries that use steel. "It’s very clear that the price we paid as an economy per steel worker job was hundreds of thousands of dollars," he says. On January 26, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cautioned lawmakers not to increase trade barriers to keep jobs in the United States. While some workers will lose jobs because of outsourcing and other forms of foreign competition, he said the U.S. economy is resilient enough to generate new jobs to compensate. "We can thus be confident that new jobs will replace old ones as they always have, but not without a high degree of pain for those caught in the job-losing segment of America’s massive job-turnover process," Greenspan said. Why do economists say outsourcing is good for the economy?Many economists argue that outsourcing is just another form of free trade, which increases wealth in the economy. They say that employing workers at lower cost allows U.S. companies to be more efficient and productive, permitting them to create the same amount of goods with fewer resources. In turn, this lowers the price of the goods in the United States, strengthening U.S. companies and freeing workers for other tasks. The savings allows U.S. companies to stay afloat and expand in a highly competitive global market, says Jagdish N. Bhagwati, the André Meyer senior fellow in international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the recently published "In Defense of Globalization." "Outsourcing is not destroying American jobs. These jobs are going anyway, because otherwise the goods would be too expensive to produce" and the companies that make them would no longer be competitive, he says. What can be done for U.S. workers who lose their jobs?Even staunch free-trade advocates acknowledge that outsourcing has painful and destabilizing consequences for the hundreds of thousands of workers who find themselves laid off. Their recommendations tend to center on helping these workers find new jobs and adjust to the shifting labor market via expanded training and relocation assistance. In addition, many analysts call for improved unemployment benefits and health insurance to tide workers over between jobs and help those who are not able to find new work. "We feel as though if we fall through the cracks, Washington will not really take care of us. That’s why we have this emerging problem of hysteria [about outsourcing]," Bhagwati says. Another remedy is improving the U.S. education system to better prepare workers for highly skilled, 21st-century jobs. Though all these steps will be expensive, they will likely be less costly than limiting trade, Groshen says. In addition, some analysts say a greater share of the costs of insuring workers should be borne by the companies that benefit from offshoring. How many workers will not be able to find new or better work?It’s not clear. Some 70 percent of the U.S. economy is not vulnerable to offshoring because it is composed of services such as retail, restaurants and hotels, health care and other services that necessarily take place locally, according to a McKinsey analysis that examined the economic impact of offshore outsourcing. Among those workers who are vulnerable to trade-related displacement, however, not all end up with new or improved work. Between 1979 and 1999, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 31 percent of workers displaced by trade--mostly in the manufacturing industries--were not fully re-employed. Only 36 percent of workers soon found jobs that matched or increased their wages. Twenty-five percent saw pay cuts of 30 percent or more. "These concerns are real and need to be addressed," says Diana Farrell, the director of the McKinsey Global Institute. But she argues that rather than trying to stop offshoring--a practice that she argues increases wealth in the U.S. economy--"leaders should focus on its distribution and help workers who are disproportionately hit."

This publication is now archived. What is the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)?A U.S. government program that gives development aid in the form of grants to poor countries that adopt economic and political reforms. On May 6, the Bush administration named the first 16 countries eligible to apply for MCA funds. What kinds of reforms are required?MCA funds will go to countries that enact market-oriented measures designed to open economies to competition, fight corruption, and encourage transparent business dealings. In addition, governments must invest in their citizens’ health care and education. How much money will the program provide?When President Bush announced the formation of the MCA on March 14, 2002, he said the United States would significantly increase foreign aid payments over the next three years, committing $1 billion to the MCA in 2004, $2.5 billion in 2005, and $5 billion in 2006. These funds are in addition to the foreign aid already given by the United States, which totals $12.6 billion in fiscal year 2004, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). What are its goals?The MCA aims to encourage democratic governments and free-market economies. Often in the past, foreign aid was siphoned off by corrupt officials whose governments ignored the rule of law. "The idea was to come up with a new way of delivering foreign aid," saysCarol Graham, vice president and director of the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution. "[The United States] realized that giving aid to countries with bad policies didn’t work." How will progress toward reform be measured?By evaluating each country on 16 indicators in three categories. Each country’s score in each category must be above the median of all countries evaluated. This applies in all categories except inflation, which cannot exceed an annual rate of 20 percent.Good governance. This category encourages policies that experts say promote economic development: protecting civil liberties and human rights, having anopen, accountable, and non-corrupt political system, andupholding the rule of law.Public health and well-being. Thiscategory rates public welfare by measuring how much anation spends on health care and education, how many childrenfinish primary school, and how many citizens are immunizedagainst disease.Economic openness. This category takesinto account a country’s credit rating, annual rateof inflation, three-year budget deficit, trade barriers,and the number of days needed to start a business, whichis a measure of government corruption and red tape. How will those indicators be evaluated?The Millennium Challenge Corporation, the new independent agency that administers the MCA, will judge them using internationally accepted standards, according to the White House. Figures from the World Bank, for example, will be used to measure public expenditures on health care and education as a percentage of gross domestic product. The World Bank Institute, a research unit within the World Bank, will provide statistics measuring a country’s levels of accountability and corruption. Freedom House, a nonpartisan advocacy group, will provide measures of civil liberties and political rights including, among other things, press freedom and the treatment of political detainees. The MCC will use International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures to evaluate inflation and budget deficits. If a country doesn’t qualify for MCA funds, can it still receive U.S. aid?Yes. USAID, the main channel of U.S. foreign aid, gave $8.5 billion to poor countries around the world for health care, economic development, and democracy-building programs in 2003. The administration stresses that the MCA will complement, not replace, these existing aid efforts. "This is not compassion aid, food aid, or disaster assistance," says Kathleen Harrington, vice president for domestic affairs at MCC. "This is a policy reform directed at economic growth." Do other donors impose conditions on aid they provide?Yes. The IMF, which lends money to countries in financial crisis, makes borrowing countries sign a list of obligations--pledging to control budget deficits and curb inflation, for example--before lending funds. The World Bank’s so-called soft loan program, which lends to poor nations at greatly discounted interest rates, requires applicant countries to complete a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) that lays out their plans for spending World Bank funds. The World Bank, IMF, and most donor countries now accept the PRSP as an application for aid money. Who runs the Millennium Challenge Corporation?The MCC is supervised by a board of directors made up of four Cabinet-level officials— the secretary of state, who is chairman of the board, the secretary of the Treasury, the U.S. trade representative, and the head of USAID--and four members of the private sector selected by the president. The CEO of the corporation, Paul V. Applegarth, was nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Which countries are eligible for MCA assistance? How will it work?After the MCC chooses which countries will receive MCA funds, MCC negotiation teams will travel to each country to meet with members of the government and civil society. Together, they will work out a plan, or "compact," that details how each country will spend MCA funds to increase its growth rate and reduce poverty, as well as benchmarks to measure its progress. Each compact will be reviewed by the MCC’s board of directors; once it is approved, Harrington says, the countries get their aid money. Which countries will benefit?The 16 nations announced May 6 are: Armenia, Benin, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Vanuatu.

This publication is now archived. Will allegations that Pakistan recently aidedNorth Korea’s nuclear arms program affect U.S.-Pakistanirelations?Probably not dramatically, experts say. For all the Bush administration’s displeasure about the North Korea connection, the United States relies heavily on Pakistan for assistance in the war on terrorism. On November 25, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he has repeatedly warned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that "inappropriate" contact between Pakistan and North Korea would result in "consequences." Powell added that Musharraf has assured him that no such relationship now exists. The White House has so far refused to publicly acknowledge any recent links between Pakistan and North Korea’s nuclear arms program, and experts say that U.S.-Pakistani talks on the issue will likely be kept private. What are the allegations?According to a November 24, 2002 article in the New York Times, North Korea obtained "many of the designs for gas centrifuges and much of the machinery" required to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons from Pakistan. In return, North Korea--one of the world’s most impoverished and isolated countries--reportedly provided Pakistan with ballistic-missile parts, perhaps as recently as July 2002. A Pakistani military spokesman dismissed the Times report, which was based on interviews with U.S., Pakistani, and South Korean officials, as "absolutely incorrect." Why would the United States be reluctant to punish Pakistanfor helping North Korea get nuclear weapons?Experts say that international terrorism is an even bigger concern for the Bush administration than the prospect of North Korea getting the bomb. Since September 11, U.S. and Pakistani authorities have worked together to capture al-Qaeda operatives, and some experts say that Osama bin Laden himself may be hiding in Pakistan. In addition, the White House is wary of doing anything--perhaps such as cutting foreign aid--that might undermine Musharraf, who must grapple with Islamist elements in his own intelligence and security forces. Musharraf’s domestic position is far from stable. In last month’s general elections, a coalition of Islamist parties promising to establish Islamic law and push U.S. forces out of Pakistan won a record 20 percent of ballots. Muslim fundamentalists had never before received more than five percent of the vote. Has the United States had good relations with Pakistanin the past?At times. After Pakistan was created in 1947, the United States began providing the fledgling state with military and economic assistance. Relations between the countries improved further with Pakistan’s participation in the 1955 Baghdad Pact, a U.S.-backed security agreement designed to block Soviet expansion into the Middle East. When Pakistan and India went to war in 1965, however, the United States suspended military aid to both countries. Washington restarted arms sales with Pakistan in 1975 on the grounds that it made a more attractive ally than India, which was viewed in Washington as being too closely connected to the Soviet Union. In 1979, the United States suspended most of its economic aid to Pakistan over concerns that it was trying to get a nuclear bomb. Relations between the two countries recovered in the early 1980s, though, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The United States then poured millions of dollars into Pakistan, which was backing a force of Islamist rebels known as mujahadeen, or holy warriors, against the Soviets in Afghanistan. In 1990, renewed concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear capability led the United States to once again suspend its military aid to the country and, in 1998, after Islamabad conducted its first nuclear weapons tests, Washington imposed sanctions on Pakistan. Is the United States now giving aid to Pakistan?Yes. The Bush administration lifted most of the sanctions on Pakistan after September 11 and has since provided Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 military coup, with hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance. By U.S. law, the United States must refuse most economic and military aid to any country that delivers or receives nuclear material or technology--or publicly issue a waiver in the name of national security. So far, though, the Bush administration has done neither. How long has Pakistan been assisting North Korea’snuclear weapons program?Experts say Pakistan has been bartering its nuclear know-how for North Korean missile hardware since the late 1990s. This relationship started because North Korean leader Kim Jong Il decided to start a clandestine nuclear weapons program based on hard-to-detect, highly enriched uranium. The father of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, A.Q. Khan, made several mysterious visits to North Korea during this period. Meanwhile, Pakistan was finding it increasingly difficult to pay hard currency for shipments of missile parts from North Korea. U.S. intelligence agencies began investigating rumors that North Korea had begun a project to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb, and in summer 2002, the CIA concluded that North Korea had moved from research to weapons production. Click here for more on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

This publication is now archived. How serious is the fundamentalist threat in Pakistan?Islamic fundamentalists, some of whom are believed to have targeted President Pervez Musharraf in two near-miss December assassination attempts, are given sanctuary in parts of Pakistan and appear to cooperate with al Qaeda. The attacks have intensified fears that radical Islamic terrorists are bent on destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan. But many experts say they believe Pakistan is more stable than it appears and that the extremists targeting Musharraf lack sufficient armed might and political support to seize power. Who is trying to kill Musharraf?The latest attempts--on December 14 and 25--appear to be the work of the radical Islamic group Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad), according to Pakistani investigators. This group advocates Pakistani control over the disputed territory of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India. Jaish-e-Muhammad is believed to have ties to al Qaeda and is alleged to have received support in the past from Pakistan’s security services. Information contained in a mobile phone chip believed to belong to one of the bombers and found at the site of the second attack has led to the detention of some 40 Islamic militants. But experts say there is no shortage of other groups that might want to kill Musharraf. Why is Musharraf being attacked now?Jaish-e-Muhammad and other radical Islamic groups in Pakistan are infuriated by Musharraf’s support for U.S. policies in the region since the terror attacks of September 11, experts say. One expression of that support has been his intermittent efforts to clamp down on Islamist groups and Taliban elements in Pakistan and in the border areas with Afghanistan and Kashmir. Before September 11, Pakistan actively supported the Taliban government in Afghanistan and aided militants attacking Indian positions in Kashmir. What would happen if Musharraf were assassinated?Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a 1999 coup, would probably be replaced by another Western-leaning military man. The leading candidate, some experts says, is General Muhammad Yousaf Khan, the current army vice chief of staff. While any transition would create instability, some experts say Pakistan could weather the crisis--at least initially. "I don’t see Pakistan as a society in turmoil or on the knife’s edge between order and disaster," says Nicholas Platt, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and president of the Asia Society. "I think that the stability provided by an essentially moderate population and a strong military is greater than meets the eye." Would a post-Musharraf government shift policies?Many experts predict that moderate elements in the army would prevail and continue Musharraf’s pro-U.S. stance. On the other hand, Islamic fundamentalists could attempt to use the situation to bargain for more power. Over time, this could lead to a power sharing arrangement between Islamic parties and the military--an outcome that troubles many U.S. policymakers. "I don’t see the threat [of Islamic fundamentalists taking over Pakistan] in any way as an imminent threat. At the same time, the consequences of their [eventually] coming to power in partnership with the military would be very consequential for American interests," says Marvin Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert and scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute. The question is "whether the military would feel they would have to take some actions which could placate some of the religious elements," he says. Would Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal be at increased risk?Few experts consider the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to be an immediate concern. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are under military control, and the military is Pakistan’s strongest institution, experts say. The components of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal are believed to be stored at facilities scattered across the country, making a hasty deployment improbable. "The army is the glue of society and will continue to be so," Platt says, and has "a very firm hold over the military facilities." In his opinion, "the specter of radical Islamists taking over and brandishing the Islamic bomb is rather far-fetched." Why did Musharraf decide to support the United States?Siding with the United States in the war on terror allowed Pakistan to regain the strategic importance it had during the 1980s, when it was a base for U.S. aid to Islamic militants fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After the Soviets left Afghanistan, U.S. interest in Pakistan waned. Pakistan eventually approached world-pariah status. It was censured and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, which culminated in five successful nuclear tests announced in May 1998. After 9/11, U.S.-Pakistan relations warmed dramatically. In June 2003, President Bush announced a $3 billion aid package for Pakistan, as well as $1 billion in loan forgiveness, in return for its anti-Qaeda efforts. The aid boosted the country’s economy and helped Musharraf cement his standing as head of state. How does Kashmir factor in?Recent initiatives aimed at reviving peace talks on the disputed province have further angered Islamic militants fighting to reunite Kashmir with Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan claim the divided region, two thirds of which is currently under Indian control. The Kashmir question has been a bone of contention since the two nations were created in 1947, and two of the three Indo-Pakistani wars were sparked by Kashmir. Musharraf met in January with Indian Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders agreed to begin peace talks in February, and Musharraf pledged in a written statement that he "will not permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner." What are some of the groups suspected of plotting his death? Al Qaeda. Last September 11, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, addressed a special message to "our brother Muslims in Pakistan." He called Musharraf "a traitor who sold out the blood of the Muslims of Afghanistan," and urged Pakistanis to overthrow the general as part of their "Islamic duty." Kashmiri extremists. A political crisis emerged in Kashmir in the late 1980s as India reacted aggressively to rising Islamic sentiment in the province. By 1990, Kashmir was placed under the control of the Indian central government and separatists mounted an insurgency. Kashmiri fighters were joined by radical Islamic militant groups including Jaish-e-Muhammad, Harakat ul-Mujahadeen (Islamic Freedom Fighters’ Group), and Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), the military wing of a well-funded Pakistani Islamist organization. All three groups are on the U.S. State Department’s list of global terror organizations. Why did Pakistan support Islamic militants?Their efforts against alleged enemies of Islam helped Pakistani leaders rally their people to the cause of Pakistan’s success and survival. In the CIA-backed war against Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan, Pakistan received financial support from the United States in order to serve as a staging ground for Islamic mujahadeen, or holy warriors. Pakistan’s support for radical Islamic groups in Kashmir since the late 1980s re-established the 57-year dispute as a major regional concern in the eyes of the international community, according to a recent International Crisis Group report. In Pakistan’s view, it also increased pressure on India to reopen negotiations over the fate of the territory. In Pakistan, the Kashmir dispute is portrayed as a fight for human rights and self-determination in India’s only Muslim-majority state. "America used Islamic fervor to fight in Afghanistan, and Pakistan continued with that in Kashmir, using Islam as a motivator. It was an Islamicjihad," says Kathy Gannon, the Associated Press bureau chief in Afghanistan and the Edward R. Murrow fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Does Pakistan admit that it supported these militants?To a degree. Pakistan has denied providing anything but diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiri dissidents. But Western intelligence reports have alleged that Pakistan also provided funding, arms, training facilities, and aid in crossing borders to both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad through its Interservices Intelligence agency. Would support for radical Islamic groups increase if Musharraf were eliminated?Many experts say no. Most Pakistanis support Musharraf, and they would be horrified by his murder, Platt says. In addition, "if Islamists were the perpetrators, I would expect the army would come down [on them] like a ton of bricks," says Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington and a longtime Pakistan expert. What percentage of Pakistanis support fundamentalist Islam?It’s impossible to know, but some experts place the figure at about 10 percent to 15 percent of the population. Within that percentage, some experts estimate, is a much smaller minority ready to take up arms and fight for radical Islam. Still, in a nation of 150 million people, "even 1 percent of the population means there could be 1.5 million people with their finger on the trigger," says Arnaud de Borchgrave, the director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. How much support do radical Islamists have within Pakistan’s army?Experts disagree. While Gannon says there is "a great deal of sympathy within the army for the radical religious right," Weinbaum doubts there is a large group "sympathetic to the most radical of groups." On the other hand, if even a small percentage is willing to block Musharraf’s orders to crack down on militants, it can greatly undermine the army’s effectiveness. Pakistani military officers have recently been arrested for alleged ties to al Qaeda, according to press reports. Disloyal army and intelligence officials can also provide information to militants to help Musharraf’s assassins. Pakistani investigators, for example, suspect that the Christmas Day attackers may have had inside information about the president’s route and schedule. Are religious parties represented in Pakistan’s parliament?Yes. Religious parties made major gains in the October 2002 election, fueled by a rise in anti-American sentiment after Musharraf joined Washington’s war on terror. The Muttahida Majlis e Amal, or United Action Front, an alliance of religious parties, polled 11 percent of the vote, which gave it control of 20 percent of Pakistan’s parliament. The alliance also won control of the provincial government in North-West Frontier province and shares power in Baluchistan province. These lies along the Afghanistan border where remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban are believed to be hiding. What is the relationship between the religious parties and armed extremists?There are some ties between them. One political party, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, is part of the powerful Deobandi sect that controls 65 percent of the nation’s madrassas, or religious schools. The party is also associated with Harakat-ul-Mujahadeen, the first Pakistani group to be put on the U.S. terror organization list. "In areas where religious parties hold power, militants can operate much easier," Gannon says. On the other hand, those operating within the political process and the extremists have different political goals, some experts say. "The religious parties are on a roll; their credibility has risen like it hasn’t before. They don’t want change," Weinbaum says. "But the jihadi groups want to try to kill Musharraf because they want to see instability in the country." What has Musharraf done to crack down on armed extremists?Under intense pressure following a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament believed to have been conducted by Kashmiri militants, Musharraf banned Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and five other Pakistan-based radical groups. But many of the 1,500 Islamist militants rounded up in subsequent police raids were eventually released. Musharraf has also promised to force madrassas in Pakistan to moderate their extremist teachings, but many experts say they have seen little progress. In the mountainous border regions near Afghanistan, Pakistan has deployed troops to track Qaeda fugitives and has captured some 500 alleged Qaeda and Taliban operatives— including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks. But bin Laden is believed to still be operating from the region, and Afghanistan’s transitional government claims the resurgent Taliban are using Pakistan’s territory as a staging ground. Will he follow through on recent pledges to crack down?Perhaps. Some experts say they believe the December assassination attempts will serve as a wake-up call that the Islamic militants Pakistan has supported cannot be controlled. "He’s been playing both sides of the fence. He wants U.S. support, he’s been quite happy to turn over al Qaeda, but he’s been reluctant to give up the militant [card] in Kashmir without some indication that Pakistan is going to get something in return," Gannon says. "Now he’s being forced to choose--and he’s choosing on the side of cracking down."

This publication is now archived. What were the results of the just-concluded talks between India and Pakistan?Representatives of the two longtime adversaries, at meetings February 16-18, agreed to a timetable for a series of high-level meetings over the next several months. "We do have a basic road map for a Pakistan-India peace process to which we have both agreed," Riaz Khokhar, a senior Pakistani foreign ministry official, said February 18. What are the major issues?The greatest point of contention is Kashmir, the mountainous region between the two nations that is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed in its entirety by both. It has been disputed since India was partitioned by Britain in 1947 and was the cause of two of the three Indian-Pakistani wars. The ongoing dispute over the region brought the two countries to the brink of another war in 2002. Other issues to be addressed include nuclear security, terrorism, drug trafficking, trade, and economic development. When will the next series of meetings take place?The foreign secretaries of the two nations will meet in May or June, after Indian parliamentary elections scheduled for April, according to a statement issued by both countries. Further high-level talks will follow in July and August. What are the chances that the talks will produce a settlement?Expert opinions differ. Some are wary because of the history of animosity. "There’s an enormous river of mistrust to be overcome," says Rajan Menon, the Monroe J. Rathbone professor of international relations at Lehigh University. The two nations have held talks before--most recently in Agra, India, in 2001--with little result. Other experts, however, say that this time around might be different. Frank Wisner, former U.S. ambassador to India, told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting February 19 that he saw excellent chances for success in these talks. Why are the two sides now willing to talk?Experts say there are many reasons for India and Pakistan to take steps toward peace. The primary one is that their two leaders are actively engaged in the process. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 79, started the recent momentum by extending a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan in a speech in April 2003. Vajpayee, leader of the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) --which heads a strong governing coalition in India--is expected to win another term in April. Experts say he is considering his legacy and wants to leave behind a lasting peace. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf survived two assassination attempts in December; experts say the attacks shook Musharraf and convinced him that radical Islamists were, for the first time, a greater threat to Pakistan than India. Why did the last effort fail?The Agra summit collapsed after India insisted that Pakistan stop supporting terrorists in Kashmir, and Pakistan insisted that India include final-status discussions on Kashmir as part of any future talks. Why is Kashmir the center of the dispute between the two countries?India and Pakistan have each claimed the majority-Muslim province since partition. India is a majority Hindu nation and Pakistan is majority Muslim. Kashmir’s population is majority Muslim, but it had a Hindu ruling dynasty at the time of partition. Kashmir’s maharajah, Hari Singh, sided with India after partition, angering many of his subjects and sparking the first Indo-Pakistani war. When the war ended in 1949, India controlled some 45 percent of Kashmir; the border separating the two sides is called the Line of Control. Until Musharraf declared a unilateral ceasefire in November 2003, Indian and Pakistani forces routinely traded fire across the Line of Control.Pakistan has long demanded a U.N. referendum for the people of Kashmir, in accordance with 1948 Security Council Resolution 47, to choose if they want to join India, join Pakistan, or become independent. India has resisted calls for such a vote, saying the Kashmir issue is a bilateral one to be worked out between India and Pakistan only. India has also long accused Pakistan of supporting Islamist terrorists in Kashmir, an issue on which experts say the Pakistani leader has recently changed his position. "Musharraf came into power thinking that the radical Islamists in Pakistan [and Kashmir] were essentially freedom fighters," Menon says. "And he’s learned that they’re a real threat to him." What are the major obstacles to agreement?There are many, experts say. Hardliners in both countries oppose any kind of settlement on Kashmir, which some experts say has become central to each country’s self-definition. India sees itself as a secular republic that can tolerate many ethnic groups; that would be confirmed if Kashmir, a majority Muslim state, stays part of India. Pakistan’s founding vision is as the homeland for South Asian Muslims. If Kashmir stayed in India, that vision would be threatened, experts say. In addition, pressure for a deal could lead to "political suicide" if the two leaders set a deadline for progress and fail to meet it, says Kathy Gannon, longtime Associated Press bureau chief in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. What other major issues will be discussed by the two countries over the coming months?Nuclear security. Discussions will continue along the lines of a memo of understanding signed by both nations in 1999, in which each pledged to undertake measures to reduce risk of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.Trade and economic links. The two countries will discuss access to each other’s markets, experts say, and practical moves to make quality-of-life improvements for Kashmiris.People-to-people contacts. These include travel to visit or reunite families. New cross-border bus and train services would run from Pakistan’s Sindh province into India, experts say.Water sharing. There are several river systems that start in one country and flow into the other; management of the water resources must be negotiated.Siachen Glacier. Both nations have stationed soldiers in this remote Himalaya Mountain borderland, at great cost in lives and money, since 1984. Experts say talks would focus on how both countries could eventually withdraw troops from Siachen.On all of these issues, experts say, there needs to be what Menon calls "constructive reciprocity": each concession by one side has to be reciprocated by the other in a timely fashion in order to build enough trust to keep the process from falling apart. What is the role of the United States?It should be supportive but unobtrusive, some experts say, practicing what Wisner calls "quiet engagement" while building strong relationships with both countries. The best thing the United States can do, these experts say, is to offer economic aid to both countries, but especially Pakistan, to show the people there that aligning with U.S. interests against fellow Muslims in al Qaeda and the Taliban will yield tangible benefits. But these experts stress that all this needs to be done discreetly. "The last thing Musharraf needs is to be seen as playing to a script written by the Pentagon," Menon says.

Mahnaz Ispahani, the Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for South and West Asia and co-executive director of the Council-Asia Society Independent Task Force on New Priorities in South Asia, says that President Pervez Musharraf’s policy of cooperating with the United States and his moves to dampen tensions in Kashmir may have helped provoke the two attempts on his life in the past month. But Ispahani expresses concern over future developments in Pakistan, and has misgivings about the seeming ability of Pakistani nuclear scientists to help out other countries. As far as U.S.-Pakistani relations, she says “it is a marriage in need of some serious counseling.” Ispahani was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on December 30, 2003. There have been two recent attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. What is the reason for these violent episodes on December 14 and 25? My understanding of these two attacks is that there are groups very angry at this stage with General Musharraf’s support for U.S. policies in the region. A component of that support has been his efforts intermittently to clamp down on Islamist groups and so-called neo-Taliban elements in Pakistan and in the border areas with Afghanistan and Kashmir. As you probably know, they have identified two of the killers in this second attack, one possibly being an Afghan and the other a Kashmiri Jihadi [holy war] fighter. One important aspect, however, of these two recent assassination attempts is that the president normally has quite extraordinary security. There is a significant body of opinion forming now that there were some insider connections to these two attempts because information about the president’s movements is usually so closely held. There are duplicate convoys that move when he moves. There is a consensus emerging that somehow security around the president was breached. Security responsibility lies with the intelligence and the army. Of course there have been rumors for some time that there was dissatisfaction with his policies within the military and intelligence branches who were more prone to support radical Islamists. I cannot say at this moment that the breach came from within the military. The military is still quite hierarchical and responds to his leadership, particularly at the highest levels. But yes, you are right that some intelligence units have supported the Jihadi groups and perhaps that’s where the breach occurred. The main point here is that the assassination attempts should focus U.S. policy minds on what will happen to Pakistan post-Musharraf. Let’s break down some of these issues. From the U.S. perspective, the effort has been to get Musharraf to lean more heavily on his forces to block off the border areas with Afghanistan and prevent the Taliban from going back and forth across the border and also to help in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. On the other hand, General Musharraf has recently seemed completely preoccupied with the Kashmir problem. Has there been progress between General Musharraf and the Indian government on quieting the situation in Kashmir? There have been some interesting developments in Indo-Pakistan relations since last April when India and Pakistan began trading peace overtures. The Pakistanis declared a cease-fire on November 23; that cease-fire has still held. That’s been an important beginning. Additionally, India had made a series of gestures toward Pakistan in the last four or five months to open up transport and trade and other economic links. The Pakistanis in the last month took up that mantle and have really moved forward to negotiate restoration of air links, road links, and links between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir. And importantly, the Pakistanis have announced that they will not make Kashmir an issue in the upcoming meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which is actually supposed to meet in Islamabad next week. The reason I say it is important that the Pakistan government has announced that they are not going to raise Kashmir is because the Indians have argued since 1972 that Kashmir should not be raised in regional forums, that it is a bilateral issue. The Pakistanis, at least in the past, have tended to raise Kashmir at every opportunity and at every forum. Likely Kashmir will be discussed in bilateral, private settings between Musharraf and [Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee. And recently, Musharraf clamped down yet again on some of the jihadi groups operating in Kashmir. These clampdowns have historically not lasted very long, or the groups have re-emerged with new names or new bank accounts. But he has yet again arrested several militants from banned organizations. Was the Kashmiri killed in the most recent assassination attempt from one of these banned groups? Yes, he was reportedly from Jaish-e-Mohammed [JEM], the Army of Mohammed. This is a group not in parliament, right? Yes. The Islamist parties are actually political parties. These jihadi groups are active, militant organizations that operate completely in the nongovernmental world, or underworld. The political parties that are in parliament, the JUI [Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami], the JUP [Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan], and the Jamaat e Islami do have ties to some of these militant groups, but there is a formal distinction between those operating in the political process and the extremists. Let’s talk about the Taliban, which is of great interest to the Americans. Has the border situation improved any? Not according to my colleagues who have recently talked with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. But according to the Pakistanis, they are making every effort they can to manage that extremely porous border. Journalists have demonstrated that there is a great deal of activity coming out of the Pakistani border areas from what are called neo-Taliban groups going across into southern Afghanistan, which is causing a severe problem for the Afghan government. When I was in Pakistan, I must say, in private discussions and in official meetings, the Pakistanis reacted most angrily to this particular accusation— that they were not doing enough. Their anger was based on several points. One, which I just mentioned, is that they believe they are as active as they can be in a part of the country where, prior to this, no Pakistani or British government had operated. And in places like Baluchistan, the central government in the past had almost no role along the borders. Particularly further northwest in north and south Waziristan, which are in the tribal belt. The Pakistanis point to how much they are doing, and the United States points to how little they are doing. The second point they make, which we have not paid enough attention to in the United States, is the challenge of the Pashtun. Pakistan has a larger Pashtun population than Afghanistan. And these are fraternal tribes. So what happened— in the period following the initial United States bombings in Afghanistan in 2001 and the United States support for the Northern Alliance troops that then took Kabul— was that the Pashtun who were Taliban were defeated and completely thrown out of power. Karzai, who is of Pashtun background but without a major Pashtun constituency, was made the head of [Afghanistan’s] transitional government, but all the key personnel surrounding him were from the tiny minority in the north— the Tadjiks and the Uzbeks— because they had won the war with the United States. The Pakistanis have always had some say in Afghanistan’s central government politics, primarily because it flows over into their own. They felt pushed out and had to deal with the politics of their own Pashtun. Now, slowly, the constitutional process, it is hoped, will bring more Pashtun into the government structure in Afghanistan and into parliament, and thereby reduce some of the pressure for this support that goes from the Pashtuns in Pakistan to the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Let’s go back to President Musharraf. He agreed recently to resign as head of the army in 2004, and the Islamist parties agreed to allow him to remain as president. What is that deal about? In parliament, the upper and lower houses have agreed to let him remain as president until 2007, which in a sense is to legitimize what many people thought was not a very fair process by which he had himself elected in a widely suspect referendum and then passed a series of orders amending the constitution known jointly as the Legal Framework Ordinance or the LFO. Does this strengthen him or weaken him? I think it was the only route he could take. It still gives him the power to dismiss the prime minister, but it limits his ability to do that. He now has to take the matter to the supreme court, which has 15 days to offer judgment. One could argue that the supreme courts in Pakistan have sadly been quite pliable institutions. So I wouldn’t think that he has lost too much of his power there. What is interesting to me is the question: what does it mean for Musharraf’s main constituency, the army, when he takes off the uniform? He obviously has a good sense of who will succeed him. The army is very clear on those things. By March 2004, Musharraf will complete his final rotation of senior military commanders. But as we know from history, once a person is put in the driver’s seat, you can’t really control his activities. In Pakistan, in the 1970s, the then-Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who became prime minister, lifted up General Zia ul-Haq, who was a very lowly general, nowhere in line to be chief of army staff, and he made him chief because he thought he was a pliable man who would do his bidding. But this was the man who eventually hanged him. So one big question is when Musharraf takes off his uniform, what has he negotiated within the army? That’s the negotiation we don’t know about. If you put the most positive spin on it, the deal puts Pakistan one step forward toward some kind of negotiated democratic dispensation. If you look at the downside, Musharraf has refused again to negotiate with the secular parties. He cut this deal entirely with the Islamist parties. Again, the big question there is, what has he offered them? What is the quid pro quo? Let’s talk for a few minutes on the nuclear question. With Libya now agreeing to give up all its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, it again appears that the Pakistani nuclear industry was involved with Libya. Is this still a troubling situation? Very much so. Two senior scientists in Pakistan were recently detained for “debriefing” in connection with the Iranian nuclear program. These were people who worked for Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan’s program? [Dr. Khan is known as the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb.] They were detained on the basis of what the Iranians reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It isn’t clear if U.S. agents or the Pakistanis or both are questioning them. The Pakistanis insist it has only been them. But there are indications that the United States has been questioning them. This has been very troubling. In the past, people have focused a great deal on whether Pakistan’s weapons were disassembled, whether the facilities are safe and secure, whether there are ways the United States can assist Pakistan to make these physical assets safer, more protected, under the military as has always been the case. But as you see, there is not enough monitoring of these scientists. The Pakistanis claim that these are individuals operating out of greed, rather than from government policy. That doesn’t make me feel very secure. What you are telling me is you don’t vet your scientists, you don’t control them. You do not, as you keep telling us, maintain the safety and security of your system. A general told me two days before the scientists were detained that all systems were safe and secure under military control. They can’t have it both ways. This is a program that has evolved over a long period of time. It is a very sophisticated program. Despite all the U.S. war gaming, there are no realistic options to take it out or remove it. What about the reported trade of Pakistani nuclear know-how for North Korean missiles? Has this been brought under control? The Bush administration has sought to not bring undue attention to these violations. They have been overly protective and given Pakistan what amounts to a slap on the wrist. They’ve made calculations that there is too much at stake. The dependence on Pakistan in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda is too great. And Musharraf has given assurances that this did not happen under his watch, or if it did, it has stopped. The problem is that you have a country which is an ally of the United States, reportedly proliferating nuclear know-how to the countries that the Bush administration has labeled as the “axis of evil.” Once again, the Pakistanis absolutely deny it. I think on the Iranian program, it is too hard to deny, and there may be some hard evidence. I would make one comparison again. When the goal was to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the United States looked aside while Pakistan began to develop quite actively its nuclear program. In 1985, a Pakistani nuclear procurer was actually caught in Philadelphia trying to buy switching devices for nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis denied this was so and U.S. aid to Pakistan continued to flow. Then, when the Soviets left and the Pakistanis lapsed again into geopolitical unimportance, the United States slapped sanctions on them. It did not cost the United States anything. Now, when the stakes are high again in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda, the United States may again look aside. But it seems to me that fighting the war on terrorism is exacting very high costs in the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We have not learned from past experience when we gave the Pakistanis basically a “bye” for six to eight years to do what they were doing. So how reliable an ally is Pakistan? We have to remember that the Pakistani military government has its own set of regional realities and interests which do not always overlay neatly with United States interests. Where they do, there can be accommodation. I do believe that Musharraf is very determined to get some of the al Qaeda vipers out of the Pakistani nest. So there is that shared interest, but beyond that we have to remember, and as the Pakistanis keep saying, they have to live there, and America comes and goes. That’s the basis of the relationship. It is a marriage in need of some serious counseling.

Mahnaz Ispahani, the Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow on South and West Asia and co-executive director of a Council-Asia Society Independent Task Force on India and South Asia, says that the June 24 visit to Camp David by President Pervez Musharraf was important for the symbolism of U.S. support for Pakistan, as well as for the $3 billion in aid given by President Bush. But Ispahani, who specializes in Pakistan, says that continuing differences over Pakistan’s alleged aid to North Korea’s nuclear program and over Kashmir raise questions about the warmth of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance. She says that Pakistan will help the United States try to track down al-Qaeda members and will cooperate in Afghanistan. But she says the other issues make Pakistan a “maybe” ally. Ispahani was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on June 26, 2003.   Other Interviews   How important a trip was this for Musharraf? Is he returning to Pakistan with something substantive in his pocket? It was an extremely important trip for Musharraf and, actually in terms of symbolism, it was very important for him. The Pakistani government lobbied very hard [for him] to be received at Camp David. He is the first South Asian leader to visit an American president there. Musharraf needed to demonstrate to his other commanding generals as well as to his opposition in Pakistan, which has been growing substantially, that he really does have absolutely clear-cut support from the United States. [Moreover,] Musharraf, before the trip, downplayed what might come out of it. He said, “Certainly, we will discuss [the Pakistani-Indian territorial dispute over] Kashmir, but that’s really not going to be central to the agenda. Certainly, we’ll ask for these F-16s [fighter plans, which he did not get], but really what we’re going to do is talk about small trade agreements and things like that.” And then he ended up with more than he indicated ahead of time he would get? Yes. He got $3 billion over five years in straight aid. When the United States made the agreement to gain Pakistani support for the war in Afghanistan in 1980, [Pakistan’s then-leader] General Zia al-Haq got $3.2 billion over five years. It was a very similar amount to what Musharraf got. If you tally up what [former Prime Minister] Benazir Bhutto got over the years, it comes close to this. [Bush’s pledge to Musharraf] is a good amount of money. It puts Pakistan among the top recipients of U.S. assistance. But for some of his opponents, of course, nothing would have been enough. Is this U.S.-aid package a plus or minus for Musharraf, given the anti-Americanism in Pakistan? It is both. Given American power, which everyone understands and recognizes in Pakistan today, this was very important for Musharraf. The second point is that Musharraf has no other base of support right now outside of the army. He really does need U.S. support. Even [Pakistan’s] religious parties recognize that American support has some meaning. As it is in most countries these days, American support is a double-edged sword, of course. But I wouldn’t say that it has no positive elements. It is also important because it allows Musharraf to demonstrate that the United States is not only a pro-Indian power in the region. It is very important for Musharraf’s constituency, which is the military. Can the United States count on Pakistan as an ally on terrorism and a backer of its policy in Iraq and elsewhere? My answer to that is, maybe. If you simply focus on the al-Qaeda and Arab terrorist component of the problem— will Musharraf help in hunting down al-Qaeda members remaining in Pakistan?--I would say yes. There is too much at stake for him with the United States, and [the Pakistanis are] willing to [root out al-Qaeda]. To a great extent, they are doing that already. On Afghanistan, Musharraf, with a lot of pushing and prodding, has agreed to be as helpful as the United States is going to need him to be. A tripartite commission of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States has been set up to pursue Taliban remnants in the border areas. The answer there is yes. The reason I said “maybe,” is that, in the last few years, there have been allegations, which are fairly serious, that Pakistan is continuing to trade with North Korea in nuclear know-how and material. It is not clear if that will stop. President Bush has insisted on that stopping. Has Musharraf denied that Pakistan trades with North Korea? The Pakistani government denied the trading took place. Musharraf implied that, if it happened in the past, it was not happening now. Did that satisfy the United States? Bush raised it in the recent talks. There are broad U.S. concerns regarding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons: nonproliferation, safety and security of nuclear material, and the dangers of a conventional Indo-Pakistan conflict escalating to the nuclear level. Are there problems over Kashmir? The issue there is Pakistan’s role in supporting cross-border terrorists— or jihadis— who cross into Indian Kashmir. The Indians are furious about this and accuse the United States of having double standards in South Asia, treating Pakistan as an ally in the war on terror because it hunts down al-Qaeda but not leaning on Musharraf sufficiently to stop local jihadis from inflaming the situation in Kashmir. Musharraf says that this is all in the past, and does not happen now. But there is continuing evidence that cross-border infiltration continues. For the sake of U.S.-India relations, if nothing else, U.S. emissaries repeatedly press this point with Musharraf. The Indian government in early May made a proposal to lessen tensions with Pakistan. How have the Pakistanis responded? Slowly. On both sides, it is going to be a very slow process. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s initiative to resume direct talks was very important and was recognized across both India and Pakistan as being that, but even some of Vajpayee’s own bureaucrats were, I think, taken by surprise, as were the Pakistanis. And now, the Pakistanis are reciprocating, but a small step at a time. I think the Pakistanis are losing hope that the United States is really going to involve itself in the Kashmir dispute in any significant way. Musharraf recently said there may need to be some compromises made over Kashmir. Does the professional middle class, which seemed to rule Pakistan in its early years, back Musharraf? Isn’t that an important secular group and wouldn’t it support him? A much smaller community of people controlled a much larger arena of politics in those years. Now, that small group has broken down into multiple different political communities and some of those professionals, particularly middle-class and lower middle-class, have gone into the religious parties. They’re educated, often in the West, but also in religious traditions. They have gone primarily into the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a very important party. Some of those professionals are in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPA) [the secular party of Benazir Bhutto, who is now in exile]; some of them are in the Nawaz Sharif party [the Pakistan Muslim League party of the former prime minister overthrown by Musharraf in 1999 and sent into exile]. They are not necessarily anti-Western. You can be anti-Musharraf and not be anti-Western. I think Musharraf has made some important mistakes since he assumed power in that bloodless coup in 1999. Perhaps if he had not made those mistakes, we might be in a somewhat different place, but he chose a very specific political route. What were those mistakes? Everyone in Pakistan was critical of the April 2002 referendum in which he won 98 percent of the vote. Musharraf was the only candidate. That was a referendum for Musharraf to stay in power? To be named president. But more important, he agreed to have national elections in October 2002, and a lot of the international community, particularly the Commonwealth states, put a great deal of pressure on Musharraf to make this transition [toward restoration of democracy]. So he holds the elections, but he absolutely refused to permit two very important leaders, whatever their flaws and weaknesses, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, to play any role whatsoever in those elections. Unfortunately, his absolute blind spot regarding these two leaders meant you had two headless parties that— though they may be incompetent— were basically pushed out of the scene to the maximum amount possible. The end result was that the Islamic parties did better than they had ever done in the history of Pakistan. This was a unique development, and one that I profoundly believe is a very serious development in the history of Pakistan because— for reasons related to how Pakistan was created, the way the constitution was drafted, the role of Islam in public life in Pakistan over the years— you cannot take an Islamist step forward and assume there will ever be two possible steps backward. It’s very difficult to reverse Islamic laws. Religion, in any community or country, has a very powerful hold on people. You cannot defame it or disparage it. It is very difficult to critique, except internally. And Pakistan has sadly not thrown up a single liberal theologian or thinker of any stature in its entire time as an independent country. In North Africa, by comparison, states from the Sudan to Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria are producing modernist thinkers. There isn’t any of that in Pakistan. Have Pakistani Muslims adopted the strict Islamic practices of some Arab states, like the Wahabbism of Saudi Arabia? No. South Asian Islam is, in one sense, very different. These are Muslims who have spent several generations on the subcontinent, who, until the creation of Pakistan 55 years ago, had lived as a large minority among a primarily Hindu population, ruled by the British and, much earlier, by the Muslim Mughals. Many in South Asia worshipped saints and mystics as well as followed traditional religious practice. You have a very large percentage of Shiites in Pakistan— some 20 percent. The remainder follow several schools of Sunni thought. The difficulty is that the politically organized constituencies and communities are ultra-fundamentalist parties. There are vast multitudes of people who are Muslim who have no particular political organization, but the ones who are currently powerful follow a very strict, puritanical version of Islam.