Magnificent Delusions (46 page)

The Americans were unaware of Gul's ideological predilections and fantasies. A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) profile described Gul as “a powerful mediator” who had organized “the unruly Afghan Alliance Leaders into a viable institution.” He was characterized as “a sincere and caring individual who is attempting to do what is best for the Afghan Alliance as well as for Pakistan.” In what turned out to be a massive miscalculation, the DIA believed that Gul was “a strong supporter of Pakistan's ties to the U.S; is generally friendly towards the U.S. and the West and very comfortable with foreigners.” The US intelligence community thought that Gul did not “have any particular political contacts of any significance within Pakistan.”
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They were wrong on all counts.

As soon as parliamentary elections were announced, Gul and the ISI initiated efforts to create an anti-Bhutto alliance of conservative politicians and Islamists. Gul and his deputy, Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmed told journalists that the ISI had intelligence about Bhutto promising the Americans to “roll back” the nuclear program. They claimed that she would prevent a Mujahideen victory in Afghanistan and stop plans for Jihad in Kashmir in its tracks, though they offered no evidence for their allegations. Although Jihad had not yet started in Kashmir, the ISI was apparently preparing for it. The domestic political struggle had become intertwined with the army's ideological national security agenda.

The PPP won the election, and Benazir Bhutto became the first elected woman leader of an Islamic country. But the ISI-backed Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI) secured control of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province and home to most of its soldiers and civil servants. Nawaz Sharif, scion of a rich Kashmiri family from Lahore and a protégé of Zia, rose to national prominence as chief minister of the province. His campaign had been based on nationalist rhetoric against India and the United States. He had also called for declaring
Pakistan a nuclear weapons power and for openly supporting the Mujahideen in Kashmir.
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Sharif's election campaign had unleashed a xenophobic Pakistani nationalism tinged with more Islamism than had previously been the norm in Pakistani politics. Ideas nurtured under Zia's authoritarian rule now had a democratic manifestation. Beg and Gul could keep Bhutto in check by pitting the Punjab provincial government against the prime minister. The ISI-manipulated Pakistani media portrayed Bhutto as an American “agent of influence.” Sharif described her publicly as “a security risk.”

Bhutto began her stint in office by releasing political prisoners and removing restrictions on the media. But most members of her government had spent the preceding decade either in prison or in forced exile, neither of which were good training grounds for government. As a result, they fumbled as they took office, and the ISI-backed opposition gave Bhutto little room to maneuver. But she was widely admired in the United States. Although she approached foreign relations carefully, making great effort not to upset the military, her calls for “a new era in relations” with India did not sit well with the army's hawks.
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Soon after Bhutto's inauguration as prime minister, the Soviets completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989. The ISI had predicted that once the Soviets withdrew, the Mujahideen would displace the Soviet-backed government within two to three months. The Americans had deferred to the ISI's judgment. But the Afghan communist government, led by Najibullah, proved more resilient. Efforts by the Mujahideen to gain control of Jalalabad, a major Afghan city close to the border with Pakistan, failed miserably. Bickering among the Mujahideen became public, as did complaints from moderate Afghans against the ISI's support for Islamist factions.

Bhutto proposed a political solution that would enable the creation of a transition government in Kabul. But the ISI, led by Gul, persisted with their plan to use force to install their favorite Islamist groups in power. Bhutto's civilian Intelligence Bureau obtained evidence of Gul's clandestine political activities against the government, and she then removed Gul from the ISI, though Beg immediately reassigned
him to a major military command.
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Gul was able to direct Sharif and his domestic opposition as well as interact with Afghan Mujahideen commanders even though he was no longer formally the head of ISI.

During her state visit to Washington in June 1989 Bhutto received a warm welcome at the White House. At the state dinner President George H. W. Bush spoke about a relationship that went back to 1971, “when she attended Harvard and came with her dad to the United Nations.” Bhutto described Washington as “one of the great citadels of democracy” and spoke of the prospects of close ties between Pakistan and the United States based not on geopolitical considerations but instead on shared values.
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She also became the only Pakistani prime minister to be invited to address a joint session of Congress. The US media recognized Bhutto's “claim on American backing” on the ground of her adherence to democracy and moderation in the Islamic world.
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But in private talks with US officials she realized that the Americans did not think she was fully in control, and they could not offer her any help in asserting authority.

The United States had also learned that Pakistan was enriching uranium in violation of Zia's promise of capping enrichment at 5 percent, and Bhutto was unable to promise that enrichment would be capped. Bush agreed to certify one last time that Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons in return for Bhutto's commitment that Pakistan would not produce an atomic bomb, but while the tough opposition that Sharif put up at home distracted her, Pakistan violated that commitment without her full knowledge. She asserted later that she was told about Pakistan's nuclear enrichment program but not informed of the exact level of enrichment.

By the end of the year spontaneous protests against tainted elections in Kashmir grew into a violent anti-Indian insurgency. Pakistan's religious parties competed with one another to raise funds in support of various insurgent groups. The United States then started receiving intelligence of the ISI's complicity in the Kashmir insurgency. Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates traveled to South Asia in May 1990 to prevent the situation in Kashmir from degenerating into a full-blown war between India and Pakistan.

Gates cautioned Indian leaders against using force against Pakistan and proposed a series of confidence-building measures. In Islamabad he stressed the American view that “India would soundly defeat Pakistan in any military clash.” He described Pakistani support for the insurgency in Kashmir as “an extremely dangerous activity.” But Pakistani officials flatly denied that they were helping the Kashmiri resistance. Ishaq was stiff during the discussions, and Beg was at times “accusatory and confrontational.” Gates also shared American concerns about Pakistan pressing ahead with its nuclear program contrary to its promises.

CIA analysts had concluded that Pakistan had taken the final step toward “possession” of a nuclear weapon by machining uranium metal into bomb cores. Washington was certain that “Pakistan had crossed the line.” But Ishaq and Beg told Gates that Pakistan's nuclear capability had not advanced. Unless Pakistan melted down the bomb cores that it had produced, Gates warned, “Bush would not be able to issue the Pressler amendment certification needed to permit the continued flow of military and economic aid.” When the Pakistanis denied that they had “crossed the line,” Gates commented, “If it waddles like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, then maybe it is a duck.”
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The Pakistanis had lied to Gates on both issues he raised in Islamabad. Although Bhutto was the best disposed toward the United States among Pakistan's major power players, she did not control the levers of power. The State Department and the CIA did not see any advantage in trying to secure the Pakistan military's subordination to an elected civilian; instead, they effectively leaned in the military's favor by directly discussing major issues with Beg and other generals, assuming that the military could deliver on key issues of US interest—Afghanistan, nuclear weapons, and security in South Asia.

This view was based on the camaraderie that had evolved between the American and Pakistani militaries and intelligence agencies during the war against the Soviets. However, US diplomats and spies had failed to grasp the ideological undercurrents reflected in the conduct of Beg and Gul. Robert Oakley, who served as US ambassador in Islamabad from 1988 to 1991, admitted years later that “the United States made a mistake in continuing to support the
largely ISI-driven Pakistan policy on Afghanistan.”
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Richard Armitage, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the time, said, “We drifted too long in 1989 and failed to understand the independent role that the ISI was playing.”
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The mistake proved costly. The ISI orchestrated public sentiment in favor of its actions in Afghanistan and Kashmir as well as in the nuclear sphere, making rational debate on Pakistan's policy choices impossible. Anyone disagreeing with any element of these policies faced attacks from the agency's allies in domestic politics and the media. The frenzy of Islamist mobs in Pakistan's major cities now reinforced denial in meetings with foreign officials.

In August 1990 Ishaq dissolved Parliament and dismissed Bhutto's government under presidential powers that Zia had written into the constitution. The decision to remove Bhutto was carefully timed to minimize the possibility that Washington might speak up in her favor.
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The dismissal was announced four days after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and had been engineered by the army leadership. The
Washington Post
reported that “Some Pakistani generals are said to be eager to step up a proxy war with India.”
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But the prospect of war in the Persian Gulf distracted the United States. Although the
New York Times
saw Bhutto's ouster as “the defeat of democracy in Pakistan,” the US government let it slide, seeing it as an internal Pakistan affair.
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The military supported Sharif even more directly in the 1990 election. Beg solicited funds from bankers and businessmen, ostensibly for ISI covert national security operations, and then funneled them to Sharif and several parliamentary candidates from his party. With this help, Sharif was elected prime minister with a thumping majority. Bhutto alleged that the ISI had stolen the election for Sharif and the Islamic Alliance.
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Years later Beg and the ISI director-general, Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, admitted before the Supreme Court of Pakistan about the ISI's role in that election, claiming they had acted in the national interest.
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Sharif had run an even more intensely nationalist campaign than he had two years earlier. A “Hindu-Jewish alliance” in the United States was targeting Pakistan, his party claimed. Newspaper advertisements averred that the United States wanted to prevent Pakistan
from becoming a nuclear power, which was its right and destiny. There was much bombast about resisting Indian hegemony that the United States sought to impose on Pakistan.

Beg and Gul had set the anti-American tone of the campaign with a purpose. The White House was due to make a decision on the annual certification about Pakistan's nuclear program as required by Congress. Both the ISI and the Pakistan Foreign Office had assumed that the United States still needed Pakistan because of its interest in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Thus, the fear of a rising tide of anti-Americanism was meant to scare Washington that it might lose Pakistan. The Pakistanis thought their noise would nudge Bush into certifying again that Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons, and this would keep aid flowing, notwithstanding US concerns about uranium enrichment and building weapons cores.

The assessment in Islamabad proved wrong. Just days before the Pakistani election Bush refused certification, triggering sanctions on US aid under the Pressler Amendment. Bush and his advisers saw their decision as a legal matter: Pakistan had crossed the threshold beyond which verbal assurances could no longer be the basis of a presidential determination of the country's nuclear program. Bush felt he could not lie to Congress in the presence of the overwhelming evidence US intelligence had collected.

Likewise, the United States had failed to recognize that no Pakistani government could curtail the nuclear program. Having acquired the bomb, expecting Pakistan to give it up was unrealistic; instead, this was the time for the United States to accept Pakistan's nuclear status as a fait accompli. If nuclear weapons were Pakistan's ultimate guarantee against its psychological fears against India, that purpose had been achieved. Rather than limiting itself to implementing Pressler sanctions while Pakistan persisted with denial and bluster, the United States could have asked Pakistan to be honest about the nukes and then negotiated safeguards against further proliferation.

The Pakistani government continued to lie to the United States as well as to the Pakistani people. To the Americans, Pakistani officials insisted that there had been no change in Pakistan's nuclear status, whereas the Pakistani public was told that the Americans were dis
criminating against Pakistan by preventing access to technology available to India. The allegation of discrimination, however, was not really true. The Symington and Glenn Amendments had imposed the same restrictions on India as they had on Pakistan.