Magnificent Delusions (7 page)

In subsequent decades, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Pakistanis have often complained that the United States failed to reward Pakistan for its contributions during the Cold War. But in 1947–1948 Pakistan had yet to do anything for America,
yet it still expected huge inflows of US cash, commodities, and arms. There was little discussion among Pakistanis about possible reductions in the size of the army that it inherited from the British so as to lower the fiscal deficit.

Furthermore, Pakistani leaders prioritized the political necessity of avoiding Indian dominance over the economic need to retain regional markets for agricultural products. They also rejected ideas of a customs union or closer economic cooperation with India. Instead, Pakistan's leaders convinced themselves that they deserved special consideration from America, and thus they devoted their energies to securing aid from US leaders.

But Pakistan's most pressing economic problem related to its external reserves. Around the time Ispahani presented credentials as ambassador in Washington, Jinnah sent Mir Laik Ali, a former adviser to the princely state of Hyderabad, on a mission to Washington to seek a $2 billion loan. Ostensibly the money was needed for “the relief and rehabilitation of refugees who have entered Pakistan in a destitute condition from India.” However, US officials politely informed the Pakistani emissary that the US government was “not authorized to extend foreign credits for a comprehensive program of this magnitude without prior Congressional approval and appropriation.”
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Furthermore, the State Department was not willing “to recommend such Congressional action.” US officials then advised Laik Ali to identify projects that “might qualify for financing by the Export-Import Bank or ultimately by the International Bank.”

The US government responded to this first specific plea from Pakistan for financial assistance with $10 million in funding from the War Assets Administration—0.5 percent of the original request. A detailed request for military equipment met a similar fate.

In October–November 1947 Pakistan asked the United States to provide $170 million for Pakistan's army, $75 million for the Air Force, and $60 million for the Navy. Pakistan wanted the United States to help it maintain “a regular army of 100,000 to consist of one armored division, five infantry divisions partly motorized, and a small cavalry establishment” as well as help with payment of personnel. It asked for twelve fighter squadrons (150 planes), four fighter
reconnaissance squadrons (70 planes), three bomber squadrons (50 planes), four transport squadrons (50 planes), and four training wings (200 planes) as well as four light cruisers, sixteen destroyers, four corvettes, twelve coast guard gunboats, and three submarines.

Upon receiving the military shopping list, officials at the State Department and the Pentagon concluded that “Pakistan was thinking in terms of the US as a primary source of military strength and that this would involve virtual US military responsibility for the new dominion.”
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But the United States was not ready to accept this responsibility. “We may defeat our own purpose if by extending assistance to any country in this area we alienate the friendship of one or more of the other South Asian powers,” explained an internal US government report. A few months later a British government request for transfer “from British lend-lease stores to the Government of Pakistan, of 5,198,000 rounds of 0.30 caliber and 1,091,000 rounds of 0.50 caliber ammunition” was also turned down.

President Harry Truman concurred with the views of Secretary of State George Marshall, who was also supported by Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, to impose an informal arms embargo on both India and Pakistan while they fought their war in Kashmir. The Truman administration had determined that it was not in America's interest to insert itself in the middle of the India-Pakistan conflict. To avoid publicity, however, the United States did not impose a formal embargo.
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Moreover, the United States viewed India as the region's natural leader. State Department and Pentagon officials wrote in a report, “India is the natural political and economic center of South Asia and aid given to the peripheral countries would have to be adapted to conditions in India.”
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Pakistanis who sought parity with India and were totally averse to any suggestion of India's regional preeminence, however, did not share this view.

Thus, the United States had flatly refused to embrace the plan for sustaining Pakistan economically and militarily through large amounts of aid. There were no buyers in Washington for the conception of the new country as the “pivot of the world,” as Jinnah had described it. This should have led Pakistan to reevaluate its hopes
for a lucrative relationship with the United States. But Pakistan's leaders did not disclose the details of the United States' rejection of their requests for assistance to Pakistan's people for fear that it would undermine the Pakistani national morale or even encourage India to join forces with dissidents within Pakistan so as to break up the country. Maintaining the people's hopes for US aid and the prospect of strength and prosperity was important while Pakistan struggled to get on its feet.

Pakistan made the demand for aid from rich countries to poorer ones an important plank of its foreign policy. This helped form the widely held view within the country that donor countries were obligated to provide aid that should not be tied to political or policy issues. Pakistani delegations at international conferences emphasized this position.

For instance, in November 1947 Ispahani, while leading Pakistan's team to Havana, Cuba, for the UN Conference on Trade and Employment, insisted that the charter of a future international trade organization must “unambiguously” provide for aid for the world's “undeveloped nations, which comprise the majority of the world.”
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But the chief US delegate found the demand unreasonable and likely to sow dissension instead of expanding trade.

Then the Pakistani employers' delegation to the International Labor Organization Conference in San Francisco went even further. They asked for “some sort of Marshall Plan”
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—the American plan to help Europe rebuilt after World War II—for Pakistan. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan told the United Press in an interview that the United States should initiate an aid package similar to the Marshall Plan to benefit the Middle East and Pakistan.

Other voices in Karachi soon joined the chorus. “Every country in the earlier stages of its development has needed assistance from outside,” argued one columnist. “Countries in the Middle East are no exception to this rule, and it is the duty, and should be the privilege, of more advanced countries, and particularly the USA to assist them,” he elaborated.
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Although Pakistan was a South Asian country, its appeals for assistance were based on describing it as an extension of the Middle East.

However, not everyone in Pakistan agreed with the clamor for US aid. Bengali politicians from the country's eastern wing proposed normal relations with India so that Pakistani farm products could continue to be sold in their traditional markets. Reducing the tensions that the partition had generated would also enable a reduction in the massive defense budget. Left-wing intellectuals also warned that dependence on US assistance might lead to “economic subjugation” and “political tutelage to America.”

“Whatever foreign aid Pakistan accepts must be on terms of its own choosing,” the left-wing
Pakistan Times
opined in one of its many editorials. “If American dollars are not available on these terms our country must look elsewhere for help.”
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The Pakistani left's proposed strategy for industrial development was to seek machinery and technical help from Eastern Europe and to adopt austerity at home. Limiting conflict and reducing military spending were also deemed important. But the emerging Pakistani elite did not find the notion of austerity appealing, nor did they consider trimming the military to levels Pakistan could afford.

Then, instead of revisiting the wisdom of their original bet, Pakistan's founders doubled down on seeking alliance with the United States as the source of economic sustenance and military maintenance. Thus, Pakistan initiated elaborate efforts to persuade the United States of Pakistan's value and usefulness as an ally. Pakistani politicians and diplomats charmed Americans in Karachi as well as Washington with their hospitality, during which Pakistani representatives dangled the fear of the young country's people turning against the United States, intelligence about Soviet threats in the region, and offers of military bases and listening posts as instruments to secure American attention.

In addition to Ambassador Ispahani's early observation that Americans respond well to “sweet words and first impressions,” Pakistanis had also figured out that US diplomats read the local press carefully and reported back to Washington everything they heard or read where they were assigned. Americans like being liked, Pakistanis thought, so if reports filter into Washington that some Pakistani officials
deeply admire the United States, it could favorably influence American policy toward the country. Thus, Pakistani officials missed no opportunity to highlight Pakistan's support for the United States. Local newspapers often ran articles to induce guilt among American diplomats for not being helpful to a struggling nation whose leaders were so favorably disposed toward this superpower. Foreign Minister Zafrulla Khan made this argument when he said that the “well-known friendship of Pakistan toward the U.S. and Pakistan's obvious antipathy to the Russian ideology would seem to justify serious consideration by the US government of the defense requirements of Pakistan.”
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The Muslim League media also raised the specter that Pakistan may turn against the United States if its needs were not met. In addition, Pakistan tried to balance its Islamo-nationalist aspirations with its pursuit of a Western alliance. That tension came to a head in May 1948, when three thousand protesters mobbed the US Embassy in Karachi, protesting American recognition of the state of Israel. The United Press reported that “Leaders climbed on window ledges of the Embassy and shouted their protests against recognition of Israel inside. American officials rigged up a loudspeaker and Ambassador Paul Alling, through an interpreter, promised to convey the Pakistani sentiment to Washington.”
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As American diplomats in Karachi pondered the implications of the protest, they concluded that supporting the pro-US government was key to containing anti-American sentiment. No one suspected that the demonstrations could be part of an orchestrated effort to seek American attention.

J
INNAH'S SUCCUMBING TO
tuberculosis in September 1948 jolted Pakistan, leading many analysts around the world to speculate about the future of the country that he had created. Given that Jinnah was a towering personality and his death was indeed a huge loss, concern about its impact on the future of Pakistan was not entirely
unfounded. A wire service report from Reuters stated that US diplomatic sources were wondering whether “Mr. Jinnah's disappearance from the political scene would weaken Muslim determination to maintain the partition of India.”

This anonymous report stirred an emotional reaction that US representatives abroad were not accustomed to.
Dawn
responded with an indignant editorial titled, “To the Americans,” which questioned American diplomats' “pitifully inadequate” understanding of the “conception of Pakistan.” Instead of responding to the quoted remark as commentary,
Dawn
reacted as though it were an insidious conspiracy. “Far from weakening the Muslim determination to maintain the partition of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent,” the editorial fired back, “the demise of the Quaid-i-Azam will strengthen it a thousand fold. That's our last word to the world.”
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Realizing that the remarks from US diplomatic sources had touched a raw nerve, the US embassy in Karachi responded, explaining that “the editorial [in
Dawn
] was based on ‘erroneous interpretation'.”
Dawn
ran the embassy's clarification along with another editorial, this time titled, “From the Americans.” Although the editor accepted the American clarification, he likewise claimed that the altercation had “made clear to all whom it may concern that Pakistan public opinion will not tolerate any attempt by any quarter to question the firmness of our faith in the future of our country.”
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That a simple speculative comment should elicit such reaction indicated Pakistanis' prickliness about observations of the country's viability. In the six decades since this first Pakistani claim that a single remark in a news report somehow amounted to an attack on Pakistan's integrity, American officials would have to issue many more clarifications, explanations, and apologies. This first angry riposte foretold the rage Americans could expect if they questioned Pakistan's view of events and the nation's sense of self.