Dangerous Liaisons

The death of Osama bin Laden, the head of the largest terrorist organization in the world, only 11 kilometers from Islamabad where he had been living in refuge for several years, has clearly highlighted the difficult relations between Western powers and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In addition, it generates controversy about the consequences of the “fight against terrorism.”

In his first statement following the military action, President Obama declared that “counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding.” Neither he nor his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, hesitated in describing the deed as “historic.”

But doubts soon began to emerge, such as those voiced by Obama’s counter-terrorism chief, John Brennan: “I think it’s inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time.” The CIA’s Leon Panetta hammered this question home when he said that Pakistani authorities were either incompetent or accomplices when they denied knowing bin Laden’s whereabouts.

And things have gotten more intense, which cannot be understood without a deep comprehension of the currents that rule relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. As with many other things in the current political puzzle, it all goes back to the era of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which Pakistan played a crucial role, forging a close alliance with the United States and serving as a base for supplying the Afghan mujahedeen militias that ended up defeating the Soviet war machine.

The Taliban and Osama bin Laden emerged from that war and were financially and militarily supported by the United States. It was also the beginning of the close relationship between North America and Pakistan and the Islamic fundamentalist fight against Western powers.

The basic mistake in these stormy relations was the belief that democratic systems could be imposed, in the Western way, on Islamic republics. However, the latter are not states of rights in which justice is administrated according to civil law, but states of religion in which civil law is subordinate to Islamic doctrine. So Afghanistan quickly positioned itself against the United States and in Pakistan a chaotic succession of dictatorships followed, interspersed by rare democratic intervals.

Differences between Pakistan and India, a country of which the Islamic Republic was a part until 1947, grew at the same time. Fenced in by its powerful neighbor, Pakistan reached out to the Afghans, who were more radical and fuller of religious fanaticism at each turn.

Of course, the United States can’t lose Pakistan because it is the only Islamic nation that possesses a nuclear arsenal and any separation whatsoever could lead to the entrance of Iran, Syria or other countries into the dangerous group of atomic nations. This explains why, despite disagreements and doubts, the United States must maintain good relations with Pakistan, even at great cost.