Cheney owns Pakistan's problem

At about this point it's worth looking at an aspect of the situation in Pakistan and how a lot of the problem emanates from the halls of the Bush administration. It would be easy to pull out one of the news or opinion columns from after Musharraf's imposition of emergency powers, but this one goes back to June 2007.

It is also worth keeping in mind that George W. Bush himself is well over his head when it comes to anything akin to foreign policy, planning, geopolitics and the like. In fact, he's over his head when he gets out of bed. It's also worth remembering that Bush has no background in anything resembling foreign relations and that when asked, back before the 2000 US federal election, Bush was unable to answer a question as to the name of the president of Pakistan. He didn't know much then and he doesn't know much now.

It's also worth noting that in every instance where there has been a problem in South Asia, Dick Cheney has been deeply involved. There have also been indications that the US State Department has allowed all the expertise they once had on Pakistan to atrophy. This was the warning provided by Ahmed Rashid, June 17, 2007:

Pakistan is on the brink of disaster, and the Bush administration is continuing to back the man who dragged it there. As President Pervez Musharraf fights off the most serious challenge to his eight-year dictatorship, the United States is supporting him to the hilt. The message to the Pakistani public is clear: To the Bush White House, the war on terrorism tops everything, and that includes democracy.

That warning was issued after the March 9th dismissal by Musharraf of the chief justice of Pakistan's supreme court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry resulted in Pakistanis starting an uprising against the rule of Prevez Musharraf.

Thousands of lawyers nationwide, looking like penguins in their courtroom black suits and white shirts, braved police batons and the heat to lead marches. They were joined by women's groups, journalists and the opposition. For the first time in two decades, Pakistan's civil society has taken to the streets.

And it all goes back to the deal that was made by the United States with Pakistan suggesting they were an ally in the bumper-sticker called the "Global War on Terror".

The roots of the crisis go back to the blind bargain Washington made after 9/11 with the regime that had heretofore been the Taliban's main patron: ignoring Musharraf's despotism in return for his promises to crack down on al-Qaeda and cut the Taliban loose. Today, despite $10 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001, that bargain is in tatters; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's senior leadership has set up another haven inside Pakistan's chaotic border regions.

Then we get to the rub, because in June we knew that the US was completely deficit in working knowledge of the region. The Bush administration had allowed its South Asia knowledge base to wither.

The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American "drugs and thugs"; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. "They know nothing of Pakistan," a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

And now, the kicker.

Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney's decisions. Boucher, for one, has largely limited his remarks on the crisis to expressions of support for Musharraf. Current and retired U.S. diplomats tell me that throughout the previous year, Boucher refused to let the State Department even consider alternative policies if Musharraf were threatened with being ousted, even though 2007 is an election year in Pakistan. Last winter, Boucher reportedly limited the scope of a U.S. government seminar on Pakistan for fear that it might send a signal that U.S. support for Musharraf was declining. Likewise, I'm told, he has refused to meet with leading opposition figures such as former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf has exiled.

[...]

With Cheney in charge and Rice in eclipse, rumblings of alarm can be heard at the Defense Department and the CIA. While neither agency is usually directly concerned with decision-making on Pakistan, both boast officers with far greater expertise than the White House and State Department crew. These officers, many of whom have served in Islamabad or Kabul, understand the double game that Musharraf has played -- helping the United States go after al-Qaeda while letting his intelligence services help the Taliban claw their way back in Afghanistan. The Pentagon and the CIA have been privately expressing concern about the lack of an alternative to blind support for Musharraf. Ironically, both departments have historically supported military rulers in Pakistan. They seem to have learned their lesson.

Once again, the hand of Dick Cheney is found stuck in the middle of a fiasco pie. Instead of promoting scholarship and sound planning at the State Department, Cheney runs the show based on his personal knowledge. He has clearly rejected the expertise of the CIA - again.

Once again, a monumental failure in foreign affairs falls squarely in the laps of Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice. This time, however, they are playing footsie from their offices with a nuclear power. An unstable nuclear power.