Those Paks Never Give It A Rest

Farahnaz Ispahani, a chief adviser to Pakistani president Zardari, has made a modest proposal to the US.  No doubt but with the most straight of faces the man has the unmitigated nerve to propose that We the People move immediately to provide a "Marshall Plan" for Pakistan.  (Please note that while the link is to a Pakistani site, the Ispahani proposal was put forth in an op-ed piece on USA Today, but the Geek was too lazy to search for this.)

The way Pakistani politics is structured we can be certain that Ispahani would not have penned the piece had it not been pre-approved by his boss.  So it can be taken as a trial balloon launched by the most senior levels of the civilian government(?) of Pakistan.  It is  official.

Not only official but also a disgusting travesty.  Part of the travesty is the man's probably willful failure to comprehend the nature of the original Marshall Plan, the iconic model of self-interested but nonetheless altruistic foreign aid.

First, the Plan was not aimed at any one country but rather was open to all European states including the Soviet Union and those old nations of Middle Europe which had fallen under the sway of the Red Army.  It was a mechanism for the sorting out of friends from enemies at least in major part, and in this it was quite successful.

Second, the intent of the Plan was the forcing of European joint decision making.  Individual countries might have their own shopping lists, but a priority was placed upon those projects which would benefit the region to the greatest extent.  There was a desire on the part of the US to see greater and more rapid European integration on the economic and political levels alike.

Third, it was necessary for the recipients of Plan aid to spend the majority of the money in the US.  The real selling point to Congress was the blunt reality that the money would be recycled to the US and thus assist in post-war economic readjustment at home.

None of these factors are present in Pakistan.  There is no need to force Pakistan to choose a side--it has already done that in practice if not in rhetoric.  There is no need to foster regional integration.  The Pakistanis have a concept of integration which extends as far as Afghanistan.  It is called operational dominance.

Finally, the Pakistanis would like to spend the money wherever they please.  It might, for example, best suit the needs and hopes of Islamabad best if the mulcted money were to be spent with the Trolls of Beijing and not with the Capitalist Infidels of the US.

The president and his man seem to believe that Pakistan deserves largess without end simply because some three thousand Pakistani troops (primarily from the undertrained, poorly equipped and usually unpaid Frontier Corps and not the regular army) have been killed in conflict with the Taliban et al.  Should we cruel and heartless infidels not think that is sufficient sacrifice of lives, the presidential adviser throws in the two thousand police who have died purportedly at the hands of the jihadi.

The Marshall Plan was not American atonement for the European lives lost in World War II.  It was not the product of a collective feeling of guilt over having failed to prevent the outbreak of the war or of having entered the war only after Pearl Harbor.  Rather, it was a piece of calculated self-interest as was the creation of NATO, a carefully considered mechanism of defense against a perceived threat.

Ispahani makes the usual attempt to preempt this approach.  He alleges that massive economic aid will provide the necessary basis for internal improvement which will automatically reduce the appeal of violent political Islam.

There is a word for this: Crap!

There no evidence that poverty on its own is correlated positively with violent political Islam.  Indeed, there is evidence behind the contention that violent political Islam is far more the province of the better off, better educated members of society--including that of Pakistan.  The money which has gone to direct support of Pakistani development projects after surviving the hazards of graft, corruption, kickbacks, and assorted insider deals has not shown any benefit accruing either to the image of the US or the conditions of life affecting the recipient communities.

The record of previous civilian aid programs ranging from the building of dams to the provision of emergency food aid is a dreary and disgusting tale of misappropriation, illegal and improper diversion, and, even when every thing goes correctly, a resulting sense of Pakistani entitlement.  (Think back and recall the farmer whose fields and property had survived the floods last year due to an American designed and constructed dam.  Was he appreciative?  No way!  He was bent out of shape because the Americans had not been back to properly maintain and upgrade the dam and its associated irrigation projects.)

President Zardari and his advisers would be better off if they were to contemplate the real causes of violent political Islam which has inflicted so much alleged damage, death, and despair on their country.  The real causes are simple.

There is a misplaced sense of victimhood focusing on India and its alleged Satanic supporters, Israel and the US.

Then there is the ultimate impact of the program of "Islamification" instituted by Zia more than twenty years ago.  The importation of the austere Saudi form of Islam along with Pakistani modifications has provided more than one generation with the mythology of Islamic superiority, Islamic entitlement, Islamic victimization which has looped together with the preexisting sense of Pakistan having been denied its deserved place of sub-continent supremacy by the machinations of India.

Then, of course, there is the success of ISI through its Wing S in creating and operating groups predicated on violent political Islam as a substitute for more conventional forms of war.  As Frankenstein's monster escaped its creator's control so also have the advocates of violent political Islam.

To any objective observer, the problems of Pakistan are those of Pakistani manufacture.  They have all been made in Islamabad or Rawalpindi.  For decades now the powers that be in Pakistan have rejected an honest search for peace with India, preferring a sort of forever war.  They have also turned their backs on conventional war in favor of nuclear poker and very lethal use of terror.  It is totally unsurprising that they are now being burned by the inevitable blowback.

The same intellectual bankruptcy seen in the forever war with India and the use of violent political Islam as a proxy is seen in the arguments advanced by Ispahani and his boss.  They, like the government and military in general, know only one trick--bluster and extort.  This is how they met Secretary Clinton today.  This is what rests behind the demand for a new Marshall Plan.

If the Obama administration has any sense at all, any orientation as to time and place, it will make clear that, to quote Maxwell Smart, "The trick is old!  The trick is stupid!"  And in this case the trick will work no longer.  To say that the US has no options in the region other than to continue to pay Pakistan off and hope for the best is to show a level of intellect such as to make a tapeworm seem like a genius.

We have options.  It is certain that the administration knows perfectly well what they are.  The only question is whether or not it has the political will to take a better course than business as usual.  It may be time to tell the lads in Islamabad that they best peddle their goods to a different buyer, say, China.