DURING his most recent visit to South Asia US Secretary of State Colin Powell

announced the intention of the Bush administration to notify the US

Congress that it would designate Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally for the purpose of future bilateral military relations. Stating that Pakistan has an important role to play in this region, he described Pakistan "as a moderate, modern Muslim nation, a nation that is becoming increasingly democratic". He allayed fears of the possibility of any sudden change in Pakistan's policy on the war on terror should President Musharraf who has been target of several assassination attempts on his life were to depart from Pakistan's political scene. Colin Powell assured that the US was working with the government of Pakistan which did not rest on any single individual and that the US was reaching out to all levels of Pakistani society.

Indian reaction to the US decision to upgrade military relations with Pakistan was measured. An official spokesman of the Indian Foreign Office said that India was studying the details of the decision "which has significant implications for the India-US relations". Indian government expressed disappointment that Colin Powell did not warn India about the decision though he was in Delhi just two days before he made the announcement in Islamabad relating to Pakistan. Perhaps to calm India down US State Department expressed the hope that the decision to upgrade military relations with Pakistan would not affect relations with India because of the strength and depth of the existing "strategic partnership" between the two countries.

The notion of "major non-NATO ally" (MNNA) status first surfaced in 1989. For several years this status was limited to Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan and South Korea. In 1992 a new section was added to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 giving the US President the authority to name new countries to be MNNAs. The President's designation of MNNA takes effect thirty days after Congress is notified in writing. Though MNNA does not enjoy the same benefits of defence and

security guarantee afforded to NATO members, yet there are defence related advantages in the upgradation of military relationship. Some of the benefits are: priority delivery of excess defence articles, stockpiling of the US defence articles, purchase of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds, participation in cooperative research and development programmes, and participation in Defence Export Loan Guarantee programme which backs up private loans for commercial defence articles.

It is obvious that the inclusion of Pakistan in the list of MNNA is to reward Pakistan's total cooperation in the US led war on terror. Before the efficacy of the US decision is analysed beyond its very short term

goal of rewarding Pakistan despite proliferation of nuclear technology by A.Q.Khan , one may wish to trawl through US relations with other MNNAs. Australia has been tied to the US by ANZUS alliance since 1951 and as a follower of "whites only" immigration policy till seventies was a sort of apartheid South Africa in the midst of Australasia region. In 1964 Australia introduced draft to send troops to Vietnam during the war which was abolished when Labour government came to power. In the current war on terror Prime Minister John Howard has been hawkish in favour of the US position, a policy not uniformly supported by Australians. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, both of which host US troops on their soil, MNNA status is a natural development of their military relations with the US. Inclusion of Israel on the pretext of guaranteeing its security does not need elaboration. Egypt was perhaps included because of changed Egyptian policy towards the US in post-Nasser era and in view of Camp David accord between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin through the mediation of President Carter.

In the case of Pakistan one hopes that the Bush administration had given serious consideration to the

question of the reliability of Pakistan as an ally of the US war on terror. Leon Haader of the Cato Institute advised Washington to view Pakistan, with its dictatorship, failed economy, and insecure nuclear arsenal "as a reluctant supporter of US goals at best and as a potential long term problem at worst". He did not see President Musharraf's decision to join the US on its war on terror as reflecting a structural transformation in Pakistan's policy but a tactical move to cut losses resulting from the demolition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Besides, the reported choice given to President Musharraf by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage of either to cooperate or be bombed to stone age( reflecting President

Bush's dictum of either you are with us or against us) helped to expedite Pakistan's decision to join the US in the war on terror. In an op-ed (March 17, 2004) Colin Powell denied that US-Pakistan relations are "a temporary marriage of convenience". He emphasised that "the US partnership with Pakistanis not just for today and tomorrow. Our partnership is for the long term". He added that American interests in Pakistan was not defined by the state of Indo-Pak relations nor driven solely by the US need to secure Pak assistance against terrorism and proliferation.

Notwithstanding Colin Powell's sacramental testimony on US-Pakistan relations State Department could have considered President Musharraf's televised speech to the nation( on 19.09.2001) in which he compared his move to cooperate with the US to the temporary cease fire Muslim leaders signed with the non-believers at early stages of Islamic history to provide the Muslims with the opportunity to gain strength and expand influence. Political analyst Matt Thundyll has compared the US policy of cooperation with Pakistan as an alliance with a lesser evil against a greater evil. In reality, writes Thundyll, like the Soviet

threat in 1945 the Pakistani threat is extant. While in the case of the former it was Communism in Pakistan's case it is Islamic extremism. Since the partition of India in 1947 Pakistan has been largely dictated by the politics of religion. Except for some feeble attempts to bring about secular values, both civilian and military rulers had appealed to the religious sentiments of the Pakistanis to gain legitimacy and to ensure survival. The fact that the very creation of Pakistan was based on the ground that Indian Muslims and Hindus could not co-exist together was the most compelling religious argument which convinced the British to the creation of the two adversarial states in the sub-( continent.

Pakistan is an Islamic theocracy. Pakistan's Constitution provides that all existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the injunction of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such injunctions. According to a report by the Brussels based International Crisis Group( ICG report no 49) mullahs and military worked together against common foes during the Cold War period and have identical views on Kashmir and towards India. One should, however, be cognisant of improving Indo-Pak relations and the on-going attacks on Al-Qaida by Pakistani military in the lawless region of South Waziristan. Yet the fundamental fact remains that Muttahida-Majlish-e-Amal (MMA), a conglomerate of religious fundamentalist political parties, has a considerable presence in the centre and rules the two provinces bordering Afghanistan with a declared Islamisation agenda.

Additionally, Pakistan is bedeviled with religious sectarian conflicts. The Sunnis are divided into two groups one following Deobandi school and the other Barelvi school of thought. The Deobandis are antiShia. The hard core among them, the vast majorit,y consider the Shias

infidels and demand constitutional amendment to that effect. Sectarian killings are considered as jihad. One may also recall the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), established by President Ayub Khan in 1960 which received expanded powers during General Zia-ul-Huq's Islamisation campaign. In 1991 Nawaz Sharif's government made death penalty mandatory for blaspheming the Holy Prophet(sm). The Hudoot ordinances and the related Qanoon-e-Shahdaat (the law of evidence) were discriminatory to women.

The central point of the above discourse is to emphasize the fact that Islamisation is an irreversible fact of life in Pakistan with its implicit anti-Western and anti-American

sentiments remaining as integral parts of the Islamist agenda. Therefore rewarding countries like Pakistan despite the US administration's satisfaction over the dismantling of A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network, with enhanced military support is likely to boomerang in the long run.

US designation of Pakistan as major non-NATO ally may allow the US to have military presence in Pakistan as is the case in Japan and South Korea. US nuclear assets could also be stationed there. In return the US could expect Pakistan to send sizeable number of troops to Iraq to relieve war weary American soldiers stationed there. In another scenario of US troops stationed in Pakistan could be used for intervention in Iran should such a situation arise. In all these cases popular discontent against the Pakistani government and the US administration is bound to surface with all intensity. As it is US invasion of Iraq and Pakistani military attacks on suspected Al-Qaida operatives in South Waziristan are hugely unpopular among Pakistani people. Possible Indian response to a militarily strengthened Pakistan could see an emergence of Russia-China-India strategic alliance with anti-US bias, a proposal formally put forward by

then Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in 1 998. Besides, Sino-Indian relations are reportedly improving.

An additional factor promoting such an alliance could be India's reasonably high growth rate. IMF calculates that by 2006 India would have a larger GDP than Italy or Britain and by 2025 could surpass those of Germany and France. Should it come to pass Indian economy would be the fourth largest in the world after the US, Japan and China. Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard Kennedy School of Government, however dismisses the possibility of India alone becoming a global challenger of the US in this century though India has considerable assets that could be added to the scale of Sino-Russian-Indian coalition. He also thinks of such a coalition becoming a serious antiAmerican threat to be remote.

In any case not taking India into confidence about upgrading military relations with Pakistan and making the announcement in Islamabad at a time when India is in the midst of a general election do not bode well for Indo-US strategic partnership. Such duplicity, if it was so, would portray the US to the Indian public as politically insensitive. Besides the US might not have enhanced its prestige in the world by "supping with the devil" in the backdrop of A.Q.Khan's nuclear black marketing which should have merited punishment and not reward. It remains to be seen as to how the US will make up to India for its foreign policy lapse and finally come to terms with the fact that South Asia is " India dominant" and not "Pakistan dominant" and any American attempt to equate India and Pakistan will be strategically unrealistic. Besides, the region may see another arms race as a result of the US decision relating to Pakistan. In any case, one cannot but be amazed by the serial foreign policy blunders committed by the Bush administration administering a country which strides the globe like a colossus , dominating every sphere of global activity and possessing military might second to none.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador