Ironically the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was an "Westernised Muslim with Victorian manners and a secular outlook" whose promise for a liberal and secular polity, albeit in total contradiction of his two-nation theory claiming that the Hindus and the Muslims could never live together, was rejected by the Pakistan army almost immediately after independence of the country from British rule. The Generals' conviction that army rule was necessary to thwart Indian domination led to successive military coups subordinating all state institutions including the judiciary which had to sanctify abrogation of successive Constitutions by enunciating the "Doctrine of Necessity".

During the Cold War when India opted for non-alignment the Cold War warriors in Washington put India in the Soviet camp the Pakistani Generals took full advantage of a sort of McCarthysim in the US foreign policy and strengthened Pakistan's security alignment with the US through SEATO, CENTO and other arrangements. In the pursuit of George Kennan's policy of containment of the Soviet expansionism the Americans created NATO in Europe, got involved in Vietnam war and promoted military dictatorships in Latin America, Africa and Asia including several military governments in Pakistan. In the process the West while insisting that democracy be practiced in their own countries willed to accept the developing countries as "Antarctica of democratic values" where liberal values were kept frozen for getting short term security benefits from kleptocratic dictators.

One wonders whether a kind of incipient racism did not run riot in the Western thought process that the subalterns of the newly freed colonies were not fit to be endowed with modernity meaning secularisation and humanisation of the world and freeing the individual from tradition. In the case of Pakistan finding religion as insufficient basis for nationhood the Generals in collusion with the landed aristocracy and economic elite achieved dominance in "a nation without clear definition or cohesion". Stephen Cohen, perhaps the greatest expert the US has on South Asian affairs, calls this compact "moderate oligarchy... an informal system that (tied) together senior ranks of the military, the civil service, the key members of the judiciary and other elites". Cohen holds various US administrations responsible for the ascendancy of the army in Pakistan and encouraging Pakistan's nuclear ambition. A series of US Presidential waivers relating to economic and military sanctions were allowed despite the facts that Pakistan disclosed in 1984 that it could enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and in 1987 that it could assemble a nuclear device.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 put a solidarist face on US policy towards Pakistan that the Bush administration considers as a very important partner in its war on terror. It is not known whether unbridled support given to Pakistan including giving it the status of a major non-NATO ally is despite the fact that Pervez Musharraf's decision to join the war on terror did not signify a structural change in Pakistan's policy but was an expedient one resulting from the total decimation of its ally the Talibans and the US threat that Pakistan could either join the war on terror or face the consequences. The US policy makers who insist on the continuation of Pervez Musharraf in power ignore the fact that the Musharraf government recognises the Islamist political parties combine MMA -- as the main opposition party in parliament though Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has more parliamentarians (MMA-63, PPP-81), perhaps to impress upon the West of the pseudo-civilian government's indispensability in its "struggle" with the Islamists for power in Pakistan.

This strand of argument is fallacious on the ground that "no Islamic organisation is in a position to politically or militarily challenge the role of one and only centre of power in Pakistan: the army"; and that in the event of exit of Pervez Musharraf the likely successor will be another General and not a populist civilian leader. Such deterministic prediction, albeit comfortable for the moment, ignores the on-going Baluch nationalism, wrongly projected as Islamic terrorism by the intelligence services, which has sprung from deprivation and dissatisfaction of the Baluch already feeling colonised by the Punjabis.

It would be prudent to remember that in unified Yugoslavia the slogan that what is good for Serbia is good for Yugoslavia has ultimately led to the separation of Montenegro which was the last bastion of the old Yugoslav republic. Baluchistan accounts for 43 per cent of Pakistani territory, 36 per cent of Pakistan's total gas production, holds large quantity of other minerals and is a potential transit route for gas pipeline from Iran and Turkmenistan to India. But the province's gas and mineral deposits are being expropriated and the people are feeling marginalised and dispossessed.

While an independent Baluchistan cannot be a desirable outcome of the existing trouble there for Pakistan, South Asia or the international community, "Pakistan today" writes Ashley Tellis (of the Carnegie Endowment), " is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of terrorism facing the United States". Indeed the 9/11 Commission had more or less highlighted Pakistan's deep involvement with international terrorism and recommended a long term US commitment to provide comprehensive support to Pakistan. The choice for Pakistan, it has been said, is not between the military and the mullahs but between the military-mullah combine and the civilian and secular political parties.

The US and the West, therefore, would do well to help Pakistan build the political institutions, insist that the military stop marginalisation of established political parties viz Bhutto's PPP and Nawaz Sharif's PML, encourage Bhutto-Sharif pledge to establish "real democracy" and Charter of Democracy agreed by the two last May in London, take measures to stop "Talibanisation" of Pathan politics and Islamisation of Pathan nationalism in Pakistan, and encourage President Musharraf to give up the post of the army Chief of Staff. US may also try to convince the Pakistan army that promotion of across the border terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India is counter productive. In short, only a truly democratic polity in Pakistan would be beneficial for the country and the international community and reduce tension in South Asia.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.