European countries across the Atlantic.1Accordingly, the attitudes of
Pakistanis toward the United States have been influenced essentially and
almost exclusively by foreign policy considerations.
From the 1980s onward, the question of whether the United States
was for or against Pakistan has been generally recast in broad religious
terms. People now posed the question of whether the United States
was for or against Islam. This question was underlined by the public
consensus that Pakistan as a premier Islamic country was inextricably
linked with the destiny of the Muslim world. As an increasing number
of inter-state and intra-state conflicts involved Muslims as underdogs
in one or the other part of the world, the public in Pakistan grew
restive and reared suspicions of the United States in its capacity as the
architect of the post–Cold War world. Therefore, we need to discuss
various shades of anti-Americanism in Pakistan in the context of regional
and global changes.
There have been various examples of sustained patterns of collective
prejudice operating in Pakistan against various individual countries as
well as idea-systems identified with them, respectively. Foremost among
them is anti-communism. Pakistan inherited a foreign policy perspec-
tive from British India, which was rooted in the suspicion of the Soviet
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175
Union as a country searching for a warm water port in Southern Asia.2
From the perceived Soviet support of successive Afghan regimes,
along with their Pakhtun irredentism, up to the Soviet incursion into
Afghanistan in 1979 and beyond, Pakistan remained steadfastly anti-
communist and anti-Soviet Union for most of the period after inde-
pendence. Moscow’s occupation of the classic Islamic lands of Central
Asia for over a century provided a base line for an ideational sanction
against the USSR and its “atheist” philosophy of communism. As the
Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan after the 1988 Geneva Accord,
followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War, Pakistan tried to adjust itself to the new realities in the
form of the emergent Central Asian Republics. However, the inter-
state relations between the regional powers including Russia, China,
India, Pakistan, and Iran and their conflicting or overlapping interests
in Afghanistan, held back a real advance of Islamabad’s relations with
Moscow. The lurking anti-Russian suspicions in Pakistan will perhaps
continue to keep the country away from any real breakthrough in its
relations with the polar bear in the near future.
A similar historical legacy, though younger in age, operates in the
field of Indo-Pakistan relations. Anti-Indianism is a legacy of the parti-
tion in 1947. There is a widespread suspicion about India not accepting
partition and, therefore, the moral legitimacy of Pakistan as an inde-
pendent Muslim state. Also, India is widely understood as an aggressor
in Kashmir, east Pakistan, and Siachin. Common perceptions about a
bellicose India next door have generally shaped Pakistani attitudes
toward secularism being the latter’s state “ideology.” On this side of
the Indo-Pakistan border, secularism is perceived to be a ploy to under-
mine Muslim nationalism in British India as reflected by the Two-Nation
Theory. Pakistanis hold what they consider the bogus and fraudulent
secularism responsible for regular discrimination against the Muslim
minority in the context of contemporary Indian politics.3
The third example of a persistent negative feeling among Pakistanis
is anti-Zionism. This was born out of the creation of Israel in 1948.
Even since the first wave of emigration of Palestinians at the hands of
Israel after its birth, the latter has been the target of Muslim hatred in
Pakistan as elsewhere for seeking to wipe the whole Palestinian nation
off the map of the world. The profile of two Palestinian Intifadas is
rooted in the scenes of Israeli tanks shooting stone-throwing young
Palestinians, raising their houses, building Jewish settlements on the
occupied lands, and denying basic human rights to Palestinians. Not
surprisingly, the state and society in Pakistan carry an anti-Zionist
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M ohammad Waseem
Pakistan’s perceptions about the United States are different in both
content and style. First, there is no negative historical legacy of the
United States. If at all, there is a memory of a fleeting moment in
history close to partition when the United States pressed imperialist
powers for decolonization. Nor was the United States remembered as
an occupier of Muslim lands, as opposed to the Soviet Union. Its
occupation of Afghanistan, by proxy, and Iraq, more directly, in the
new millennium was to come later. Similarly, there was no legacy of
war with America in Pakistan, whereas the latter had been in a persist-
ent combat position vis-à-vis India. Indeed, there had been no direct
war of any Muslim country with the United States up to the 1993 Gulf
War against Iraq, which was professedly fought for a Muslim (Kuwaiti)
cause. It is clear from these observations that anti-Americanism has
had no historical and cultural roots in Pakistan. Therefore, it never
acquired the status of an ideology unlike anti-Russian, anti-Indian, and
anti-Zionist perspectives.5
This, however, does not mean that there was no opposition to the
American involvement in the political, economic, and strategic matters
of Pakistan, either directly on a country-to-country basis or indirectly
as part of the U.S. policy about the region as a whole. There is a long
history of anti-Americanism in Pakistan, which needs to be under-
stood in its proper context. The following sections outline three major
categories of critical attitudes toward America in Pakistan:
● anti-Americanism: a friendship/betrayal model;
● anti-Americanism: a world of Islam perspective;
● anti-Americanism: an imperialist model.
As far as the critical attitudes of the elite toward the United States are
concerned, these have been generally issue-specific, such as the U.S.
sanctions against Pakistan’s nuclear tests. For understanding this line
of anti-Americanism, we need to analyze the more stable and consistent
pattern of pro-Americanism among the ruling elite, which provided
the context for emergence of a periodically negative attitude leading
to a sense of betrayal of American friendship.
Friendship–Betrayal Model
The major source of Pakistani perceptions about the United States,
both positive and negative, lies in the way the latter addressed Islamabad’s
security concerns vis-à-vis India.6 The ruling elite in the country has
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Anti-Americanism in Pakistan
177
remained steadfastly committed to American friendship as a potential
equalizer in the context of the superior military power of India vis-à-vis
Pakistan. A secondary interest in Islamabad, which was indeed the first
priority for Washington in the regional context, was the Soviet threat
from the north. Whenever the two perspectives of Washington and
Islamabad differed in terms of a joint commitment of diplomatic or
strategic resources to one or the other or both, it led to exposure of
Pakistan to what it considered a security threat, and hence to mistrust of
Washington. This so-called official model of anti-Americanism is charac-
terized by a sense of betrayal in the friendship with the United States.
The American tilt in favor of India in the post-1962 NEFA war
situation led to the first major disillusionment with Washington in
Pakistan, which had become used to enjoying American support in
and outside UN in its conflicts with India. This led to what can be
considered the most important policy initiative in Pakistan’s history,
namely turning to China, after the initial, and in the end even more
consequential, initiative of turning West in the 1950s. The Pakistani
establishment was shaken out of complacency because it had already
started considering the American support as an immutable fact of life.
A sense of betrayal of American friendship opened Pakistani diplo-
macy to wider options in the East. It found China a willing partner in
the new relationship, in the aftermath of the latter’s partial estrange-
ment from the Soviet Union in 1959, and more recently the American
tilt toward Delhi in an expedient mode of diplomacy.
The downslide in Pakistan-U.S. relations continued up to the 1965
Indo-Pakistan War, which led to the American embargo on supply of
weapons to both countries. Islamabad felt deeply stung because it had
virtually put all eggs in the American basket, as opposed to India,
which had diversified its sources of arms supply over the years. The
withdrawal of American strategic support was followed by a gradual
decline of Washington’s economic assistance. The sense of frustration
with the United States led to Ayub Khan’s description of the national
destiny in terms of “friends not masters.”7 A series of events that were
characterized by a sense of displeasure with Washington followed.
During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, the promised arrival of the U.S.
naval fleet “Enterprise” in the Bay of Bengal turned out to be a nonen-
terprise and, therefore, a bleeding wound in the U.S.-Pakistan
relationship within an hour of the latter’s defeat in Dhaka. Under
Z.A. Bhutto, Pakistan received a stern warning from Henry Kissinger
against harboring nuclear ambitions. The country remained under
the U.S. embargo from 1976 to 1981. The civil and military establish-
ment and the articulate public, in general, became fiercely critical
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M ohammad Waseem
of what they considered the American discriminatory acts against
Pakistan.
The Soviet incursion into Afghanistan finally opened up a new
chapter in the history of Pakistan-U.S. relations as it led to a close
strategic alliance between the two countries, almost fulfilling the orig-
inal purpose of Pakistan’s entry into the U.S.-led military alliances,
CENTO and SEATO. There was an obvious overlap in the aims and
objectives of the two countries as they got deeply engaged in the
Afghan conflict. For the United States, it was the presence of the Red
Army in Afghanistan, which remained a critical factor in its decision to
build up a resistance movement against Kabul in the first place. It did
so despite its deep suspicions about Pakistan’s nuclear program. In
this context, the U.S. withdrawal of support for Afghan mujahideen
after the signing of the 1988 Geneva Accord and departure of the Red
Army from Kabul in 1989 was bound to create misgivings among
Pakistanis. The presidential noncertification of Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons program for the next decade, as per the Pressler Amendment,
kept Pakistanis tense and, therefore, committed to the idea of the
United States as a nondependable ally.
Toward the end of the 1990s, Pakistan came under heavy U.S.
sanctions after deciding to launch nuclear tests on May 28, 1998 as a
response to the Indian nuclear tests of May 11. These were followed
by the “democracy sanctions” after the 1999 military coup. Among
various hiccups on the way, the nondelivery of F-16 fighter planes
for which Pakistan had already paid and then the non-reimbursement
of the payment for several years created deep misgivings in Islamabad.
It looked as if the 1996 Brown Amendment only temporarily put
a halt to the decline of Pakistan–American relations. It was only after
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that the
two countries rediscovered each other, much the same way as they did
in the 1950s and 1980s. The post-9/11 resumption of the U.S. inter-
est in Pakistan as a partner in its war against terrorism has enkindled a
new spirit of friendship between the two countries. In the year
2002–2003, the cycle of friendship–betrayal moves along, and efforts
are afoot on the part of President Musharraf to keep Washington tied
down to the region.
The periodical and recurrent gap in the Pakistan–American friendship
can be defined in terms of an overlap in the objectives of the two coun-
tries: for Pakistan, strong ties with an external “equalizer” vis-à-vis its
much stronger adversary next door is the first principle of foreign policy.
For the United States, disappointment with India’s unwillingness to join
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Anti-Americanism in Pakistan
179
its Cold War against the Soviet Union was the prime reason to align
with Pakistan in the first place. The United States never supported any
of Pakistan’s wars with India, be it the 1965 War or the 1971 War, or
Siachin in 1984 or Kargil in 1999. But the United States joined
Pakistan’s war effort in support of Mujahideen fighting the Soviet
forces in Afghanistan from 1981 to 1989. Not surprisingly, a sense of
betrayal on the part of the ruling elite in Islamabad set in throughout
the 1990s as the United States withdrew from its active presence in
the region, leaving Pakistan to deal with millions of Afghan refugees
on its soil.8
Washington and Islamabad experienced not only periodical shifts in
the patterns of their strategic alliance, thus leading to anti-Americanism
of the variety of friendship–betrayal syndrome in Pakistan, but also
a consistent pattern of their willingness to understand each other’s
exclusive commitments. For example, Pakistan and the United States
voted frequently on opposite sides of the UN resolutions about vari-
ous contentious issues. These included Arab–Israel wars, apartheid
in South Africa, specific human rights issues, NPT, and CTBT. The
official and nonofficial responses to the American stance on some of
these issues ranged from outright criticism of Washington to allega-
tions of anti-Islamic discrimination. The U.S. support for Israel and the
U.S. nuc
lear nonproliferation regime in general elicited strong anti-U.S.
reactions from the elite as well as the public in Pakistan.
It is not surprising that the sense of betrayal at the hands of the
United States often led to active consideration of rival–friendship
patterns. Enthusiasm for friendship with China is proverbial in Pakistan.
The political leadership, military elite, public intelligentsia, as well as
Islamic groups have all shown great admiration for the Chinese friend-
ship, which is described as permanent and unflinching. Similarly, Pakistan
crucially and pronouncedly befriended Sukarno’s Indonesia during
and after the 1965 War as well as Kaddafi’s Libya during and after
the 1971 War. However, after the dawn of the era of Petrodollar in
the post-1973 Arab–Israel war period, millions of Pakistani workers
migrated to Saudi Arabia. There followed a vast networking of Islamic
organizations, banking operations, media activities, and economic
cooperation between the two countries. Saudi Arabia reportedly helped
Pakistan through its financial crisis in the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear
tests. In the hour of the perceived betrayal by the United States,
Pakistan has continued to invoke its “real” and lasting friendship with
both China and Saudi Arabia. However, the fact that Pakistan’s
foreign policy is inherently India-centered has put a constraint on the
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M ohammad Waseem
strategic impact of Pak–Saudi and Pak–China relations. Neither China
nor Saudi Arabia could fulfill Pakistan’s perceived security require-
ments and the need for diplomatic support in world forums. In the
year 2002–2003, Pakistan continued to cooperate with the United
States for a joint operation against terrorism. However, in the long
run, the elite in Islamabad can be expected to revert to its old position
of considering Washington as nondependable ally when the latter
withdraws from active alignment with Pakistan in the region. Its fears
about the Indian and Israeli lobbies in Washington achieving exactly
that has generally kept Islamabad on its toes.
The World of Islam Perspective
If India was the crucial factor in Islamabad’s quest for an external