On September 10, 2001, Pakistan was a country of secondaryinterest
to the United States. Although it had been America's "mostallied
ally in Asia" in the 1950s and an indispensable partner inthe
struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the
relationship unraveled after the Soviets pulled out ofAfghanistan.
In October 1990, the United States suspended economic andmilitary
aid under the Pressler amendment because Pakistan haddeveloped
nuclear weapons. Its May 1998 nuclear tests and the army'soverthrow
of the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif in October 1999 ledto
further sanctions against the one-time U.S. ally.

Thus, when President Bill Clinton touched down for five hoursin
Islamabad on March 25, 2000--the first journey to Pakistan by aU.S.
chief executive in more than thirty years--the mood was tense,and
contrasted sharply with his highly successful five-day visitto
India. In their talks, Clinton and General Pervez Musharraf,
Pakistan's military dictator, differed over major issues: how bestto
deal with the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan and otherIslamic
extremists; how best to deal with the Kashmir dispute; atimetable
for the return of democracy; and nuclear weapons issues.Clinton
outlined his concerns to Musharraf in a frank but conciliatorymanner
and then repeated them in a television address to the peopleof
Pakistan. Out of the public spotlight, the President worriedabout
Pakistan's chronic political instability, the growing threatof
fundamentalism, its mounting economic woes and the continuing
fixation on India. With the country drifting toward nationalfailure,
the worst-case fear was that, like its neighbor Afghanistan,Pakistan
might be engulfed by Islamic fundamentalism. A Pakistan ruledby
religious extremists and armed with nuclear weapons posed anightmare
scenario with ramifications far transcending South Asia. Amidsuch
concerns, Clinton's inability to produce a better U.S.relationship
with Pakistan inevitably left the impression that the UnitedStates
was "tilting" toward India.

The incoming Bush Administration picked up where Clinton leftoff,
this despite the Cold War tradition of Republican warmthtoward
governments in Islamabad. The new leadership in Washington soonmade
clear that its top priority in South Asia was to continue theprocess
of improving relations with India. Pakistan's image remainedlargely
negative both in official Washington and in the prestige press.

The events of September 11 have changed all that. Geographyand
history have once more made Pakistan important to U.S.interests.
Islamabad's support is required in order to deal with Osamabin
Laden, his Arab terrorist colleagues in Al-Qaeda and theirTaliban
hosts. Pakistan's long common frontier with Afghanistan, theintimate
ethnic links between Pashtuns on both sides of the border, andthe
in-depth knowledge that Pakistan's intelligence service has ofits
neighbor make Islamabad a key partner in "bringing the terroriststo
justice or justice to the terrorists", as President Bush put iton
September 20. Pakistan has become pivotal.

Here We Go Again?

To an extent, the post-September 11 situation is a replay ofwhat
happened after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Then, asnow,
Pakistan was ruled by a military dictator. Then, as now,
U.S.-Pakistan relations had been in disarray. In 1979, relationswere
at their nadir following a mob attack on the U.S. embassy in
Islamabad that November. The United States had also cut offeconomic
aid because of Pakistan's secret nuclear program, and hadbeen
strongly critical of Pakistan's lack of democracy and poorhuman
rights record.

After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carterquickly
shifted policy gears. Pakistan became a "front-line" state.Carter
revived the 1959 U.S.-Pakistan security agreement and offered
economic and military help. Washington feared that Pakistan mightbe
the Soviets' next victim but, just as important, U.S.officials
realized that without Pakistan's help, it was virtually impossibleto
cause trouble for the Soviets inside Afghanistan. In the midst ofthe
Tehran hostage crisis, no cooperative action was feasible withIran,
the only other country that then bordered on Afghanistan.

Although Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, the then-Pakistani dictator,quickly
decided to oppose the Soviets and to provide covert support toa
nascent anti-communist guerilla movement, he rejected Carter'soffer
of $200 million worth of aid as "peanuts." A year later, however,Zia
and the Reagan Administration agreed on a cooperation package
involving $600 million in U.S. aid a year (including the potentF-16
fighter-bomber); an understanding that the nuclear issue would notbe
"the centerpiece" of U.S.-Pakistan relations; an end to U.S.
criticism about Pakistan's internal scene; and channeling allcovert
CIA aid to the Afghan resistance through Pakistan'sInter-Services
Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Zia knew that he had a strong
bargaining position vis-Ã -vis the Americans, hung tough, and inthe
end got what he wanted. So did the United States. Seven yearslater,
in 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev decided to pull the Soviet army outof
Afghanistan after the rag-tag but well-armed Afghan mujaheddinheld
100,000-plus Soviet soldiers at bay.

But there were serious negative consequences as well. Thearms
supplied through the covert U.S. aid program flooded Afghanistanand
became an important cause of the violence and lawlessness thathas
racked that country ever since. The more fundamentalistAfghan
resistance groups, who, in keeping with Zia's instructions,received
the bulk of the weapons, gained strength and politicallegitimacy
during the war, as did their Pakistani counterparts. (These
counterparts became even more important in the 1990s throughtheir
cooperation with the ISI in supporting the insurgency againstIndia
in Kashmir.) Ultimately, the collapse of the state structurein
Afghanistan, the virtual destruction of the economy, the massrefugee
exodus during the anti-Soviet insurgency, and the ensuingcivil
conflict created the political vacuum that spawned the Talibanand
enabled Al-Qaeda to make Afghanistan its base of operations.

To its discredit, the United States simply walked awayfrom
Afghanistan after the Soviets departed, leaving it to thePakistanis
to arrange a political settlement among the fractious Afghan
mujaheddin. The main U.S. aim, as former Undersecretary ofState
Michael Armacost has said, "was getting the Russians out.
Afghanistan, as such, was remote from major U.S. concerns. TheUnited
States was not much interested in the internal Afghan setup anddid
not have much capacity to understand this." Although a moreactive
American role might still have failed to resolve the Afghanproblem,
Washington was remiss in not trying harder.

But there are important differences from 1979. The UnitedStates
today is not totally dependent on Islamabad in dealing with
Afghanistan. Russia and the new Central Asian republics to thenorth,
especially Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, are bitter foes of theTaliban
regime, whom they have blamed for stirring regional instabilityand
Islamic militancy. Iran detests the Taliban, who had executeda
number of Iranian diplomats after they captured the northernAfghan
city of Mazar-e Sharif in 1998, and was already supportingthe
anti-Taliban resistance, the Northern Alliance. Although theirpast
record was unpromising and their most capable leader, theredoubtable
Ahmed Shah Masood, was assassinated just days before theterrorist
attacks on the United States, the Alliance offered a means of
applying military pressure on the Taliban. And, of course, theywere
Afghans.

Probably the most significant difference lay in the factthat
Pakistan in 2001 was not just part of the solution to anAfghan
problem, but also part of the problem. In the wake of theSoviet
departure from Afghanistan and the fall of the communistNajibullah
regime in 1992, Pakistan tried unsuccessfully to cobble togethera
stable arrangement for a mujaheddin coalition. However, the
mujaheddin commanders fell to fighting among themselves,withthe
conflict taking on an ethnic character. Pashtuns, the largestethnic
group in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan's NorthwestFrontier
Province and northern Baluchistan, clashed with Tajiks, thesecond
largest Afghan ethnic group, and the less numerous Uzbeks andShi'a
Hazaras. The capital city of Kabul suffered more damage fromthis
intra-Afghan strife than it had during the eight-yearstruggle
against the Soviets.

Fed up with the chaos and disorder in Afghanistan, Maj.Gen.
Nasrullah Babar, Benazir Bhutto's interior minister, becamethe
godfather of a new Pashtun grouping called the Taliban, or
"students", that sprang up in 1994 in southern Afghanistan nearthe
city of Kandahar. The Taliban were mainly Afghan refugees whohad
studied in madrassas, or religious schools, in Baluchistan thatwere
affiliated with the fundamentalist Deobandi school of SunniIslam.
Their ability to pacify areas around Kandahar by suppressingand
disarming unruly mujaheddin commanders impressed Babar. Theinterior
minister then took the Taliban under his wing, arranging for theISI
to provide communications equipment, transportation, fuel andadvice.

After firming up their base in the south and west during 1995,the
Taliban advanced rapidly northward in the summer of 1996 tocapture
Kabul in late-September. What quickly set the Taliban apart wasthe
puritanical nature of their version of Sunni Islam. They were,as
Barnett Rubin aptly put it, "fire and brimstone, backwoodspreachers
with an ak-47." Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, aone-eyed
Afghan war veteran, proclaimed that Afghanistan would become"a
completely Islamic state." He then proceeded to show what he meantby
enforcing a rigid code of Islamic law: women were to remain athome
and not work; girls were to receive no schooling; men were towear
beards; television and Western music were forbidden; andstrict
Quranic punishment for crimes was to be enforced.

Over the next two years, as the Taliban imposed their controlover
almost all of Afghanistan, driving their Northern Allianceopponents
into the extreme northeast corner, Pakistan's ISI continuedto
provide supplies and advice. Students from Pakistani madrassasalso
fought for the Taliban, as did an Arab brigade composed ofseveral
thou-sand Arab fundamentalists who made Afghanistan their base.Osama
bin Laden was the most prominent of these. The wealthy Saudiexile
and former jihadi against the Soviets developed his Al-Qaeda
terrorist organization to wage holy war against the UnitedStates,
which he had come to regard as the mortal enemy of Islam.

Pakistan was the only country to accord diplomatic recognitionto the
Taliban, apart from Saudi Arabia and the United ArabEmirates.
Several factors explain Pakistan's stance. Even if the Talibanwere
making themselves an international pariah by their treatmentof
women, they were Pashtun, whom the Pakistanis believed shouldrule
Afghanistan as the largest ethnic group. The desire to see afriendly
regime in Afghanistan that would assure "strategic depth"against
India, a longtime hope of Pakistan's strategic planners, was asecond
factor. Finally, the Taliban were willing to reciprocate for thehelp
the ISI provided by permitting use of Afghan territory bymilitant
Pakistani groups in support of the insurgency in Kashmiragainst
India.

Although the military dimension of the Kashmir dispute hadbeen
mostly dormant for nearly two decades, it flared up in 1989--justas
the Soviets were completing their departure from Afghanistan--asa
result of heavy-handed interference by New Delhi into thestate's
internal politics after the 1982 death of the legendaryKashmiri
leader, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah. The final straw came withthe
rigging of the 1987 elections to prevent pro-Islamic elementsfrom
winning seats in the state assembly. Frustrated KashmiriMuslim
youth, who until then had been willing to vent their displeasurewith
Indian rule peacefully, turned to violent protest. TheKashmiri
intifada began. For Pakistan, the temptation to fan the flameswas
too great to resist. Drawing on the extensive experience in
orchestrating the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, theISI
began to provide active backing and training for the Kashmiri
intifada. Before long, Pakistanis and Arabs became heavily engagedin
the anti-India struggle. A nexus took shape linking theTaliban,
Al-Qaeda and other Arab terrorists, Pakistani Islamic militantsand
the ISI.

Students, Spies and Soldiers

Against this background, it is not hard to understand why, withthe
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, Osama binLaden
became a cult hero among Pakistani fundamentalists--a sort ofArab
David standing up to the U.S. Goliath. Support for the Talibanand
their narrow and obscurantist brand of Islam, however, lay mainlyin
the Pashtun-populated areas of Pakistan. The Pashtuns, or Pathansas
they were formerly called, represent about 15 percent ofPakistan's
150 million people. Their strong tribal traditions, martialcharacter
and conservative religious views set them apart from Punjabisand
Sindhis, Pakistan's two largest ethnic groups. The unruly Pathanshad
posed a major security problem for the British Raj, which neverfully
succeeded in pacifying them. After independence, Pakistan'sleader,
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, withdrew the army from the tribal areas,
gambling correctly that a Muslim government would succeed inwinning
allegiance from the Pathans where the British had failed.

Meanwhile, Pakistani society itself has changed. What hashappened in
Pakistan is not so much its "Talibanization", as some haveclaimed,
as its Islamization. This development began in the late-1970swhen
President Zia sought to gain greater political legitimacy forhis
unpopular rule by making Islam a central feature of Pakistanilife.
Although Pakistan was created to provide a homeland for theMuslims
of India, its founding fathers, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and LiaquatAli
Khan, were secularists. They supported the idea of a separatestate
not for religious reasons but from fear that the Hindu majoritywould
not respect Muslim minority rights in a united India. Until Ziatook
over, Pakistani leaders paid lip service to Islam but not toomuch
more. In his Islamization policy, however, Zia substituted
traditional Quranic punishments for Western legal norms,established
a special sharia court to ensure that Pakistan's laws wereconsistent
with the Quran, cooperated with religious parties, especiallythe
Jamaat-i-Islami (which, ironically, had opposed the formationof
Pakistan), and promoted the establishment of madrassas.

In the two decades since, the madrassas have spread widely andnow
number in the thousands. The government's failure to provide
educational facilities, especially in rural areas, created avoid
that the religious schools have filled. They have produced alarge
subculture of youth who are lettered in the Quran but littleelse,
and are inculcated with religious fanaticism for jihad againstIndia,
the United States and other alleged enemies of Islam. The Talibanare
the most prominent product of the madrassas, but other graduateshave
provided the foot soldiers for several militant fundamentalistgroups
that have become a destabilizing feature of Pakistan'sinternal
scene. In recent years, for example, sectarian violencebetween
militant Sunni and Shi'a groups (the Shi'a minority constitutes 15to
20 percent of the population) has become a serious problem,
intensifying the overall sense of insecurity that has grippedthe
country.

Since the mid-1970s, Pakistan's military intelligence service,the
ISI, has also become a much more important player bothdomestically
and in national security policy. Established in the late 1940s,the
ISI at first operated much as the CIA and other externalintelligence
services do, collecting intelligence and running covertoperations
outside the home country. Zulkfikar Ali Bhutto, unhappy with thework
of the internal service, the Intelligence Bureau, gave the ISIa
mandate in the mid-1970s to undertake domestic operations as wellas
those abroad. The ISI has ever since been an activeanddestabilizing
force in Pakistan's political life, promoting the army's agendaand
opposing perceived opponents. Thus, the ISI vigorouslysupported
Nawaz Sharif against Benazir Bhutto in the 1988 and 1990elections.

As a result of the Afghan war, the ISI grew in both size andpower.
At Zia's orders, it served both as the conduit for allforeign
assistance flowing to the Afghan resistance and as the plannerand
coordinator of mujaheddin activities. Covert aid from the CIA,which
was matched dollar for dollar by Saudi Arabia, began rather
modestly--just $30 million in 1981. By 1986, however, thetotal
Afghan program had ballooned to more than $1 billion a year,all
flowing directly through the ISI's hands.

After the Soviets left Afghanistan, the ISI continued tomastermind
Pakistan's involvement in Afghanistan. Since 1994, this hasmeant
working with and supporting the Taliban. The ISI has also hadthe
responsibility for orchestrating jihadi groups active in the
anti-India insurgency in Kashmir. After years of cooperationbetween
the ISI and the militants, it is not surprising that supportfor
fundamentalist views has gained ground within theintelligence
agency. It is wrong, however, to see the ISI as an independentactor
or a "rogue elephant." It takes its orders from the government,even
though at times, when the lines of authority are blurred (for
example, after Zia's death in 1988), it can gain moreindependent
leeway.

Career civilian intelligence officers and army officers ontemporary
assignment staff the ISI. The head of government appoints the
director-general, who has traditionally been a serving armygeneral.
Even though the ISI technically stands outside the military chainof
command, reporting directly to the head of government, the factthat
its chief and an important part of the staff are serving officershas
given the army leadership a decisive influence over theintelligence
agency.

The army, in its own right, has been a dominant force inPakistan's
political life since the mid-1950s and has ruled the country forhalf
of its 54 years. Unlike India, where Jawaharlal Nehru firmly
established the primacy of the civilian political leadership overthe
military and the civil service elite, the opposite occurredin
Pakistan. After the death of Jinnah in 1948 and the assassinationof
Liaquat, his successor and chief lieutenant, in 1951, Pakistanlacked
capable political leadership. Senior military officers andcivil
servants, who did not believe that the country was ready for
democracy, filled the void. In 1958, following a period ofinternal
instability, the Pakistani army took over, declaring martial lawand
sidelining the political parties. Pakistan has swung back andforth
between military and civil rule ever since. Even when civilianshave
been in charge, however, as in the 1990s, the army has hadthe
decisive say in national security issues. In times of direeconomic
straits, too, military spending has continued to account for abouta
third of the budget and six percent of gnp. The army has alsobridled
at interference in its internal affairs by the politicians. Itwas
Nawaz Sharif's attempt to put his people in charge of the armyby
firing Pervez Musharraf that triggered the October 12, 1999military
takeover. The army had accepted the forced resignation ofMusharraf's
predecessor a year earlier, but had vowed not to permit such athing
to happen again. And it didn't.

Musharraf's Choice

On September 11, 2001, Pervez Musharraf had been in power for23
months. His record was mixed. The International Monetary Fund(IMF)
gave good marks to Musharraf's Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz,a
former Citibank official, for his efforts to clean up thecountry's
finances. Debt relief was forthcoming, although not as muchas
Pakistan wanted. Development lending was extended for the firsttime
in a number of years. Corruption had tapered off, and fewalleged
that Musharraf and his colleagues were lining their pockets.Still,
the economy remained in the doldrums, suffering from lack ofdomestic
investment.

Observers also accepted Musharraf's good intentions in tryingto
decentralize government even if they questioned the practicalityof
his proposed reforms. Musharraf also seemed to be seriousabout
handing back power to elected national and provincial assembliesin
the fall of 2002 as directed by Pakistan's supreme court. At thesame
time, he made clear that he intended to stay around. In June ofthis
year he pushed aside the figurehead civilian president andappointed
himself president in his place (he was previously styled "thechief
executive"). More recently, he re-appointed himself as Army Chiefof
Staff, the real seat of power in a military regime. At the sametime,
Musharraf left the press relatively free and did not imposemartial
law.

Before the events of September 11, Musharraf had made littlechange
in Pakistan's foreign and security policies. He maintained ahardline
approach toward India, continuing Pakistan's support for the
insurgency in Kashmir. He also continued friendly ties withthe
Taliban, disregarding the global opprobrium that the Talibanearned
by their outrageous conduct.

Although Musharraf has a secular outlook and is not anIslamic
extremist, his government before the September 11 terroristattacks
failed to rein in the major religious parties, theJamaat-i-Islami,
the Jamiat-e-Ulema Pakistan, and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (which,in
particular, supported the Taliban). For example, theMusharraf
government backed off from moderating Pakistan's harshanti-blasphemy
laws in the face of objections by the religious parties. Itappeared,
therefore, that Musharraf was content with the status quo--butthat
status quo begs a short description.

Despite official patronage from Zia and the ISI, thereligious
parties have never been able to attract mass support and haverarely
gained more than five percent of the vote. The clout of the
fundamentalists has come from their militancy, their ability tobring
mobs into the streets and their willingness to exert pressure onthe
administration of the day, whether that of Benazir Bhutto,Nawaz
Sharif or Pervez Musharraf. It was as if Pakistani regimes had madea
Faustian bargain with the fundamentalist parties, affordingthem
political space and legitimacy in return for their service asa
vehicle to promote Pakistan's national interests, via the ISI,first
in Afghanistan and more recently in Kashmir.

On September 11, the day the terrorists struck, Lt. Gen.Mahmood
Ahmed, the since-replaced Director General of ISI, was inWashingon
on a routine liaison visit. The next day, Deputy Secretary ofState
Richard Armitage called him in to deliver what amounted to an
ultimatum. In moving against bin Laden and other terroristsin
Afghanistan, the United States wanted to know where Pakistanstood.
Would it be willing to provide intelligence cooperation, allowU.S.
overflights and offer logistical support? Armitage did not saywhat
the United States would do for Pakistan in return. Secretary ofState
Colin Powell followed up with a phone call to Musharraf saying,in
effect, that Pakistan had to choose between joining the fightagainst
terrorism and international isolation. Unlike the Carter andReagan
Administrations of 1980 and 1981, the Bush Administrationplayed
hardball with Islamabad.

The decision was not easy for Musharraf and his seniorcolleagues.
They realized that public opinion in the country was opposedto
cooperating with the United States. Even if active backing forthe
Taliban and bin Laden was limited to the religious parties andtheir
supporters, the average Pakistani did not like the idea ofbecoming
involved in a conflict with neighboring Afghanistan anddeeply
distrusted Washington. Pakistanis believed their supposed U.S.ally
had betrayed them not only by refusing to help in the 1965war
against India, but, even worse, by cutting off the militaryand
economic aid on which Pakistan depended. More recently, in1990
Pakistanis felt that after Washington no longer needed Pakistanto
afflict the Soviets in Afghanistan, the United States discardedthem
"like a piece of used Kleenex", imposing nuclear sanctionsand
suspending aid, to boot.

But paradoxically, despite this disenchantment and the absenceof
military or significant economic help since 1990, the UnitedStates
still casts a long shadow over Islamabad. Only partly injest,
Pakistanis say that their country is ruled by the three A's:Allah,
the Army and America. Among the English-speakingelite--senior
military officers, civil servants, rural landlords (theso-called
feudals) and the business community--the American connectionruns
strong. They may bemoan U.S. policy, but they send their childrento
the United States for education and seek political, securityand
business links with America. Many in the elite have relatives inthe
400,000 strong Pakistani-American community. Pervez Musharraf'sown
brother is an American citizen, a doctor in Chicago.

The average non-English speaking Pakistani tends to holdstronger
anti-American views, reflecting the harder line of theUrdu-language
press. The man in the street in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad,and
especially in Peshawar and Quetta, sees the United States as notjust
anti-Pakistani (and of late pro-Indian) but as genuinely
anti-Islamic. This opinion echoes widespread, long-standinganger
over U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians and, more
recently, over policies such as the continued bombing andsanctioning
of Iraq. The virulent criticism of America by the Taliban andbin
Laden has resonated well in Pakistan.

More important than the lack of immediate public supportfor
cooperating with the United States was concern about the reactionof
the religious parties. Musharraf knew that they would quicklyand
vociferously take to the streets to vent their opposition toa
positive response to the Americans. Although the Presidentwas
reasonably sure that the security forces could contain trouble inthe
short-run, he had to be concerned about what might happen werethe
U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan to becomeparticularly
bloody and protracted. If the fundamentalists succeeded eventuallyin
staging massive anti-American and anti-government demonstrationsin
major cities throughout the country, especially in thePunjab,
Musharraf's position would be in danger.

In the past, the Pakistani army has stepped in to prevent acollapse
of state authority in the face of the mob. After disturbancesrocked
the country in 1969 and again in 1977, the army deposedPresident
Ayub Khan, himself a former army commander, and Zulfikar AliBhutto,
to impose martial law. The soldiers and officer corps comeprimarily
from the Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province (as a refugeefrom
India, Musharraf is an exception). Never comfortable with the ideaof
firing on fellow Punjabis, the army leadership would probablyreplace
Musharraf with a general possessing stronger Islamic credentialsif
the fundamentalists appeared to be winning the battle of thestreets.
The danger in Pakistan is thus not of an Iranian-style revolutionin
which the army disintegrates, but of the army bending tostreet
power. Musharraf's recent shake-up of the military high commandto
replace officers who were unhappy with the policy of supportingthe
United States surely went forward with this threat in mind.

Another important factor in Pakistani decisions has been theattitude
of its longtime adversary, India. In January 1980, India stood onthe
opposite side of the Cold War fence from the United Statesand
Pakistan. Its statement whitewashed Soviet aggression during theUN
General Assembly's special session on Afghanistan. But in2001,
against the background of improving bilateral ties withWashington
and bitter opposition to the Taliban, India promptly offeredfull
support to the United States. Musharraf knew immediately that
Pakistan would find itself isolated if it refused to cooperatewith
the Americans; indeed, it would perhaps even find itselflumped
together with the Taliban as part of an American target set.

Although the Bush Administration did not bargain forPakistan's
support--as the Carter and ReaganAdministrations did in1980-81--the
Musharraf government was doubtless aware that Washington wouldreward
Pakistani cooperation. Lifting several layers of sanctions on
Pakistan and India was already under consideration beforeSeptember
11, so this was likely to be the first reward--as indeed itwas.
Pakistan can now acquire spare parts for its aging militaryequipment
and has already begun to receive badly needed economic help. Inthe
1980s, the United States and its friends poured in assistanceto
bolster Pakistan. While circumstances differed on September11,
Musharraf had good reason to expect a generous response toPakistan's
pleas for debt relief and financial help if it joined the
anti-terrorist cause.

Musharraf justified his positive response to the United Statesin a
national television address on September 19. He first spelledout
what help the United States had requested, but indicated that hedid
not know what U.S. plans were. Stressing that the decisionwas
difficult, he argued that cooperating with the Americans wasin
Pakistan's interest, while refusing to do so presented gravedangers
to the country. Refusal to cooperate, he declared, could even
threaten Pakistan's sovereignty, its economy, its securityassets
(nuclear weapons) and its Kashmir policy. Making clear that hehad
India in mind, he undiplomatically told New Delhi to lay off.

Predictably, the religious parties took to the streets to opposethe
decision after mid-day prayers two days later on September 21.The
demonstrations were boisterous but largely limited to Peshawarand
Quetta, where Afghani and Pakistani Pashtuns form the majority ofthe
population, and to Pashtun areas of Karachi. The police containedthe
disorders and the rest of the country remained relativelyquiet.
Although public opinion opposed Musharraf's decision, he receivedthe
backing of the Muslim League and the Pakistan Peoples' Party,the
major mainstream political parties. They provided that backingpartly
because of the sheer horror of the terror attacks, and becauseabout
250 Pakistanis or Pakistani-Americans di