Hearing of the House Oversight Committee's National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee - Six Years Later: Assessing Long-Term Threats

Hearing of the House Oversight Committee's National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee - Six Years Later: Assessing Long-Term Threats, Risks and the U.S. Strategy for Security in a Post-9/11 World

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REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R-OH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank you for holding this hearing and the great job you've been doing on this subcommittee. It certainly has been very helpful for all the members.

And I appreciate your last comment about Pakistan. I just came from an Armed Services Committee hearing where the issue is Pakistan, it's stability, our relations with Pakistan and the issues of the war on terror, Taliban and our ability to be effective in Afghanistan, al Qaeda and perhaps even Osama bin Laden himself seeking or having refuge in Pakistan.

One of the discussion topics has been of the problems and difficulties that Musharraf is having in his own country. And I was wondering if you might each comment for a moment on the issue of the difficulties there. And I'm particularly interested in if you decouple his relationship with the United States, does he still have problems and what are those problems? And how should we look to our policies to affect a greater relationship with Pakistan and an acceptance of greater respect and view by the people of Pakistan of the United States as an ally and a friend?

MR. LIEBER: There's a lot of uncertainty here. But in the first instance, it would be my sense that the -- his problems are overwhelmingly internal. They have to do with the nature of Pakistani society, the fact that the military has ruled either directly or behind the scenes that country for a very long time with the very unequal distribution of wealth in that society, which is really quite extraordinary, the role of the intelligence service -- the ISI -- and so forth. The embrace of the United States probably adds something to his problem internally, but in other respects can be a source of strength because of economic and military support.

The problem there, as in some other countries in the Middle East, is that some Middle Eastern Muslim and Arab leaders have used a deliberate tactic -- it's true, I think, in Egypt -- of apre mal deluge (ph). That is to say, deliberately cracking down on moderate opposition elements who would like to use the democratic process, be non-violent and so on, in order to be able to say, "Look, you may not like what I'm doing but the people who are out there who would take over otherwise are the really, really bad guys." Sometimes it's very exaggerated, sometimes not, but I think it's something you have to weigh. There's an argument about Pakistan that if Musharraf fell, it would not be the extreme radical Islamists who would seize power, but -- and that there are other oppositional elements -- but the -- both civil and military leaders of Pakistan in the last four decades have left a lot to be desired vis-a-vis their own people.

MS. MATHEWS: I agree with all of that. And certainly his problems go beyond his connection to the United States and I think I just would underline something also Walter said earlier. I mean -- you know, a huge part of our problem with Pakistan's problem has come out of Pakistan's failure to be able to have an educational system. This is not beyond our ability to -- I mean, when you put it in the context of the Iraq War, those costs of substituting a functioning public education system for the madrassa is trivial. But I don't mean -- I don't -- this is going to be a -- you know, a terribly tough problem for exactly the reasons that Bob just described as the alternatives are not great.

And -- but I think we should have four years ago pushed Musharraf much harder in the direction of the reforms that he had promised. And it -- but it would have taken -- it would have required a balancing against our anti-terror goals, which of course is what foreign policy is all about. But we don't have the luxury of not giving Pakistan whatever attention it demands because of its nuclear weapons.

MR. ISAACSON: I come at this with a strange historical conflict of interest, which is -- and I could embarrass Congressman Cooper if he were here -- is that when we were in graduate school, the first politics I ever did was that I ran Benazir Bhutto's campaign for the head of the debating union at our graduate school and Jim Cooper helped me. I do think that Benazir Bhutto and others coming back as democratic opposition adds to the turmoil in Pakistan but is inevitably part of the process there, and probably a good part. I agree that General Musharraf's problem is not simply the embracing of the United States because Benazir and -- I mean, Mrs. Bhutto and others are not necessarily running on anti-American platforms as far as I can tell, or trying to stoke up anti-American resentment.

If you look at Pakistan vs. India, you see the model we're trying to create. When I was in India a couple of times ago, I was there for the election. And what happened was a Hindu prime minister was defeated by a Roman Catholic woman, Sonia Ghandi, who stepped aside for a Sikh prime minister who was then sworn in by a Muslim president. That's a pretty awesome shining light of what we have to get to in terms of pluralism in this world if we're not going to have the type of threats that will face us over the next two generations. And I would second -- I guess I'm being egotistical here, but second -- Jessica's seconding of what I said earlier -- (laughter) -- which is if we're not going to win the battle against the madrassa movement by competing with them in Pakistan -- that's where we're surrendering this ballgame.

REP. TURNER: Mr. Chairman, if I might for just a moment, I just want to thank all of you for making those points because I think so many times in our U.S. policy's view, we're so narcissistic as to believe that all problems result from a relationship with our country and that clearly in this instance, there are other factors at play, ones that we need to be paying attention to. So thank you.

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