Daily Times

So we had it wrong all these years. Poor Senator Larry Pressler, who is no longer in the Senate, got more curses from Pakistanis heaped on his head than even the three devils that the faithful stone during the annual pilgrimage.
I will start with myself. Everything bad I ever wrote, said or even thought about Larry Pressler, I take back. I would suggest similar penance be offered by all those trigger-happy editorial writers and columnists, especially the latter, who demonised the former senator from North Dakota. Had the Pakistanis not been misled about this good man, he might still have been in the Senate. But what did they do? They ganged up against him when he ran for another term, raised money for his rival, made phone calls, sent emails and even sought the intervention of the Almighty so that he should lose the election. And lo and behold, he did. Some Pakistanis were dancing in the streets when Tim Johnson beat Larry Pressler.
And why did we behave like a herd of wild bulls that has gone off its rocker? Because we were made to believe that if there was one man responsible for all of Pakistan’s troubles it was this monster from the stony Dakota mountains. It is clear that “we wuz mizinformed”, as Humphary Bogart says when told that if he had came to Casablanca looking for “the waters”, he should have known that it was a desert. Larry Pressler, the entire Pakistani nation and the chirpy ex-pat community of cardiologists, chartered accountants, stockbrokers, structural engineers and high-flyin’ techies was assured, was Enemy No. 1 because he was the author of the Pressler Amendment, a black law that held back Pakistan from turning overnight into Japan.
Back home, even those who could not count from one to ten or remember the alphabet beyond the first nine letters knew that the one obstacle in Pakistan’s way was this dreaded thing called the Pressler Amendment. Similar demonisation, I recalled, was the poor CTBT subjected to in Pakistan about eight or nine years ago. Everybody began his day by cursing it. “Don’t sign the CTBT,” was the national chant. One of the few people who knew what CTBT was, was Dr Maleeha Lodhi who patiently explained it to me, but five minutes later, I had forgotten what I had been told.
But let me return to Larry Pressler and why I think national atonement is in order. It now turns out that the Pressler Amendment was practically drafted by the Pakistanis themselves. Poor Sen Pressler just lent his name to it. The amendment which Larry the Innocent was made to move was a ruse to bypass the 1977 Glenn-Symington Amendment. Glenn for those who do not care much for space should know that John Glenn was the first man to orbit the earth in a capsule the size of a tube of toothpaste. His amendment with Sen Symington modified the US Foreign Assistance Act to require a cut-off of economic and military assistance to any country that imported or exported un-safeguarded nuclear enrichment or reprocessing materials, equipment or technology. This amounted to drawing a red circle around Pakistan’s name, the “usual suspect” that we anyway were.
America first cut off aid to Pakistan in September 1977, for a reprocessing-related violation. It did so again in April 1979 for a violation of the enrichment provision. In 1981, under the Reagan administration, the law was changed to permit the flow of assistance to Pakistan during the Afghanistan war. Over the next decade, US aid to Pakistan toted up to more than USD4 billion, including the delivery of 40 F-16 fighter planes.
In 1985, the Pressler amendment was brought in, requiring the president to certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device and that US aid would greatly cut the risk of its getting one. Reagan continued to certify annually that Pakistan did not “possess” a nuclear device and (despite all evidence to the contrary) that continued US assistance would reduce the risk of such possession. The last waiver was granted in 1989 but Islamabad was also told by President Bush 1 that no further waiver will be granted from next year on.
Pakistan immediately came under a host of sanctions that had been held back all these years. The Pakistani ambassador to Washington after presenting his credentials burst into the State Department like the proverbial “shocked virgin”, screaming, “How could you do that to us!” Everything came to a dead stop. The billion-plus dollars that Pakistan had paid for those F16s were kept back, as were the F16s.
The scene changed in 1995 when the money was refunded, thanks to another helpful amendment. Other things remained where they were more or less for the next six years. Then came 9/11 and the world changed for Pakistan after we did a u-turn on our cherished Taliban policy. Just 13 days later, Glenn, Symington and Pressler sanctions, all imposed because of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, were waived for “US national security reasons”. Also waived a month later were coup-related democracy sanctions.
Does this tale have a moral? Yes. Life is unpredictable and even more unpredictable is life with Uncle Sam.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent. His e-mail is khasan2@cox.net