December 09, 2011

US-Pakistan Relations: Saner Counsels Needed

            

Relations between Pakistan and the Unites States have been roiled further since the November 26 NATO attacks on check-posts of Pakistan in Mohmand agency at the border with Afghanistan that claimed the lives of 24 soldiers. Unfortunately, emotions on both sides continue to cloud the issue and hamper saner counsels to prevail and seek a mutually beneficial solution.

Historically there have been ups and downs in relations between the two states but geography  - the strategic location of Pakistan -  has constantly dictated a symbiotic, mutually beneficial, relationship. The US cannot afford to simply cut and run from the region. The vast difference between the size and status of the two states, has many a time skewed the relationship forcing Pakistan’s leaders to call for “Friends not Masters” (Title of President Ayub’s book). When it was working well, Pakistan was even called a major “Non-NATO Ally”.

What exactly caused the more than an hour aerial attack on Pakistan’s border check-posts on November 26 has become blurred in the emotional din of accusations in both countries, the country-wide protests in Pakistan against the attack, and the stringent denigration of Pakistan’s leadership in the US by some Republican Presidential hopefuls.  Whatever the facts of the incident, an undeniable reality is that it has widened further the trust deficit between the two countries. Pakistan had been suspected in the US of being hand in glove with the Taliban – a guerilla force inspired by Pakistan’s ISI during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union and which has since been fighting against the US presence in their country. It was this suspicion that was behind the US decision to keep Pakistan in the dark about the May 2 operation eliminating Osama bin Laden. That led to a lot of hue and cry in the country over the breach of its sovereignty.

The NATO attack, led by the US, on the border outposts claiming the lives of two dozen men in uniform has caused the outburst in Pakistan. Some eminent Pakistani columnists have, however, asked why the loss of life of hundreds of civilians in drone attacks did not provoke a similar response by the authorities?  Some have questioned the logic of closing the Shamsi air base from where the drones were flying, while not banning the flights of drones over the country’s territory. Is it because of the PM’s reported assurance to the American authorities ‘You keep flying, we shall keep protesting’?  The drones may fly now from Afghanistan, though Shamsi was a more convenient place.

Similarly, the decision to boycott the Bonn conference on Afghanistan has been seen by some as an unwise decision since it has deprived Pakistan of an opportunity to place its point of view before the world community. But the boycott has drawn perhaps much more attention to the significance of Pakistan in any future dispensation for Afghanistan. It might, at the same time, alienate the country from key decisions regarding Afghanistan and its future. It has deprived the talks of a key player that could nudge Taliban militants into a peace process as NATO combat forces prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. 

The closing down of the two transit routes to Afghanistan for the supply of oil and other provisions for the NATO troops will, no doubt, have telling effect before long.

As the statements and moves of Hillary Clinton indicate, the US is keen on patching up the differences and injecting normalcy in the relations. PM Gilani, on the other hand, has negated the possibility of the resumption of business as usual. He has not clarified the differences he expects to see. The new paradigm in the region that the US is perhaps planning to introduce might give a much bigger role to India in Afghanistan, of course at the cost of Pakistan. How would the military and civil leadership meet this challenge?  Would flexibility not be a better alternative to adamancy?  Whipping up public emotions against the US would hurt the Pakistanis more than the US leaders. Such a grotesque anti-US perception would solidify in the minds of the public that the pursuance of a policy of give and take for the restoration of equilibrium in the relationship will become difficult.  It would, on the other hand, make it easier for the US policy-makers to move towards a new paradigm in which Pakistan becomes almost irrelevant. The geo-strategic significance of Pakistan would be overtaken by a more potent arrangement that would neutralize its nuclear teeth too.

Some indication of the shape of things to come may be had from the recent signing of an unprecedented strategic pact by Kabul and New Delhi. The US and India have already established a strategic, if not specific, alliance.

The anti-US demonstrations might have rehabilitated among Pakistanis at large the army’s image badly damaged following the May 2 US operation in Abbotabad that killed Osama bin Laden. But the countrywide protest marches  have alienated the army further from the US policy-makers. The resonance of Gen. Mike Mullen’s charges against the army, particularly the ISI, is still audible in the corridors of power in Washington.

In the US political arena, attention is focused these days on the Republican Party’s Presidential candidates. Several of them have projected a derogatory picture of Pakistan. They consider the country violent, unreliable and treacherous. Rep. Michele Backmann called Pakistan “more than an existential threat” to the United States, because it is “a nation that lies, that does everything possible that you could imagine wrong”.

Another Presidential hopeful, Governor Rick Perry has said Pakistan has “shown us time after time that they can’t be trusted.”  The audience applauded him profusely when he called for a cutoff of aid to Pakistan.

Former Governor, Jon Huntsman, another candidate, remarked that America might have to “look for a new partner in the region” and also suggested a cutoff in aid.

Democratic leaders too are questioning the reliability of Pakistan. New York’s Democratic representative, Gary Ackerman, has called Pakistan “perfidious”.

Yet, policy-makers in both Pakistan and the US are likely to conclude that they will get enough from each other to make it too risky and disadvantageous to break up the partnership based essentially on symbiosis. Saner counsels will have to prevail over emotional tantrums and short-term gains.

        arifsyedhussaini@Gmail.com