America's Critical Reliance on Pakistan
By Riaz Haq
CA
Pakistan's significance in the US "global war on terror" was highlighted again last month as the media reported another major attack on US supply lines through Pakistan. In this attack, 96 flat trucks and six containers were destroyed, including a 40-foot container, armored jeeps, trucks and fire engines, according to Reuters.
Pakistani truckers say that more than 350 trucks carry an average of 7,000 tons of supplies over the Khyber Pass to Kabul every day. Almost 75% of all supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan come through Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel sent to troops, the majority through Peshawar. Last month, militants looted a convoy of 12 trucks carrying Humvees and food supplies as they traveled through the Khyber Pass.
Following US strikes in Pakistan in November last year, Pakistan's decision to temporarily bar some trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan threatened a critical supply route for US and NATO troops and raised more fears about the deteriorating security situation in the border region.
The US military has been looking at alternate routes to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan in case Pakistan makes current supply lines unavailable, the Pentagon said earlier. There have been reports of the US contemplating longer but safer overland supply routes to Afghanistan through Europe. Apparently not much has changed in a year, indicating lack of success of the US efforts.
In spite of such critical American and NATO reliance on Pakistan, the US military strikes inside Pakistan continue violating its sovereignty. And the American politicians and media continue to show growing hostility toward Pakistan, while at the same time demanding it to "do more" to support the US-led war on terror.
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," said Pakistan's General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in a strong statement against US military incursion in FATA. General Kayani, named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people of the world, was commenting on a cross-border raid allegedly by US-led coalition troops based in neighboring Afghanistan in which 15 Pakistanis were killed. "Such reckless actions only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," he was quoted as saying.
The US is "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan, and sending in more troops will not guarantee victory, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned Congress recently. Mullen said he is convinced the Afghanistan war can be won but said the US urgently needs to improve its nation-building initiatives and its cross-border strategy with Pakistan, according to CNN.
It is clear that there is growing resentment and impatience on both the US and Pakistani sides. Military leaders Kayani and Mullen seem to be indicating that the US and Pakistan are heading toward an unnecessary military confrontation. But is it inevitable?
To understand the Pakistani position, let me refer the readers to what Gary Leupp, a history professor at Tufts University has to say. According to him, Pakistan has provided more assistance to the United States than any other nation as it pursues its goals in southwest Asia. No country has been more dramatically destabilized as the price of its cooperation.
"But not only does the US political class take this disastrous compliance for granted, it wants to further emphasize Islamabad's irrelevance by attacking the border area at will," he writes.
The US dilemma is captured well in what Admiral Mullen told Congress recently. Mullen stressed that Afghanistan can't be referenced without "speaking of Pakistan," where, he said, the militant groups collaborate and communicate better, launch more sophisticated attacks, employ foreign fighters and use civilians as human shields.
"In my view, these two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," he said, adding that he plans "to commission a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region, one that covers both sides of the border.
"I have pressed hard on my counterparts in Pakistan to do more against extremists and to let us do more to help them," he said.
There is a constant refrain from the US and NATO urging Pakistan to "do more" while undermining its sovereignty by humiliating its government and military to make them both look weak and irrelevant. Such treatment meted out to its "ally" is not winning the US any friends or positively influencing people in Pakistan to support the US war on terror. On the contrary, it is reinforcing the terrorists and radicalizing Pakistanis to oppose the US presence in the region.
Recently, American officials and media completely ignored the fact that the growing admiration of Israel and the urge to emulate Israel often find expression in the Indian media. Those who argue for "doing a Lebanon" in Pakistan have once again found growing support in India with the government and the media joining the chorus of accusations of Pakistan's complicity in Mumbai attacks. Saber rattling has also started with India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee not ruling out military strikes in Pakistan. President-elect Obama has come out in support of India's right "to protect themselves". Asked if India had the right to "take out" high-value targets inside Pakistan with or without the permission of Islamabad, as he is espousing in regard to the US under his presidency, he said: "I think that sovereign nations, obviously, have a right to protect themselves". This is the same kind of language that President Bush has often used in support of Israel's attacks on Palestinians and Lebanese.
In the context of Pakistan's anti-American public opinion, the country's ongoing crises, and the growing US demands on Pakistan, the future of US-Pakistan relations and the chances of success in the "war on terror" do not look particularly bright. The only solution to this darkening mood in both nations is a serious and sincere effort by each to improve their bilateral relationship based on recognition of mutual interests and genuine needs. The incoming Obama administration has an opportunity to change the US tone with Pakistan in January 2009 to make the friendship genuine and useful to both partners in the war on terror.
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