Engagement with Pakistan Requires Patience, Reform
By Taha Gaya
Washington, DC
With Admiral Mullen's retirement, the professional relationship with General Kayani he cultivated in over 28 visits to Islamabad transfers to the new Chairman, but a personal relationship cannot be transferred, it is unique to the individual.
Knowing this, Admiral Mullen, much to General Kayani's chagrin, chose this moment to "cash out" on the personal goodwill their friendship had generated by going public with the harshest accusations ever leveled against the Pakistani military and ISI regarding their alleged support for the Haqqani network.
General Kayani's shock at this betrayal of personal friendship was evident in the Pakistani military's response to the accusations, that they were "especially disturbing in view of a rather constructive meeting with Admiral Mullen in Spain."
But in all the furor that Admiral Mullen's comments generated, it is easy for two points to get lost: first, it ultimately failed to produce any new Pakistani military action against the Haqqani network as confirmed by the outcome of the Pakistani corps commanders meeting, and second, the most important takeaway from Mullen's Senate testimony was not the heightened level of accusations against Pakistan but his assessment that "a failed and strained engagement with Pakistan is better than disengagement."
He further elaborated that the type of engagement he envisioned:
"....must also move beyond counter-terrorism to address long-term foundations of Pakistan's success - to help the Pakistanis find realistic and productive ways to achieve their aspirations of prosperity and security. Those foundations must include improved trade relations with the United States and an increasing role for democratic, civilian institutions and civil society in determining Pakistan's fate. We should help the Pakistani people address internal security challenges as well as issues of economic development, electricity generation, and water security. We should promote Indo-Pak cooperation and strategic dialogue. We should also help create more stakeholders in Pakistan's success by expanding the discussion and including the international community; isolating the people of Pakistan from the world right now would be counter-productive."
It is especially sound advice, given the decision by a different Senate subcommittee just one day earlier to tie all US assistance to Pakistan on cooperation against the Haqqani Network, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations.
As the reaction to Mullen's own accusations reflected, even getting an unexpected stick from "Pakistan's best friend" has been unsuccessful in changing Pakistan's strategic calculus. Those who argue the carrot has not worked either have not looked closely enough at the carrot: trade ties whose greatest success so far have been overpriced mangoes, assistance that trickled rather than flowed, a series of stalled unstrategic dialogues, and obsolete military assistance.
The engagement envisioned by Mullen is not new, it just has never been implemented, or at least implemented effectively. Faced with real fiscal pressures, the domestic political pressure of an American public whose perception of Pakistan has been formed from headlines about "The Most Dangerous Nation," and an imminent drawdown in Afghanistan, taking the right steps will be hard, and politically and financially costly.
The alternative is to cut assistance (a move that will have negative ramifications on international lending to Pakistan and likely further collapse the economy and increase unemployment), ratchet up our accusatory rhetoric and demonstrate our seriousness by launching raids into the FATA and Baluchistan (risking military engagement with Pakistan and forcing the democratically-elected government to close ranks behind the military while bolstering anti-American and extremist elements within the country thereby dramatically increasing the threat to American national security and putting our troops in Afghanistan at risk by exposing them to an almost-certain cutoff in their supply lines), and seek to designate the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization thereby implicating Pakistan as a state-sponsor of terrorism and isolating Pakistan from others in the international community while precipitating another crisis between the US and the international Muslim community.
Given this alternative, a strategy of engagement (one that at its core also meaningfully engages Pakistan on Afghanistan and addresses Pakistani fears of Indian encirclement), is not only more prudent, it is in fact, less costly. We just have to be smart enough to see that, and patient enough to see it through.
(Taha Gaya is the Executive Director of the Pakistani American Leadership Center (PAL-C), Washington DC)
