US-Pakistan Relations: A Rocky Road ahead
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
Florida
So the US is mad — really, really mad. And the Pakistani security establishment responds by acting madder and meaner. Really? A writer friend summed up the Pakistani response in an old Pashto anecdote, the sanitized version of which goes as follows: someone found a jackal howling by the roadside at night and asked what was up with the full-throated yelling. The jackal responded, “I am scaring the living daylights out of everyone.” “But why are your legs trembling,” asked that person. “I am scared too,” responded the jackal.
The situation, however, is way too serious to be left to the jingoistic howls and growls magnified by the media cheerleaders. The US and Pakistan show a level of capriciousness in their relationship that is rather unique in history. Some have drawn comparisons between the current US-Pakistan row and the Cuban missile crisis and the resulting standoff between the US and the then USSR. But that was really a battle of nerves between two fairly equal superpowers. No superpower and its former/present client state have had such a dysfunctional rapport as the post-1992 Pakistan and the US, which has only worsened after 9/11.
The 1948 rupture between Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union along with public recriminations, exchange of threats and attempts to assassinate each other by the two leaders, could be cited as a somewhat close scenario to the present snags between Islamabad and Washington, DC. Interestingly, Tito’s demands for Soviet aid while criticizing Moscow’s policies were considered the harbinger of the rift. However, despite some irredentist issues with neighbors like Italy and grand personal ambition, Tito was not pursuing any brazen strategic depth-type aims in the region.
Pakistan, on the other hand, has been poking its nose into Afghanistan way before any Russian or US troops came along, and continues to operate under the premise that it has a legitimate role in shaping the future dispensation in Kabul. This premise, which is a function of the Pakistani paranoia vis-à-vis India’s presumed manipulation of the Afghan governments — past, present and future — against Pakistan, is further flawed by the miscalculation that the US not only faces an imminent defeat in Afghanistan but is bound to pack up and leave in 2014. The US-Pakistan relations historically have recovered after every major escalation but not without incremental residual damage.
I had noted in this column a few months back: “The Pakistani military leadership has been betting on a US withdrawal from Afghanistan that leaves the field wide open for them. It is an erroneous assumption and will likely result in the Pakistani security establishment biting off more than it can chew. It is equally wrong to assume that Afghanistan would portend any threat to Pakistan in the foreseeable future”
Admiral Mike Mullen’s written testimony suggests that Pakistan has overplayed its hand. However, any attempts at de-escalation cannot have a meaningful outcome without deconstructing and dismantling the basic premise of Pakistan’s current misadventure in Afghanistan. The consensus in the US appears to be that the Pakistani military establishment is unwilling to, and the civilian leaders — barring a few very prominent exceptions — incapable of, rolling back a disastrous policy that has literally fallen flat on its face.
To be fair to the civilian leadership of Pakistan, their weak resolve is multi-factorial, including US dependence on and direct dealings with the Pakistani security establishment for decades. It would be counterproductive for the US to penalize the Pakistani civilian leadership and indeed the people of Pakistan by cutting civilian aid or imposing sanctions that hurt a population reeling under natural and manmade disasters. Analysts like Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation are ill advised in calling for such drastic measures. It must be remembered that in Pakistan, the voices of sanity like its Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, are either shouted down when they call for prudence in bilateral relations or tuned out as a recent statement by the ANP leader Senator Afrasiab Khattak’s was.
Senator Khattak had made an observation on a television show this past weekend that the Pak-US relationship seems to work on an all or none principle and goes from complete (Pakistani) subservience to total belligerence. He also noted that if world opinion appears to be raising concerns about certain policies, it might be worthwhile to do some soul-searching instead of going down the collision course. Moreover, he raised concerns about Afghan regions like Kunar (vacated by the ISAF) becoming a hub of militancy.
While Prime Minister Gilani has opened his government’s flank to the unelected right wing zealots by calling an All-Parties Conference (APC) despite an elected parliament in existence, Senator Khattak’s statement could form the basis of a civilian response to the present situation. Pakistan’s foreign minister returning from her rather rough US tour and ineffective UN debut may be able to give the Pakistani political and military leadership a reality check, her overseas bravado notwithstanding. Pertinent to note might be Senator Lindsey Graham dismissing her remark that “the US needed Pakistan” as “a tremendous miscalculation”.
The US, too, may not find this situation sustainable for too long. It has spoken softly and harshly but has not used the big stick that it brandishes. Without following through on its concerns regarding the Haqqani terrorist network, it could lose face and future leverage. Declaring the outfit a terrorist organization is imminent and will serve to caution their handlers. No insurgency has ever survived without monetary, logistic and tactical support. The Pakistani security establishment’s logistic support has been the gel that has held the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network and the Hizb-e-Islami (Hekmatyar) together. Each one of these groups has projected power only along Afghanistan’s eastern border, despite the sporadic high-profile attacks on Kabul. They effectively extend each other’s reach and breaking the back of the Haqqani network would sever the vital link that it is between the Quetta Shura and Hekmatyar. The Haqqani network’s leaders are apparently dispersed in the civilian population centers making drone attacks difficult, but inviting an attack similar to the one on OBL’s lair.
There appears to be a paradigm shift in the US strategy vis-à-vis the Pakistani security establishment but as an Americanism goes, one will have to see it to believe it. Until then the howling — and trembling — may go on along the rocky road ahead. ( The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/mazdaki)
