Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan on October 20-21, 2011 was a subtle attempt on the part of the United States and Pakistan to reduce tension and manage distrust in their bilateral relations. Both sides were strong on pleasantries and courtesies because they did not want to disrupt the relationship altogether. This enabled them to agree on a number of issues and keep the differences pending. As the US and Pakistan have not fully overcome their distrust of each other’s policies in the region, they might return to political polemics and increased tension in their relations in the future.
The year 2011 can be described as the year of distrust and tension in the US-Pakistan relations. This was the outcome of the imperatives of their domestic politics and their policy of pursuing counter-terrorism without taking the other side into confidence.
It all began with the controversy on the issuance of visa to and arrival of private security contractors in 2010, some of whom engaged in intelligence gathering on militant groups and domestic issues in Pakistan. Unlike the 1980s when the CIA and the ISI ran joint intelligence gathering operations, the CIA decided in 2010-1011 to function autonomously in Pakistan that did not go well with the ISI. The Raymond Davis episode caused much bitterness, followed by the issue of American trainers in Pakistan and suspension of military assistance. The bilateral relations suffered another setback by the May 2 US security operation in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden and the repeated US allegations on Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment for supporting the Haqqani group for the attack in the area housing US embassy and the ISAF headquarters in Kabul on September 13-14.
Pakistan claimed since June that the Taliban based in Afghanistan were periodically attacking Pakistani security posts on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The US made a counter-claim of the attacks on American soldiers by the groups based on the Pakistani side of the border. What brought their relations to the brink was Pakistan’s public denunciation by the US official circles from mid-September to one week before Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan. The official and non-official circles in Pakistan engaged in US-bashing
The counter-terrorism policies of both countries are being influenced by their domestic politics. As the campaign for presidential elections picks up, the Obama Administration wants to show to the informed public opinion that the US is pursuing drawdown of the troops from Afghanistan after containing the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban threat. Therefore, any high profile Taliban attack and deaths of American soldiers are not good news for the Obama Administration. It creates a narrative for domestic consumption that shifts the blame of increased Taliban activity on the safe-havens in Pakistan – a country that already suffers from a serious image problem in the US. This encounters the Obama administration with a question of why should it maintain close relations with Pakistan if it is the cause of American sufferings in Afghanistan?
In Pakistan, anti-Americanism has shown unprecedented intensification over the last two years, penetrating the civilian and military official circles. The populist style of the political government is understandable that does not offer a counter-narrative to the anti-American narrative of Islamists. But the military has also developed populist orientation and keeps an eye on what makes it popular with the people. Therefore, it hardly counters the dominant Islamist narrative and periodically encourages the playing up of anti-American discourse to serve its interests.
The civilian government and especially the military are not inclined towards the total elimination of militant groups, including Pakistani Taliban, partly because of the problem of capacity to take on all groups at the same time especially when some of them are based in thickly populated areas and party due to a deliberate strategy of keeping the option open for talking and accommodating some groups in view of uncertainties of the security situation in Afghanistan after American combat troops leave. The flexible approach towards militancy enjoys enough support in Pakistan to restrain the military authorities from going all the way against them.
Pakistan’s policy options are also influenced by a widespread perception in Pakistan that the Afghan Taliban are on the ascendancy and the Kabul government would find it extremely difficult to cope with them after western troops quit. If the Taliban are going to be a formidable force after Americans leave, Pakistan will have to deal with them and therefore it cannot afford to alienate each and every Taliban group.
Pakistan’s security establishment suffers from ambiguity on the long term Pakistan policy towards the Taliban. If the Afghan Taliban resurge fully after 2014 and the tribal areas are not under firm Pakistani control, southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas will become their stronghold. If Pakistan cannot control the tribal areas by 2014 it may lose these areas to the Taliban forever.
In such a complex terrorism landscape, Hillary Clinton’s visit has produced mixed results. She repeated the demand of military action against the Haqqani group and other militants in the tribal areas. However, her tone was soft and she removed the Pakistani fear of a possible American military attack in the tribal areas.
Pakistan and the US agreed to intelligence sharing, cooperation for controlling unauthorised cross-border movement and dealing with the Taliban on their side of the border. Hillary Clinton expressed American interest in dialogue with some Taliban. However, there is vagueness in the US posture on dialogue, including its goals and methods and Pakistan’s role, if any.
It is difficult to suggest if the Clinton visit has fully restored economic and military assistance to Pakistan. A part of military assistance was suspended when Pakistan asked American military trainers to return home. Pakistan has received less than half of 1.5 billion dollars in economic assistance under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Law in the first financial year that ended on September 30. It seems that the US would continue to use military and economic assistance to pressure Pakistan.
Pakistan and the US will continue to work together on counter-terrorism while diverging on some of its aspects. This means that problems will surface in their relations from time to time. Hopefully they will use diplomatic channels to resolve their differences rather than resorting mutual recrimination in public.
The writer is an independent political and defence analyst.
I think that some type of negotiation with Taliban are under way in any shape direct or indirect still kept secret from media and Hillary has finalazed all the limitation of america with Pakistani establishment , and the scond thing is that Pakistan and america were never friend in history just both served and protected their own interest (that is rule of international politics also ) its simple game pakistan wants to saf own iterests in Afghanistan while american wants its own , its the only game for which evry one is trying to gain and extract maximise from this ,
Does it mean that we are going to fall back on square one after such a long and punishing decade for state and society.I think it will be worse than before,after US had left Afghanistan with a few satellite camps to keep her presence for another decade, so as to engage and facilitate the regional countries build some kind of interdependence.
The containment policy of US will bite us more with every passing day for our inept handling of internal security situation and waning capacity to manage our affairs responsiby
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