The United States of America needs to cultivate a normal and constructive relationship with Pakistan, aimed at building stability and regional peace before the former ends its involvement in Afghanistan, a US-based think-tank opines.
Teresita Schaffer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an article published in the Foreign Policy magazine, said the US policy-makers should develop building blocks for a post-2014 relationship between the US and Pakistan.
Schaffer called for a series of steps to build a stronger relationship between the two countries. She was of the view that as a first step it was vital for the US to have a lower-key diplomatic style. She pointed out that in the past, the partnership had relied on lofty but ambiguous promises to create the impression of a strategic bond.
“The US and Pakistan now need less soaring rhetoric and more understanding of their mutual expectations. Where expectations are unrealistic, they need to be pared down through serious consultations,” she said.
She also said it requires greater US willingness to listen to Pakistan’s articulation of its own needs, and vice versa.
Schaffer said the US should also start to build up three tools, including a smaller but better targeted economic aid programmed for Pakistan. She said both the countries can benefit from concentrating on activities that support the areas of Pakistan’s economy that are modernizing.
She suggested the need to start working with infrastructure: irrigation and power generation facilities. This can be done with Pakistanis in the driver’s seat, she opined.
Schaffer also called for helping Pakistan build up the human capacity and institutions to support a larger and more vibrant small and medium business sector.
She stressed for building up real business ties between the US and Pakistan, including insurance programmes like the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and pre-investment studies like those funded by the Trade and Development Agency (TDA).
The biggest contribution would be extending preferential access to Pakistani textiles – a big stretch in today’s environment but something that could be pursued if current tempers quiet down, she said.
She called for a quiet US support for more stabilizing regional relationships; and Afghan trade to and through Pakistan; as well as energy linkages including those involving India and countries in the Gulf.
She also urged even allowing the much discussed gas pipeline from Iran to sink or swim on its own commercial merits. It would contribute to embedding Pakistan in a set of regional relationships that create greater peace and stability over time.
She underscored the importance for creating the infrastructure for a more peaceful and prosperous South Asian region.
She termed 2011 as a catastrophic year for US-Pakistan relations that began with CIA contractor Raymond Davis’s arrest for shooting two Pakistanis dead in January, the raid in Abbottabad in early May that killed Osama bin Laden, and culminating in the NATO forces lethal attack on a Pakistani border post in November 2011.
She said these “series of shocks” shook this important partnership to its core and both the countries expect their future relationship to be more modest, but neither has defined this concept. She said the hope of a common strategy in Afghanistan was completely unrealistic. The two countries’ goals diverge in ways that are too important to sweep under the rug. In principle, both want a stable, governable Afghanistan with no continuing ties to al-Qaeda.