And strategic restraint
As a prelude to the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s sojourn to Islamabad, our policy makers are expressing cautious optimism on the future of frayed Pakistan-US ties. Relations hit an all-time low when President Donald Trump came down hard on Pakistan in his policy statement on South Asia.
In his August speech the US president had accused Pakistan of getting billions of dollars of American money and at the same time, “housing the very terrorists that we were fighting”. He further warned: “that will have to change. And change immediately.”
Islamabad handled this unusually stiff démarche cool headedly and chose to keep on engaging Washington rather than entering into a tit for tat shouting match. The chief of army staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa tackled it well by declaring that the US is the one that has to ‘do more’, rather than Pakistan that was already doing its best to root out terrorism without making any distinctions.
The foreign office did not fly off the handle on Trump’s stiff warning. While New Delhi, obviously delighted, was gloating over this public snub, Islamabad’s restraint was duly noted in Washington’s foreign policy establishment.
The recent rescue of an American woman and her family from the captivity of the Haqqani group by Pakistani security forces was a god sent opportunity for Islamabad to prove its counter terrorism credentials. Mr Trump, thanking Pakistan, said that the retrieval of Catlan Coleman and her family from the Haqqani network’s captivity is an indication of a better working relationship with Pakistan.
The US president declared in a White House briefing, “the Pakistani government‘s cooperation is a sign that it is honouring America’s wish that it has to do more to provide security in the region”. He however added in his signature arrogant style: “I believe they’re (Islamabad) starting to respect the United States again.”
Obviously the Trump administration feels that its carrot and stick policy is working well with Pakistan. But it gave jitters to New Delhi that started feeling that in a short period of two months perhaps Trump has done another about face.
However New Delhi should not be worried on this count. Probably to assuage its concerns Rex Tillerson, on the eve of his trip to the Middle East and South Asia, made a very conciliatory speech on India at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.
He assured his largely Indian audience that the Trump administration will be leaning on India to offset China’s regional influence, hailing deeper defence cooperation between New Delhi and Washington. The message to Beijing clearly was that it was challenging international rules and norms. Its putsch in the South China Sea and its One Belt One Road initiative was simply not acceptable to Washington.
Tillerson did not miss this opportunity to castigate Islamabad either. He said that he expected Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorist groups based there that, according to him, threaten its own people and the broader region.
As if this was not enough the US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley added her two bits as well. A Punjabi of Indian descent, her family hailing from Amritsar, has quite outrageously advised India to help Washington keep an eye on Pakistan.
In this deafening crescendo of the ‘do more’ mantra when Tillerson arrives in Islamabad — fully briefed by his hosts in new Delhi — his interlocutors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi will have a tough time convincing their guest about their counter terrorism intentions. It is obvious that Washington, with New Delhi and Kabul in unison, views Pakistan with extreme suspicion.
So far as India is concerned its defence, economic and strategic ties were never so strong as under the present US administration. New Delhi has been offered state of the art defence equipment that Pakistan cannot even dream of nor can afford. Malabar naval exercises with Japan and the US navy, where the three countries deployed their largest warships in the Indian Ocean, were a new benchmark.
So far as Kabul is concerned, much to the chagrin of Islamabad, India is toying with the idea of deeper defence ties with Afghanistan with open encouragement from Washington. India’s national security advisor Ajit Duval last Monday visited Kabul.
At the end of his visit a joint press release was issued that, “welcomed the opportunities created by the new US strategy for bringing peace and security in Afghanistan.” The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, will soon be visiting New Delhi prior to his trip to Islamabad.
Post Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s meeting with the US Vice President Mike Pence on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month some kind of a thaw in troubled relations with Washington was perceived by our policy makers. In the sense that it marked the resumption of a bilateral engagement this assessment was realistic.
Much has been made out of recent telephone calls by Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Prime Minister Abbasi by our foreign office. These calls were primarily to thank Pakistan for its role in securing the release of US hostages.
On the ground, US drone attacks in the Pak-Afghan border areas have resumed with full vigour. In a recent operation the head of the feared terrorist organisation Jamaat ul Ahraar Omar Khalid Khorasani AKA Abdul Wali was felled.
Another US drone strike killed four militants on the Pak- Afghan border on Thursday. Axiomatically intelligence co-operation between Islamabad and Washington has also resumed at some level.
The stalled quadrilateral dialogue attended by representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US to seek politically negotiated settlement of the Afghan war was resumed last Monday. Nonetheless dialogue without the Taliban participating in a meaningful way was fruitless.
The CIA director, Mike Pompeo, however says Pakistan must deny the Taliban safe havens in order to bring them to the negotiating table. According to him in order for the talks to move ahead the Taliban must be beaten on the ground in Afghanistan. This means, quite unfairly, the onus is being put on Islamabad’s shoulders to beat the Taliban militarily in Afghanistan.
Despite Islamabad ticking off virtually all US demands on its wish list any quid pro quo is not in sight. Even the money owed to it for services rendered under the head of Coalition Support Fund (CSF) is being withheld.
Unlike the past the Pakistani military is flushing out terrorists groups of all hues and colours from its soil. No distinction is being made between the so called good and bad terrorists. The stark reality that this is in Pakistan’s own national interest has finally sunk in.
So far as the US is concerned, it has gone far in its strategic relations with New Delhi. It all started under President Obama, or in some ways even before him. Trump has only consolidated these ties and has also retched up the rhetoric in the process.
Unfortunately Pakistan will remain on the wrong end of the stick with the carrot nowhere in sight. Owing to Islamabad’s strategic location and being a nuclear power with the fifth largest professional army in the world the US will however keep it engaged.
