President Barack Obama pointed out last week that while the “typical president” has to handle two or three big problems at once, he has had to juggle “seven or eight.” Still, the new administration is managing to generate an impressive amount of energy and activism across that broad field. In foreign affairs, that raises a compelling question: Do the levers of American influence still work? This first big test has been something of a slow-burner, often neglected by media distracted by pirates and swine flu. Nevertheless, the accelerating power of extremists in a nuclear-armed state is as big and as scary a threat as any president has faced since the end of the Cold War — and the administration has responded with an aggressive array of military, political, diplomatic and economic initiatives, in Pakistan, Washington and elsewhere.
The trouble is, it all may not work — as senior administration officials frankly acknowledge. By year’s end, Pakistan could morph into a catastrophe that overshadows those six or seven other big problems. That won’t happen because the White House ignored it; but it may be the case that proves that US global influence has receded to a dangerous degree. The administration began by treating Pakistan as an adjunct to its strategy for Afghanistan, because Pakistan’s western tribal territories serve as bases for the Afghan Taleban and Al-Qaeda. Yet in the past month Pakistan suddenly has seemed to tip toward collapse as the Taleban rapidly expanded toward Islamabad while the country’s army and weak civilian government dithered.
This is the sort of trouble US administrations have often ignored until it was too late — as in neighboring Iran before its Islamic revolution. So it’s been notable how quickly how many senior Obama administration officials have concentrated on Pakistan.
The administration organized a pledging conference in Tokyo three weeks ago that raised $5.5 billion in new civilian aid for the government. It is meanwhile talking to Congress about quickly approving $400 million in training money for Pakistani security forces fighting the Taleban, in addition to the billions in military and economic aid in future budgets. The National Security Council met last week to hear a new report by the US intelligence community, which concluded that an Islamic revolution in Pakistan was not likely “in the near future.” An intensive review has also begun of how Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are secured and what might happen to them in an emergency.
Much of the focus flows from the administration’s special envoy system at the State Department. Richard Holbrooke, the czar for Afghanistan and Pakistan and a diplomat of legendary aggressiveness, has been showering Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House with memos on Pakistan. All this activity has produced some tentative results. Under heavy American pressure, Zardari backed down from a potentially disastrous street confrontation with rival Nawaz Sharif; the administration is now trying to push Pakistan’s two biggest civilian parties into an alliance. Days after Mullen’s last visit, the Pakistani Army finally launched an offensive last week against Taleban forces that had infiltrated the Buner district, some 60 miles from the capital.
The administration is discovering, however, that its power to influence events in Pakistan is quite limited. Other than remote-controlled missile strikes, the United States has no direct means of stopping extremists from taking over the country. In other words, energy and focus won’t necessarily spare Obama from a foreign policy disaster.
