Carping criticism from sources in the United States and NATO that Pakistan was not doing enough to assist them in defeating the Taleban-led insurgency in Afghanistan is beginning to put considerable strain on the current Pakistan-US alliance forged in the wake of the 9/11 atrocity. President Musharraf’s camp has repeatedly argued that strident criticism came only from elements of the American media that have been traditionally negative about Pakistan and not from official Washington. In recent months, this distinction has got blurred as important members of George W. Bush’s administration and congressmen from both sides of the aisle have attributed the resurgence of resistance in Afghanistan to the unwillingness or inability of Pakistani troops to prevent cross-border movement of the Taleban.
In the Pakistani perspective, it looks like an orchestrated campaign by some US officials, NATO commanders and the Kabul regime to coerce Musharraf to commit his army to a more aggressive, but largely undefined, role in eliminating the Taleban. Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops, set up 1000 check posts along the 2400-km long border in the tribal belt adjacent to the Afghan frontier, lost more than 700 soldiers in bloody battles with tribes that have shown religious and ethnic sympathy for the Taleban, and, no less importantly, faced a severe anti-government backlash of public opinion outraged by civilian deaths. Since unauthorized American and NATO strikes on targets inside Pakistan have caused considerable collateral damage, President Musharraf has been frequently accused by his opponents of compromising on national sovereignty. He improved the grave situation in Waziristan, a crucial part of the tribal areas, by entering into British-style peace agreements with the tribal leaders. The United States, however, did not approve of the peace deals.
When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Islamabad in June 2006, Musharraf’s narrative focused on his outstanding contribution to the uprooting of Al-Qaeda and the consolidation of the Karzai regime in Kabul. He indicated his readiness to do more as long as it did not trigger off an upheaval in Pakistan itself. Between that visit and a more controversial stopover in Islamabad on Feb. 26 by US Vice President Dick Cheney, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated sharply. Insurgency has spread to a swathe of provinces inhabited by the aggrieved Pushtuns. The Taleban are now portraying their insurgency as a war of national liberation. Because of the huge diversion of resources to Iraq and a great gap between military and reconstruction expenditure in Afghanistan, the bulk of the population is as disadvantaged as ever. Only a small minority has made windfall profits in the dollar economy of the capital, Kabul. The situation is complicated by the fact that substantial amounts of foreign assistance do not go through government channels. The Taleban are clearly recruiting disillusioned young men from areas left behind in the reconstruction activity.
Pakistanis feel that the crescendo of recent critical comments is a prelude to the expected flare up in fighting in Afghanistan in the coming spring months. The current hype about an impending Taleban spring offensive may be a pretext for NATO offensives that have already begun. Key British and American visitors to Pakistan have ruled out any talks with the Taleban. As in the past, future setbacks in imposing a purely military solution would probably be blamed on Pakistan. The objective truth is that an inhospitable and tortuous terrain permits some cross-border movement of tiny groups of militants who reassemble amongst sympathetic tribes on the Afghan side.
Perhaps no inter-state alliance in the last half a century has seen greater fluctuations than the one between Pakistan and the United States. Historians in both countries generally agree that in its quest for economic and military security, Pakistan has always sought a robust relationship while the United States has warmed up to it only when it needed Pakistan as an ally in a specific strategic project in the region. Disenchantment with sudden disengagements by the United States in the past, long periods of US sanctions against Pakistan and widespread opposition to US policies in the Middle East have combined to create a strong anti-American feeling that Musharraf has to contend with in realigning Pakistan with the US operations in Afghanistan. Both sides claim to have learned from the chequered history of past alliances. Present relations are often described as an enduring multifaceted engagement immune to vagaries of expediency. Washington is said to be practicing “transformational diplomacy” that would over time turn Pakistan into a moderate, economically successful, pro-Western Muslim nation.
Relations are, however, rocked by Afghanistan and their underlying fragility is being exposed again with all too familiar threats of a cut-off in economic assistance.
The current alliance began almost under duress as a senior American official allegedly warned Pakistan on that fateful September day to choose between compliance and Stone Age. Subsequently, however, President Musharraf was able to achieve a degree of institutionalization for structured consultations for greater cooperation in strategic matters, energy security and educational fields. A number of forums such as a meeting of US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue scheduled for mid-March provide opportunities for damage limitation.
At the end of the day, it depends upon Musharraf succeeding in altering the nature of his partnership with President Bush. He needs to shift it from a unilateralist audit of his performance in complying with American demands to joint decision-making that fully incorporates Pakistan’s regional insights. Musharraf needs better resonance in the White House on Pakistan’s national interest and greater American sensitivity to Muslim sentiments. The people of Pakistan refuse to disconnect from the concept of a transnational Ummah. Musharraf can ignore this factor only at his peril and the United States has to accept it as an important determinant of Pakistan’s foreign policy.
— Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former Pakistan foreign secretary who has also served in Afghanistan.
