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Friday March 29, 2024

Signs from Washington

By our correspondents
December 11, 2016

Pakistan’s ties with the US have always been unstable, with relations between the two countries going through frequent peaks and troughs. Now, a new volatility has been added with the transition of power from President Barack Obama to Donald Trump. The Republican-controlled US Congress just passed its National Defence Authorisation Act, which earmarked $900 million in reimbursements to Pakistan for its help in fighting the war against militancy. But of that amount, $400 million will only be paid out if Pakistan gets a certificate of good behaviour from the US defence secretary. This adds a layer of uncertainty. The Obama administration has just voiced concern about Pakistan in the form of State Department spokesperson Mark Toner, who said the US has consistently told Pakistan not to tolerate the presence of Afghan Taliban groups and the Haqqani Network on its soils. Even then, the current defence secretary Ashton Carter has signed off on repayments to Pakistan in the past. But come January, Donald Trump will take over and his proposed defence secretary     James Mattis – who is ominously nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’ – is known to be a hardliner.     Should these and future repayments not be sanctioned by the new administration, it could be a near-fatal blow to smooth relations between the two countries.

Trump is also expected to be pro-India, but in that case he will be little different to Obama. Carter was in New Delhi earlier this week to meet his counterpart Manohar Parrikar for a record seventh time, during which he announced that India is a major defence partner of the US. Last month, the US Congress had also issued a report calling on the defence secretary to grant this recognition to India and boost bilateral security cooperation. This will naturally cause concern in Pakistan since the Republicans and Democrats both seem united in pivoting even further in India’s direction. Tariq Fatemi, the special assistant to the prime minister on foreign affairs, was in Washington to meet with both the outgoing and incoming administrations. He made the case that India’s repeated violations of the Line of Control and its conduct in Kashmir needed to be condemned by the US. But given the trajectory of relations between the three countries, Pakistan will need to make a greater effort to succeed diplomatically. The one possibly hopeful sign coming from Washington is that Trump has spoken of mediating on the Kashmir issue, even though it can be quickly pointed out that India’s refusal to ‘allow’ any such mediation will be and has been the greatest hurdle in that direction. Yet, if Trump’s approach is indicative of an attitude that contains a probable positive, it should be one of the objects of Pakistan’s focus, even before his inauguration. At the same time, we must be able to make a case out of our very real difficulties in fighting multiple militant groups. Trump is coming in as an unknown quantity, which makes it all the more important for Pakistan to intensify efforts in that respect – before his agenda for the region is set in stone.