Old questions, old answers

The question remains the same, albeit the people at the helm who will be answering it have changed: How to deal with ‘an errant boy’ in the comity of nations called Pakistan? The country because of its peculiar credentials – real as well as perceived – is as difficult a proposition for the new US administration as it was for its predecessor.

Here is a country which is widely looked upon by the American policymakers and intelligentsia as a state sponsor of terrorism. It is a country which in their eyes seems to have the incorrigible habit of hunting with the hounds and running with the hare when it comes to going after hardcore terrorists. It is a country which they believe is always planning to unleash the diabolical forces of instability in India and Afghanistan, the key Washington allies in the region, through both the state and non-state actors.

Be that as it may, the same Pakistan happens to be the sixth largest nation on the planet, the second largest state, economy and military power in South Asia, a major non-Nato ally as well as a strategic partner and the only Muslim country which has nuclear weapons. At the same time, without taking Pakistan on board, durable peace in the region will remain a distant dream.

Not surprisingly, the Obama administration as well as Congress remained in a fix – should Islamabad be left on its own or continue to be engaged? What was the best course of action vis-a-vis Pakistan? Would the carrot or the stick be more profitable as a policy instrument? Should bilateral assistance to Pakistan be shored up or cut down? Should the conditions for capital inflows be made more stringent? Would military or economic assistance be more effective in inducing the ‘right’ response from Pakistan? Should Pakistan be declared a state sponsor of terrorism (SST)? The Trump administration is weighing the pros and cons of the same policy choices.

In fact, there is a strong sense of deja vu when one goes through the deliberations of American decision-makers and think tanks on how Washington should address its concerns with regard to Pakistan. Here are two examples: a couple of months before the US presidential elections, at a hearing of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Pak-US relations, disillusionment with Islamabad’s ‘lack of cooperation’ in putting down the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan was expressed. The merits and demerits of going tougher on Islamabad through measures such as declaring it an SST, slapping it with sanctions yet another time and cutting off all economic and security related assistance, were discussed.

At the same time, the policymakers were warned that pushing Pakistan to the wall might backfire, impairing rather than serving American interests in the region. It was also pointed out that putting curbs on Islamabad or toning up aid conditionality had turned out to be of little use in the past. The best course of action would probably be to continue the current engagement with Pakistan: giving it economic assistance and asking it to do more. That’s what the Obama administration did for eight years.

Very recently, some of the top American think tanks have produced a report titled ‘A New US Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions without Cutting Ties’. Co-authored by a former Pakistan ambassador to the US in Washington, the report lays bare the familiar American policy dilemma on Pakistan. Making no bones about the sponsors’ complete distrust of Islamabad’s counterterrorism credentials, the report advises the Trump administration to not regard or portray Pakistan as an ally; instead the country may be warned that its status as a major non-Nato ally may be revoked in case it fails to demonstrate commitment to the American counterterrorism objectives. Such a commitment would entail going all out against the Afghan Taliban including the Haqqanis.

The report calls for making future US assistance to Pakistan contingent upon time-bound actions such as ‘closing down terror training camps and disrupting financing of terror activities’, stemming ‘infiltration of militants across the Line of Control (LoC)’, and imprisoning ‘terrorist leaders’. At the same time, the authors urge the new administration to avoid a complete breakdown in relations with Pakistan. In particular, the decision-makers have been cautioned against declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism in the first year of the new administration. However, the option, if needed, may be exercised in due course.

Paradoxically, though not surprisingly, the report recommends Pakistan act against the Taliban and at the same time not obstruct reconciliation between the militants and the government in Kabul.

The fact that Washington faces a policy dilemma with regard to its ties with Islamabad is hardly surprising. The relationship between the US and Pakistan is driven at once by mutual dependence and distrust. For over a decade and a half, the US has looked upon Pakistan as an indispensible player to achieve one of its foremost national security policy objectives: “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda and its affiliates” (read Taliban). In return, Pakistan has been given $19 billion assistance – $11 billion humanitarian and economic and $9 billion security related – since 9/11.

Pakistan, however, has never measured up to the US counterterrorism standards allegedly on account of making a distinction between good and bad militants. If Washington and Kabul are to be believed, Islamabad is the prime source of continuing instability in Afghanistan. The US Congress has also blocked $430 million subsidy on the sale of eight F-16 aircrafts to Islamabad for allegedly discriminating among the militants.

Pakistan, however, maintains that it has discarded the notion of good and bad militants and that the on-going military action in tribal areas neighbouring Afghanistan is not discriminatory. The Americans, though, remain unimpressed.

But Pakistan has not been the only bad guy. If Islamabad supported the Afghan Taliban, Kabul under Hamid Karzai backed the Pakistani Taliban. When Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched, the top Taliban leadership, including their chief Maulvi Fazlullah, crossed over to Afghanistan, where they were provided sanctuaries. Not only that, the quadrilateral peace process, which in addition to Pakistan includes the US, China and Afghanistan, is based on the distinction between good and bad Taliban.

The Trump administration may do what its predecessor thought over but never did: designate Pakistan as an SST. Under American laws, a country can be given such designation if it has repeatedly provided support for international acts of terrorism. Such countries can be slapped with sanctions including restrictions on foreign assistance, a ban on defence sales, certain controls over exports of dual use items (technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes) and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions, such as travel ban.

Putting Pakistan on the SST list may squeeze the country economically, but will also further toughen its stance on matters of vital interest to the US.

The writer is a freelance countributor.

Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com