2007-2009, the era at the end of the Bush Administration and the beginning of the Obama Adminstration was the time period where the most vile venom was spewed against Pakistan for almost all quarters of the American government and media. There were daily stories and think tank reports on how evil and bad Islamabad was. This was also the time when Delhi used its lobbies to add to the vitriol. Delhi itself tried to threaten Pakistan will all sorts of threats.
Things seem to have changed. After the London Conference, the US media has begun to comprehend the Pakistani point of view and understands the complexities of the maze in West Asia. Chris Seiple of the Christian Science Monitor is one such example. Chirs has written diatribes against Pakistan. This current column represents the change in heart of the American media. Its not that the entire media has become fans of Pakistan, overnight, but most of the media, specially the White House Press Corps listens to the White House, and the “leaks” are given to reporters who tow the company line.
If all else fails, the WMD type of nonsense is sent down the press wires.
In particular, the US counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan hinges on whether or not the “Afghan Taliban,” a Pashtun movement, maintains sanctuary and support from outside the country.
Currently, the Pakistani government is not denying that sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban, or the “Pakistan Taliban” (also Pashtun). I spent 10 days last month in Islamabad and Peshawar speaking with leaders from across society, including those with direct access to the Taliban.
Conversations revealed that there are three things that the US must understand in order to end the Taliban insurgencies on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border: respect, reconciliation, and religious freedom.
1. Reverse the respect deficit between Pakistan and America.
Pakistan views its relationship with the US in the context of its primary threat: India. The Indian Army’s commander recently said it could invade Pakistan from the east and defeat it in 96 hours as part of it’s “Cold Start” military doctrine, which calls for a rapid and integrated offensive using all of India’s military forces. A pro-Indian Afghanistan along the western border of Pakistan would encircle the country with potential enemies.
Because Pakistan is not sure of US intentions in Afghanistan (I was constantly asked whether America is planning to stay or leave Afghanistan) the Pakistani Army has no incentive to defeat the Pakistan Taliban in the border areas. Better to keep the Taliban, conventional Pakistani wisdom suggests, as a buffer against the possibility of a pro-Indian Afghanistan.
The US, on the other hand, views the relationship with Pakistan through its biggest concern: Al Qaeda. The US is focused on defeating an Arab-dominated Al Qaeda, whose forces are nested among Taliban groups along both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Thus, the US has put so much pressure on the Pakistani government to move against Al Qaeda and the terrorist elements of the Taliban that many Pakistanis consider President Asif Ali Zardari to be an American stooge. The Pakistani reluctance to go after all of the Taliban groups within its borders, after a new multibillion dollar aid package from the US, meanwhile, gives some Americans the impression of ingratitude.
Adding injury to insult for the Pakistanis are the American drone attacks that the Pakistani government has unofficially sanctioned – at the insistence of the US – but not publicly acknowledged.
While most Pakistanis believe that these strikes do not respect them or their sovereignty, there is also general recognition that they are increasingly accurate, killing Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. Nevertheless, too many civilians have been killed by accident.
The Taliban manipulates these civilian deaths to justify suicide bomber attacks throughout the border areas. Incredibly, the Taliban blame a ficticious “American Taliban” – CIA and Blackwater infiltrators sent to destabilize the region – for these attacks. (I wish I was kidding.) In the absence of access to other information, or a concerted effort by the Pakistani government and press to deny such rumors, many along the border believe such nonsense.
Although the majority of Pashtuns do not support the Taliban, the Pashtuns are, as someone told me, “one body.” They all know someone who has lost a family member to the drone and terrorist attacks, and they all know someone in the Taliban.
2. Reconciliation is central to a solution.
If the Pakistan Taliban can be integrated into the Pakistani political process, they are much more likely to stop providing sanctuary and support to their Pashtun brothers who make up the Afghan Taliban.
And if support of the Afghan Taliban ceases from within the Pakistan border, Afghan stability is not far behind. The US-Pakistan relationship would then be freed to mature beyond the perceived disrespect of the moment into a healthy recognition of long-term and common interests. By Chris Seiple / February 9, 2010, Washington, Victory or defeat in Afghanistan will be determined by how the United States engages Pakistan this year.
It was amazing to see Jane Parlez of the New York Times write a fair and balanced story on Pakistan. Obviously there is still bias–she cannot simply debunk all she has written for years, but the stinking vitriol and the repugnant rhetoric has been toned down.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has told the United States it wants a central role in resolving the Afghan war and has offered to mediate with Taliban factions who use its territory and have long served as its allies, American and Pakistani officials said.
The offer, aimed at preserving Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan once the Americans leave, could both help and hurt American interests as Washington debates reconciling with the Taliban.
Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, made clear Pakistan’s willingness to mediate at a meeting late last month at NATO headquarters with top American military officials, a senior American military official familiar with the meeting said.
It is a departure from Pakistan’s previous reluctance to approach the Taliban. The meeting included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen; the head of Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus; and the commander of American and allied troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the official said.
“The Pakistanis want to be part of discussions that could involve reconciliation,” the official said.
Pakistan’s desire to work with the United States in an Afghanistan endgame is likely to be discussed when the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, visits Islamabad, this week. So far, the United States has been more eager to push Pakistan to fight Taliban than to negotiate with them, and has not endorsed Pakistan’s new approach.
The Pakistani offer makes clear that any stable solution to the war will have to take into account Afghanistan’s neighbors, in a region where Pakistan, India, China, Iran and others all jostle for power.
Pakistani officials familiar with General Kayani’s thinking said that even as the United States adds troops to Afghanistan, he has determined that the Americans are looking for a fast exit. The impression, they said, was reinforced by President Obama’s scant mention of the war in his State of the Union address.
What the Pakistanis can offer is their influence over the Taliban network of Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani, whose forces American commanders say are the most lethal battling American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
From their stronghold in Pakistan’s tribal area of North Waziristan, the Haqqanis exert sway over large parts of southern Afghanistan and have staged major terrorist attacks in Kabul, American officials say.
They are close allies of Al Qaeda. But they also have long ties to Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies that have protected them inside Pakistani territory.
In return for trying to rein in the Haqqanis, Pakistan will be looking for a friendly Afghanistan and for ways to stem the growing Indian presence there, Pakistani and American officials said.
In briefings last week with reporters at his army headquarters, the usually reticent General Kayani repeated his offer at NATO to play a constructive role, while making it clear Pakistan was seeking broad influence in southern Afghanistan. The Haqqani network would be one of Pakistan’s strongest levers to do that.
American officials said Washington was still debating the contours of any negotiated solution. But a baseline for Pakistan, they said, would be for it to engineer a separation between the Haqqani network and the Qaeda leadership.
For the moment, the United States has been looking instead for military help from Pakistan to tamp down Taliban and Qaeda strength in southern Afghanistan, where the Haqqanis command an estimated 4,000 fighters, American military officials say.
The Americans have been pushing General Kayani to launch an offensive against the Haqqanis’ base in North Waziristan.
At the Jan. 26 NATO meeting with General Kayani, American military commanders reviewed the list of hardware — MI-17 helicopters, ammunition for Cobra attack helicopters, body armor, armored vehicles — that has been put on a fast track to the Pakistani military as an inducement to take on the Haqqanis.
But General Kayani, who pleased the Americans with an operation against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan last fall, was unmoved. “There is no need at this point to start a steamroller operation in North Waziristan,” he told reporters last week.
Last month he took General McChrystal on a helicopter tour over the mountains of the Swat Valley, where Pakistani paratroopers landed last summer to flush out Taliban insurgents.
The message was that the Pakistani Army still regarded India as its primary enemy and was stretched too thin to open a new front.
The reluctance to take on the Haqqanis preserves them as both a prize to be delivered at the negotiating table and a potential asset for Pakistan in postwar Afghanistan, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of international relations at Islamabad University, who is close to the Pakistani Army.
“Haqqani is the guy we are banking on to regain lost influence in Afghanistan,” Mr. Hussain said. “When Pakistan says we are well positioned to help, that means the Haqqanis.”
One strand of thinking within the Obama administration calls for allowing the Pakistanis to keep the Haqqanis as part of Pakistan’s sphere of influence in southern Afghanistan, but only if Pakistan forces the Haqqanis to break with Al Qaeda and to push militants out of its areas, an American official said.
That would be a tall order for Pakistan, Mr. Hussain said. “The question is, how much influence do we have over Haqqani?” he said. “We have influence but not controlling influence.”
Since Qaeda leaders escaped Afghanistan in 2001, they have used Pakistan’s tribal areas to cement their ties to the Haqqanis and other militants, including the Pakistani Taliban.
A chilling example came on Dec. 30 when, according to American officials, the Haqqanis helped Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban stage a suicide attack at a C.I.A. base in southern Afghanistan, killing seven Americans working for the agency.
Since that attack, the Americans have escalated drone strikes in North Waziristan, with the help of intelligence provided by Pakistan, a demonstration that Pakistan’s ability to shield the Haqqanis extends only so far.
Pakistani efforts to persuade the Haqqanis to break with Al Qaeda have not made much headway, according to Pakistani intelligence and military officials, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to talk about the issue.
According to a Pakistani military official, the Pakistanis would first have to resolve where Qaeda fighters would go and whether they might be given safe passage to Yemen or another location.
As the Pakistani military works out the details of its negotiating stance on Afghanistan, Washington is taking notice, said Daniel Markey, senior fellow for South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The United States side is pretty worried about seeing a deal emerge that suits everyone other than us,” he said. New York Times. February 10, 2010. Pakistan Is Said to Pursue Role in Afghan Talks With U.S. By JANE PERLEZ. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
Christian Flair of the Wall Street Journal, who has spewed violent vitriol against Pakistan now is espousing a nuclear deal with Pakistan.
But with success in Afghanistan elusive, Washington needs Islamabad more than ever, and vice versa. The two countries have never been able to achieve a durable relationship based on mutual trust. That could be fixed, however, if the U.S. were willing to consider a radical new approach: a policy centered on a conditions-based civilian nuclear deal.
More so than conventional weapons or large sums of cash, a conditions-based civilian nuclear deal may be able to diminish Pakistani fears of U.S. intentions while allowing Washington to leverage these gains for greater Pakistani cooperation on nuclear proliferation and terrorism. This deal would confer acceptance to Islamabad’s nuclear weapon program and reward it for the improvements in nuclear security that it has made since 2002.
Nuclear cooperation could deliver results where billions of dollars of American aid have failed. Pakistan has long benefited from Washington’s largess—including more than $15 billion in aid and lucrative reimbursements since 9/11—while only marginally delivering on U.S. expectations.
Pakistan has bristled at U.S. attempts to tie better behavior to security assistance, such as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation. That law provides for $7.5 billion in civilian aid. But it conditions unspecified amounts of security assistance on Pakistan’s continued cooperation with Washington to dismantle nuclear supply networks such as Khan’s
The U.S. is currently limited in its ability to shore up Pakistan’s confidence against India because Islamabad fears that Washington, perhaps working with India or Israel, seeks to dismantle Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Fundamentally, Pakistan believes the U.S. rejects its status as a nuclear-armed state, whereas Washington has accepted and even supported the other two states that have acquired nuclear weapons outside of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Israel and India. With a civilian nuclear deal, Washington can trade the nuclear acceptance Pakistan craves for the cooperation the U.S. needs.
A nuclear deal will not be an easy sale either in Washington or in Islamabad. Details of the India-U.S. deal are still being negotiated more than five years after the idea was initially floated. A deal with Islamabad will be even more protracted because of A.Q. Khan’s activities and the clout of domestic lobbies in Washington. It is possible that even this deal may not provide Pakistan adequate incentives to eliminate terror groups or provide access to persons like A.Q. Khan.
Yet there is value in putting this on the table now. Ties between Washington and Islamabad have never been more strained, yet are critical to key interests of both states. Washington needs a plan that is as bold and as the challenges that Pakistan presents.
Ms. Fair is an assistant professor of South Asian political military affairs in the security studies program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Christian Flair. OPINION ASIA FEBRUARY 10, 2010, 10:38 A.M. ET Pakistan Needs Its Own Nuclear Deal
