WITH the commercial district of Pakistan’s largest metropolis literally consumed in the flames of wanton terrorism and wilful arson, it may seem odd for any casual observer to focus his gaze on the most important foreign policy element of this country. However, a more detailed and in-depth analysis should point precisely in favour of discoursing on the latter. It doesn’t take a genius to surmise that the six-decade old US-Pakistan relations stand, today, at the cusp of a new era. And it isn’t an easy or ordinary era by any stretch of imagination.

The American-Pakistani relations have never been insulated from regional and international developments, even in ordinary yester-times. There were always forces, from near and far, impinging on these relations in one way or the other. Washington, in fact, hardly ever treated its relations with Pakistan strictly in a bilateral context only. It consistently had a hyphenated perception of Pakistan.

In the formative phase of these relations, in the ’50s and ’60s, Pakistan was seen as an important bulwark in the Cold War tussle for supremacy. In the ’70s and ’80s Pakistan became a key ally in the final push to dislodge the principal adversary, the Soviet Union, from Afghanistan and, eventually, from its pedestal of a superpower.

The only period when Pakistan was seen from Washington as an equation in its own right was the ’90s; and Pakistan, then, was maliciously sidelined, shunned and treated as a pariah for its insistence to have its own nuclear arsenal to safeguard its sovereignty. Pakistan is still licking the wounds then callously inflicted on its psyche.

Come 9/11, and all that changed. Pakistan instantly became a frontline state in George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror. Saying no wasn’t an option. That description still fits under a new President who has not only embraced Bush’s war with fervour but has added his own emphasis to it and placed an extra burden on Pakistan.

Pakistanis who have made US their home are more conscious of America’s expectations from Pakistan because, in many cases, they have also been called upon to furnish their own unequivocal evidence that they are more loyal than others to the philosophical context and conduct of the ‘war on terror’ irrespective of what new nomenclature a Democratic President may bestow on Bush’s brain-child.

The Pakistan-American Democratic Forum (PADF) is a pioneer umbrella group of civic and social groups, associations and organisations representing Pakistani Americans in the US. It draws its core intellectual support and strength from Pakistani academics, doctors, engineers, technocrats, former bureaucrats and diplomats. PADF got quickly involved into the onerous task of organising the Pakistanis in the US and by extension also in Canada, and lending them a platform to make themselves heard in the cacophony of fears and wild accusations triggered in the wake of 9/11 and all its implications for, and expectations of, Pakistani Americans.

PADF enabled Pakistani Americans to get a head start in preparing themselves to cope with the fallout of 9/11. In that sense they stole a clear march over the ‘silent majority’ back home that remained inert for a painfully long period until its inertia was broken by Musharraf’s onslaught on the judiciary in Pakistan.

A seminar organised by PADF, in mid-December, in the heart of Washington D.C., to which this scribe was also invited to speak, lent an excellent opportunity to debrief the Washington intellectual cabal on the new expectations, challenges and opportunities confronting both US and Pakistan at this critical juncture in their relations.

There’s considerable confusion in the think-tank community of Washington about President Obama’s agenda for Afghanistan. He’s apparently determined to put teeth in his strategy to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban — his decision to send in an additional 30,000 troops there is testimony to it — but at the same time he is also looking for an exit time to enter the race for re-election, in 2012, on a firm wicket. Even his generals who have prevailed on him to give them more boots and fire-power in Afghanistan are talking in terms of just ‘containing’ the Taliban, which is the euphemism for eventually coming to honourable terms with them that may make the exit from Afghanistan ‘sellable’ to the American people.

But there’s no such confusion in regard to Obama’s expectations pinned on Pakistan. There’s consensus, among the administration gurus and think-tank pundits, that Pakistan has to ‘do more’ to hunt down the Al-Qaeda top brass which they believe is ensconced somewhere in the tribal belt adjacent to the Afghan border. They cannot, however, pin-point the location.

There’s no doubt that the two countries are in a virtual no-man’s-land on this point of utmost sensitivity to Washington, which only underlines the yawning trust deficit between Washington and Islamabad.

Even the costly undertaking of the Pakistani military in South Waziristan — costly in more ways than one, as amplified in gruesome horror in the Karachi carnage and arson of December 28 — doesn’t get better than a B-plus grade in Washington’s corridors of power and intelligentsia’s cubicles. They would want the army to go after the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan as well, and also deal more resolutely with the ‘Quetta shoora,’ of Mullah Omar. The latter could just as well be a figment of fertile Washington imagination, which exacerbates the trust-deficit between the two ‘allies.’

The trust deficit could be bridged, the PADF seminar participants were certain, by aggressive and calibrated projection of the Pakistani brief on the subject by a professionally competent and experienced ambassador in Washington.

I was in D.C. the day the Supreme Court of Pakistan delivered its judgment against NRO. That wasn’t an unexpected development for Washington’s official and intellectual communities. However, a day before the verdict, the brazen deposition by Mr. Zardari’s advocate, Kamal Azfar, in which he saw the Pakistani GHQ and American CIA targeting his client, caught the Washington Brahmins completely by surprise and caused quite a stir in their circles.

There’s an old American penchant for not changing horses in mid-stream, or a commander-in-chief in the heat of the battle. They are up to their eye-balls in the war in Afghanistan and they know how important it is for Pakistan to be fully supportive of their efforts there. But Mr. Zardari’s impetuosity, in crunch time, forces them to rethink his role, and his place, in this epic struggle to salvage a face-saving outcome on Afghanistan.

An old diplomatic colleague of long exposure to Pakistan summed up the US dilemma succinctly. ‘So President Zardari thinks he can be clever-by-half and take on both his own military brass and the Americans. He seems

hell-bent to be painted as yet another martyr from the Bhutto clan. But this could be a lethal undertaking for him, especially with the people of Pakistan arrayed against him because of his cronyism and corruption.’

This old mandarin, who has seen Washington and Islamabad sparring in the past, too, added ominously: ‘Zardari’s offensive tack may blow up in his face because Washington is changing gears on Pakistan. It no longer wants its options to be handicapped with one man in Islamabad.’ That’s where the PADF seminar participants thought there’s the chance of decades for both Pakistan and US to reposition their tortuous relationship, hobbled, up until now, by lack of faith on both sides, and put it on a keel of equality and trust.

There is need to bring to an end the personality-oriented, master-client equation and develop a people-centric relationship of equality. In simple words, the centre of gravity in Pakistan ought to shift to the National Assembly, where the representatives of the people sit. The Pakistani diaspora in the US could then play a pivotal role in explaining to the people in Pakistan why it is so important for Pakistan to stay the course, for some more years, in the war against terror as an equal partner of Washington’s and not as a client of it.