Mohammad Malick
Friday, May 04, 2012


The writer is editor The News, Islamabad.

The US and Pakistani governments are eager to get on with life after renegotiating their terms of engagement, or endearment, if you will. Marc Grossman and other top guns have been flying in and out of town and hectic negotiations are going on in Islamabad. On Thursday evening, Ambassador Munter was scheduled to separately call on the foreign minister, the foreign secretary and Pakistan’s envoy to the United States. In a similar vein, parlays are being held at various levels, both declared and secret. There is a palpable sense of urgency and the peace making intentions of both aides appear kosher. But are only positive intentions enough?

For the reconciliation process to gain traction and momentum, one side must give more than the other, at least in the initial stage. ‘Who?’ is the question. The two sides will have to take the zeal out of their respective policy positions and replace it with pragmatism if they are to lay the foundation of a viable strategic relationship based on long-term positive objectives rather than transient tactical negatives.

For the moment, a mix of domestic compulsions and typical negotiating tactics have forced both sides to adopt tough public postures. That President Obama faces election later this year as does the ruling establishment in Pakistan, give or take a few months, has made sensible diplomacy subservient to short term political priorities. The yawning gap of mistrust between the two sides only adds to the complexity of the situation. To develop a mutually acceptable common narrative however, we need to first have a clear understanding of the two conflicting narratives.

The American narrative: “These Pakistanis call themselves our allies, take our billions, but run with the Haqqanis. Instead of getting the terrorists they grant them safe havens. Heck, they even blocked war supplies to our troops in Afghanistan. The military intelligence establishment has been playing double games with us. Now they want a seat of honour at the all-important Nato summit in Chicago later this month but do not want to make any conciliatory gesture to earn the invitation. They insist that nothing moves forward on GLOCs till President Obama issues a public apology for Salala. These guys must be joking. There was a time we had agreed to offering this apology but the Pakistanis told us that “it was not the right time”. The apology offer wasn’t going to remain on the table forever. Jesus, will someone tell these guys the world does not move on Islamabad standard time. They keep complaining about how we are not paying the stuck up $1 billion due under CSF but never talk about how they overbilled us on several occasions.

“They think that they are holding all the cards in Afghanistan. Well guess what, it’s time to cut these guys down to size and let them known that the train is leaving the station, with or without them. Just like Chicago is happening and the long-term Nato vision on Afghanistan will be spelled out, with or without them. Instead of taking ownership of foreign policy making, the government first passed the buck to parliament and now appears reluctant to take steps to translate ambiguous recommendations into practical measures.

“It’s time they realised that with every passing month their leverage based on the Afghan issue is decreasing and once we are out, and we will be, no matter how battered and bruised, that influence will diminish drastically. And lord help them if they think the American public and media no longer have the appetite for the US administration going for costlier and more complicated alternatives to Pakistan in the Afghanistan situation. The truth is that the mood back home is in favour of kicking the Pakistani rearend and nothing sells better than a John Wayne approach in an election year. They need our billions in aid, our nod to IMF and WB for life saving loans, ours and the European markets for trade and still think they can tell the US and Nato to go to hell?”

The Pakistani narrative: “The Yanks suffer from typical imperial arrogance. They attach strings to every offer, every gesture, including an invitation to Chicago. We missed Bonn and will miss Chicago too if we must, if not accorded due respect and importance. But tackling Afghanistan while keeping out Pakistan is about as intelligent as expecting peace in Afghanistan without engaging the Haqqanis and their allied Taliban. They call us allies but treat us like some rent-an-army-and-a-country for a few dollars. They engage in cold blooded slaughter of our 27 soldiers and officers and have the cheek to not only refuse to apologise but also insist that it was not their fault. They do not comprehend the enormous symbolism of an apology for Salala. An apology must come. We can always discuss the wording and have been waiting for a draft from the US as well, but the Washington guys need to come down from their high horses. Nothing begins without some sort of an apology.

“They go behind our backs, invade the country, and create this Osama drama. Instead of acknowledging our cooperation over the years they accuse us of being either complicit or incompetent while we have lost thousands of troops, officers and people in fighting terrorism. Their flat refusal to budge an inch on the modalities of drone attacks has left us with little maneuvering room in the face of a hostile media and public opinion. Droning the targets is one thing, drowning the government an altogether different matter.

“The Yanks have been trying to keep us out of the loop while engaging one Afghan group after another and also carving an unreasonably big role for India in Afghanistan’s future. That they will fail in such efforts is a given but they keep trying nevertheless and try undermining our legitimate interests in Afghanistan. They expect us to use our influence with the Haqqanis to bring them to the negotiating table but persecute us for maintaining links with them. What impractical duplicity.

“They are treating our parliamentary recommendations with contempt and do not understand the political implications of us being perceived as capitulating before the Americans if we go ahead with reopening routes without any tangible gestures from the other side. When a bigger power makes a concession it is called honourable generosity, but a similar initiative by the smaller one is berated as shameless capitulation. We may be in a position to reciprocate any gesture of generosity but not to make one. We definitely need to re-embrace the US but not end up in a deadly bear hug.”

Short-term solution: It will take a long time and sustained efforts to reconcile the two narratives, neither being totally unjustified. The US must make the first ‘gesture’ to start the stalled process. An apology for Salala is a must and such a public apology will also go a long way in securing tactical private support on a mutually agreed drone programme. An invite to Chicago must come without any conditions, and come now. It would do wonders if the stuck up CSF payments were released ‘un-conditonally’. The US must use its influence to mend relations between Kabul and Islamabad instead of exploiting them for myopic short-term tactical advantages. Pakistan must be kept in the loop on Afghanistan. For its part, Pakistan must stop playing the victim, stop lying to its allies and stop being duplicitous. It should instead openly spell out its national interests and hold the line. We need the world more than it needs us, and the sooner we realise this the better.

Email: mohammad.malick1@gmail.com

-The News