The good, the bad, the ugly
July 19th, 2012
The Pak-US relationship is, as always, all about the good and the bad. Later this month, ISI chief Zaheerul Islam will meet CIA Director David Petraeus at CIA headquarters in Virginia. Counterterrorism talks are back on in full public view and it is expected that the Pakistani spy chief will ask his counterpart for an end to unilateral drone strikes and to instead feed intelligence gathered by drones to Pakistani jets and ground forces so they can target militants themselves. But given the hardening of positions on both sides in the last 18 months or so, few expect the talks to throw up any breakthroughs. However, that talks are occurring is itself positive and an indication of the readiness to improve some limited cooperation. One can thus only hope that after the parliamentary resolutions in Pakistan and Hillary Clinton’s disputed “apology”, which explicitly mentioned shared intelligence on drones, Pakistan will not back out of what is both a promise and a principled position. According to news reports, Pakistan may allow the return of some US military personnel expelled last year as part of the diplomatic tit-for-tat after the Bin Laden raid. On the other end, the US is also working to meet Pakistan’s new requests for logistical and equipment support to improve its F-16 fleet. In the meantime, Pakistan and the US are also close to signing an agreement regulating the flow of Nato troop supplies, finally codifying an informal arrangement and prohibiting the US and other Nato countries from shipping weapons by land into Afghanistan while allowing them to withdraw lethal items from the country.
However, while these are all positive signals, they certainly don’t amount to the end of all existing tensions. In fact, according to a lead editorial in a prominent US paper, “the deeper alliance” that the Obama administration once said it would forge with Pakistan “is out of reach for the foreseeable future.” Meanwhile, US pressure tactics also continue. Currently, Congress is stepping up efforts to slap the terrorist label on the Haqqani network. Throughout the uneasy relationship between the United States and Pakistan, American officials have pressed Islamabad to crack down on the network. That US lawmakers are now pushing to designate them as terrorists may be a signal from the US that it could take things into its own hands if Pakistan doesn’t ‘act.’ This cannot be the harbinger of anything positive. Obama has also just appointed a new ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olsen, who is known to be a hawk. After the more sedate Munter, always considered to be a “friend of Pakistan,” one can only hope that a more hardnosed Olsen, whose most recent assignment was a senior economic-development post at the US embassy in Kabul, will handle the relationship with the necessary care and precaution that it requires. And indeed, while the Pak-US relationship is always about the good and the bad — the hallmark of transitional ties — the point is to keep it from getting ugly.
Polio violence?
July 19th, 2012
Is the attack in Karachi on a World Health Organisation team engaged in delivering anti-polio drops to children linked to a ban on polio vaccinations placed in North and South Waziristan by Taliban commanders? It is as yet hard to say for sure. While the WHO has emphasised in a statement that no conclusions can be reached before a full investigation is carried out, the incident does have implications across the spectrum of community health service delivery. There is already concern among health agencies that restrictions imposed by the Taliban in the tribal areas could be fanning out to other parts of the country. This would amount to disaster. Pakistan had appeared to be doing better than the previous year in its effort to ensure that every child in the country is reached and provided protection against polio through vaccination by teams of health workers across the country as part of the latest anti-polio campaign. But the fact that these teams will be unable to reach almost 300,000 children in the tribal belt as a result of the Taliban ban is a severe setback.
The militant threats to health workers mean that the campaign has been called off in most parts of North and South Waziristan. Already there were problems in gaining access to children and families in the Khyber Agency because of the conflict raging there. Pakistan is regarded by WHO experts as standing at the epicentre of the polio problem, recording the largest number of cases to occur in any one country last year when 198 children were affected by the virus. If the matter becomes mired in politics and war, as is happening at the moment with the Taliban commanders demanding that drone attacks be stopped before they allow vaccination teams into the Waziristan area, the situation will become dangerous in the extreme. Much of our primary and paediatric grassroots healthcare is carried out by small teams of unguarded men and women, often in extremely difficult locations. Why can’t the critical job of administering the vaccine be given to people who are, if not trusted, at least acceptable to the Taliban so that a whole generation is not deprived of a polio-free life. The incident in Karachi shows how volatile things can become. There should be an urgent review of the security of these dedicated men and women and some middle ground must be found to continue with the job before it is too late.