WASHINGTON: The strategic part of the Pak-US dialogue is being handled by the Army chief while civilians are only interested in a productive partnership, which means a lot of money, is how an important member of the Pakistan delegation described the ongoing talks between the two sides on Thursday.

But looking at the progress of the dialogue for the last three days and listening to the public statements of the two sides and then getting the private analysis of many participants (most of whom are also close friends), it is becoming clear that the ‘partnership’ side is not going anywhere while the strategy has already been agreed since long between the two militaries.

The dialogue was a purely Pakistani idea and Islamabad’s civilian leadership wanted to get some extra-political mileage with promises of more dollars and deeper US involvement in different sectors, something the Americans also wanted to improve their image. The Americans readily agreed to make it a grand gala show of demonstrating their public affection for Pakistanis, an occasion to make Pakistani officials and Pakistani-Americans feel better.

But when the military side was also involved, as US envoy Richard Holbrooke said there could be no dialogue without the military, the show was stolen from the civilians. It was more than evident in Washington during the last three days who was the most important member of the delegation.

A few comments and events would make this clear. While at the Pakistan Day reception at the embassy building, the foreign and defence ministers arrived quietly and mingled with the large crowd, it were the wailing sirens and a large Pak-US welcome party at the embassy gate that welcomed the Army Chief General Kayani, who was as stoic and unsmiling as ever (probably he was missing his chain smoking).

All cameras, men and women rushed towards him, Pakistanis and Americans, who were plenty in numbers wanted a handshake. The PPP leaders present were finding it difficult to adjust to the scene as they also wanted to be seen and photographed with their chief but if they got the media attention, back home the bosses would get angry.

The host, Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani, was in the most complex of situations. One Pakistani delegation member put it lightly in these words: “HH has his feet in two boats and the right hand in the third.” He wants to please the Army chief and the Americans and but does not want to annoy Zardari. And so in the first two days of public words, neither President Zardari nor PM Gilani was mentioned, specially when General Kayani was present.

The presence of Americans, in hordes, was a sign and a message that they have started to invest more in public image building or public diplomacy as it is called. An informed participant whispered in my ears that Washington was ready to spend $100 million for improving its image in Pakistan. But only changing cameras will not do the job, she said.

Whatever was happening in closed doors of the dialogue has been happening for months and years. The military’s 56-page wish list was already known as the Wall Street Journal had that scoop but I asked several civilian members whether they had a similar wish list prepared by the non-khakis. No one had any idea though one said he had seen some documents but not in a consolidated shape. It was the military needs that were taken up seriously.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and Richard Holbrooke had a detailed press conference for the Pakistani media and one for the US, but Bashir’s comment that Pakistan was more interested in productive partnership and was not discussing dollars or numbers was a strange spin, probably to keep expectations lower as the Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood had raised the hype by mentioning the figure of $35 billion which Islamabad was looking at.

The only figure which came out of the talks in the first two days was $125 million for the energy sector but that announcement had been made by Secretary Hillary Clinton during her October visit to Pakistan, specifically in Lahore. Another power related figure, in terms of concrete numbers, was $51 million for water projects.

Yet the expectation that the strategic nature of the dialogue will produce something mentionable in terms of Pakistan’s nuclear status and comparisons to what India had got, did not materialise. No clear commitment was made publicly and FM Qureshi said he could not talk about it. Whenever asked, Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton always repeated that we will listen to what Pakistan has to say on all issues but that was all. In fact, Holbrooke almost snubbed the Pakistani media when he said the ‘K’ word or Kashmir should not be mentioned as he had nothing to do with it, although he goes to India and briefs them whenever he has any discussions with Pakistan. But that is what bilateral relations are.

On the military side, the talks were serious and Army Chief General Kayani had to go to several key congressional committees to listen to them and answer their concerns. A promise was made that the stuck up Coalition Support Fund will soon be released.

Yet everyone who was involved agreed that all the discussions on the civil side were being held under the context of the Kerry Lugar Bill and all dollars will flow through that pipeline. And there is already a cap of $1.5 billion a year under the law, so as much dialogue we may have, the pipeline will remain of the same size. In fact, many were arguing that if by involving US contractors and monitoring projects in Pakistan, Washington was raising the cost of these projects, the overall results that the Kerry Lugar money could achieve may be limited.

But there was repeated talk of a historic this and landmark that. Diplomese, as they say, was abundant. Both sides exchanged views on the status of bilateral cooperation and decided to continually provide strategic guidance for strengthening the US-Pakistan partnership in the 21st Century for realising the aspirations of their people, was the typical example contained in the joint statement.