US hopes K-L funds will bring about change in Pak policies

Nek Muhammad · #1 Monday, July 19, 2010

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brings to Pakistan the first major funding from the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar aid package to persuade it to more solidly align its own interests with those of the United States.

Although approved almost a year ago, the Kerry-Lugar package is yet to translate into real funding, primarily because of differences over its monitoring.

The package that Secretary Clinton has taken to Islamabad is mainly for water and energy projects. It also includes building a 60-bed hospital in Karachi and help for farmers to export their mangoes, possibly to the United States.

The Americans hope that implementing the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar package will convince Pakistanis of their long-term commitment to the country.

But US lawmakers, the media and diplomatic observers acknowledge that it requires more to persuade Pakistan to refurbish its policies.

The New York Times, while commenting on the visit, noted that “American officials still question Pakistan’s commitment to root out Taliban insurgents in its frontier areas, its motives in reaching out to war-torn Afghanistan and its determination to expand its own nuclear programme”.

The Washington Post added: “Most immediately, the administration wants the Pakistani military to take more aggressive action against Taliban groups that use Pakistan as their headquarters and base of operations for attacks into Afghanistan.”

But observers like Senator Bob Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, say they understand why Pakistanis would be reluctant to throw away all other options.

“The Pakistanis don’t know what our intentions are, and they’re making accommodations on both sides,” he said. “They don’t know what we’re doing. They don’t know when we’re leaving. They think we’re leaving shortly.”

The US media noted that Washington had other issues with Islamabad too, such as the Pak-Iran gas pipeline and the Chinese plan to build two nuclear reactors in Pakistan.

But the issue highlighted in every media report on Sunday on Secretary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan, deals with Islamabad’s alleged links to the Haqqani network.

“Relations could be further tested if the Obama administration decides to place a major Pakistani insurgent group, the Haqqani network, on the State Department’s list of terrorist organisations,” observed the New York Times.

The Washington Post further expanded this point, claiming that “the Haqqani network based in the Pakistani tribal areas … and the Quetta Shura … have historically close ties with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate”.

And one report quoted US State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley as saying that his department might declare the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network “official Foreign Terrorist Organisations”.

Responding to a question, originally raised by Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr Crowley said: “Nothing is holding us from taking any action. We are evaluating a number of entities in Pakistan. There’s a process and legal criteria that has to be met before designating them as terrorists.”

The US has already indicated that it does not look favourably at Pakistan’s efforts to broker a deal between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Haqqani network. A designation will kill all such efforts even before they take off.

But, as Senator Corker pointed out, it will not remove Pakistan’s fears that the US might soon leave Afghanistan, forcing it to fend for its own interests – a fear also shared by Afghanistan.

“We’ve got a president (in Afghanistan) who is having to play both sides because he wants to survive because he doesn’t know what our intentions are,” he conceded.

And Vali Nasr, a senior adviser to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, concedes that economic assistance alone could not change Pakistan. It’s unrealistic to expect “to change 30 years of foreign policy of Pakistan on a dime”, he said.

By Anwar Iqbal

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