The US administration has stopped $800 million worth of assistance, nearly a third of annual military aid, to Pakistan, hoping it will chasten its ‘non-Nato ally’. This is the first time that Washington has translated its anger at Rawalpindi’s duplicity in the fight against terror into a punitive action. But it might be premature to conclude that the carrot and stick policy hitherto adopted by the US will, henceforth, weigh heavily in favour of the stick, more so because of indications that economic aid would continue to flow unhindered.
While announcing the aid stoppage (it is not yet clear if it is suspended or cancelled), a White House official kept a window open for the resumption of the aid, saying that Pakistan will have to meet certain ‘objectives’ in the fight against terrorism for the aid to flow again. These objectives are by now well known and have been spelt out in great detail. In the past, the American administrations condoned many serious sins committed by Pakistan—nuclear proliferation, for instance. So, it is possible that the world may hear yet another ‘sudden’ announcement that the ‘objectives’ are being met by Pakistan.
The chief US ‘objective’ vis-à-vis Pakistan is honesty in dismantling the vast terror machine that Rawalpindi has created initially with help from CIA to fight the ‘red menace’ in Kabul and later on its own to needle and bleed India. Washington expects Islamabad not to show any distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban.
Pakistan establishment has advanced devious arguments for not going after the militants in North Waziristan. They say their more than half-a-million strong army is fully occupied in tackling the ‘bad’ Taliban (the ones who pick targets in Pakistan) in South Waziristan and meeting the ‘threat’ on their eastern border with ‘enemy’ India. The ‘enemy’ is also alleged to be stocking trouble in the long restive Balochistan province—from Afghanistan!
The Americans have been buying the specious Pakistani arguments even when they are aware that India has neither concentrated its troops on the Pakistan border nor does it have any desire to go to war with Pakistan. The Americans went a step further and started to exert pressure on India to reduce the presence of troops in Kashmir and other areas close to Pakistan and also attend to the Pakistani ‘concerns’ in regard to Balochistan and Afghanistan.
No amount of assertions by India that these fears are unreal, a result of in-built paranoia, has had any effect on the Pakistani gripe and US ‘advice’ to India. The US made no serious efforts to tell Pakistan’s civil and military leadership that they cannot invent excuses to go slow in the fight against terror.
The turn of events show that Pakistan’s assumption that having fooled the US on Indian fears they can take the Americans for a ride indefinitely are going wrong. Clearly, the all-powerful ‘in-house’ presiding deity overstepped when it became more audacious, arresting US diplomats, expelling military trainers and generating a virulent anti-US atmosphere in the country where radicalism in any case has taken deep roots.
The shouts against US drone attacks on Pakistan soil started to become louder and louder; as did the chorus of protest against violation of ‘sovereignty’ by American forces who fly drones to target militants near the Afghan border and in one extraordinary instance flew helicopters right up to the door of the capital, Islamabad, to kill the long resident ‘secret’ guest of certain ‘elements’.
So far, Pakistan was able to throw tantrums and see the Americans running to Islamabad with more sops, rather like a parent trying to coax a spoilt child with gifts. The Americans, after pledging heavy military and cash support for fighting terrorism, agreed to nearly everything that the churlish Generals wanted, including military hardware that could be used against the ‘enemy’.
In fact, the Americans are committed to supplying F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, and are said to replace the two P-3C Orions that were destroyed in the 15-hour long May 22 attack on Mehran base- Pakistan navy’s air station near Karachi. What use these anti-submarine and marine surveillance aircraft have in the war against terrorists holed up in the rugged North Waziristan Mountains? Who is interested in going into such niceties when the all encompassing concern is ego-massage and not end-use. That is beside the point.
The daring Mehran attack, besides leaving dead 16 persons – 10 of them soldiers, has popped up the old question about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Gary Samore, a senior White House official, who oversees non-proliferation matters, summed up the situation thus: ‘What I worry about is that, in the context of broader tensions and problems within Pakistani society and polity… even the best nuclear security measures might break down’
This digression apart, it is difficult to understand how the Americans, given the unhealthy state of their own economy, could ever agree to be generous in helping Pakistan after knowing well that the country looks ‘both ways’ in the fight against terror. The billions that the Americans pumped into Pakistan did not weaken the anti-American militants, failed to curb the tsunami of anti-Americanism but made the country more intransigent.
Till the other day, it was Pakistan, the receiver, which was setting the terms of engagement with the US, the giver, instead of the other way round. Nobody was taken in by the ‘conditions’ that the Kerry-Lugar legislation had spelt out before pledging $2 billion worth of annual aid last year. The Americans shut their eyes to those ‘conditions’. The overriding concern of the US administration has been to keep Pakistan in good humour because in its short-term Afghan centric calculus Pakistan is vital, logistically and politically.
The US logistic interests have been receiving a beating regularly and have in fact offered fodder to the political greenhorn, Imran Khan, who is all set to begin a second innings of his life with the blessings of the ‘establishment’. There have been orchestrated attacks on NATO convoys that make their way from Karachi to Khyber Pass through Peshawar. As for the political reasons, Gen Parvez Kayani and co clearly want the US and Afghan authorities to talk to the Haqqani ‘good’ Taliban faction in order to herald ‘peace’ in Afghanistan. This group is rabidly anti-US and enjoys full support from the ISI.
Frankly, the evolving situation is such that Washington needs to take a hard look at the way Rawalpindi has been short changing it. Pakistan must be made to shake off the illusion that the US has no choice but to keep pampering it. The voices of concern from Islamabad that an isolated Pakistan, spurned by the US, will fall completely into the arms of the radical elements are voices of the sections who are petrified of losing their US aided hubs. Nothing more, nothing less.
The fact is much of the Pakistani establishment, particularly the military that wields real power, is already radicalised. It is the military through its extended arms that has control over the levers of Islamist fundamentalists and militants. With China unwilling to fill the aid void to be created by US withdrawal, it is pure bravado of the self-anointed cheer leaders of the land of pure to say the country can live without the US aid. They know it. The convulsions Pakistan economy is experiencing these days because of the delay in IMF doles is a reminder of the seizures that await.
It is for the Barrack Obama administration to make the choice between more stick and less carrot or more carrots and less stick in its dealings with Pakistan.
