Since taking office in January 2009, United States President Barack Obama has been keenly aware that the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan are closely related. In March 2009, he unveiled a White Paper outlining a new policy intended to counter extremism in both countries. In announcing his revised strategy at the West Point military academy on 1 December 2009, Obama again closely associated the two, saying: ‘Our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.’ It was necessary to have a strategy ‘that works on both sides of the border’, he said.
However, the formulation of such a strategy has proved problematic. While his plans in Afghanistan are relatively clear, it has been far more difficult to craft a successful policy towards Pakistan.
This was evident last October when the administration’s bid to increase aid to Islamabad ran into a political morass when the Pakistani establishment, including the military, publicly criticised the conditions attached to it. The Kerry–Lugar–Berman Bill sought parliamentary management of senior military appointments, action against terrorism and nuclear supply chains, and high levels of accountability.
American confusion about how to address Pakistan was highlighted by one remark in Obama’s West Point speech: ‘the Pakistani people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity’. The unfortunate truth is that they know no such thing. In fact, this single sentence was open to challenge on four counts.
Pakistani mistrust
First, the broad premise is at odds with the facts. Many Pakistanis regard the US as a threat, both directly and indirectly, rather than as a supporter of their country’s interests. A 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Survey of Pakistan found that 64% of the public regarded the US as an enemy, while only 9% described it as a partner. Only 22% of Pakistanis thought the US took their interests into account when making foreign-policy decisions. Public animosity against the US is palpable to anyone who visits the country. It has grown strongly since the start of the Afghan campaign in 2001, and was given further boosts by the Iraq War and the US strategic partnership with India.
Attacks by US Central Intelligence Agency unmanned aircraft on extremists underline the complexity of Pakistani attitudes. Although it is an open secret that the Pakistani authorities cooperate with the targeting of some of the attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the air strikes have been publicly condemned by Pakistan’s president, prime minister and parliament. The general public regards them as violations of sovereignty and national honour.
Secondly, rather than enhancing security, US operations in Afghanistan are seen as destabilising influences on Pakistan. They are directed against Pashtuns who have familial and tribal links with Pakistan, and are regarded as unwarranted attacks on a Muslim neighbour with which Pakistan has traditionally sought close ties. Pakistani neo-Taliban groups such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) began to flourish after 2004 when the Pakistani army, under strong pressure from Washington, started major operations in the FATA. These were seemingly in contravention of the tribal areas’ special status under Pakistan’s constitution and contrary to a long-established practice of non-interference. Suicide bombers, who have been trained by the TTP, barely existed in Pakistan before 2005 but their attacks have grown sharply since then. The TTP and other extremist groups are now widely seen as a threat to Pakistan’s own national security. But they are also viewed as by-products of America’s war in Afghanistan and of Pakistani official support for it.
Thirdly, the contention that the US supports Pakistan’s prosperity is open to question. The US has no tradition of development cooperation with Pakistan. In contrast to the massive sums provided by the US since 2001 for military-related purposes – over $8 billion of overt assistance and probably much more – very little has been provided for the civil sector, for social welfare or to create jobs. Debt relief has been helpful, but this has had no visible effect in terms of alleviating poverty or providing employment opportunities. According to the US Congressional Research Service, in this period the Pakistani military ordered some $4bn worth of ‘big ticket’ military items which have more relevance to Pakistan’s concerns about India than to combating internal insurgency, the Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda. Pakistani criticism of the conditions attached to the Kerry–Lugar–Berman bill, which envisages $1.5bn of non-military aid each year for five years, suggests that Pakistanis do not regard the aid as an act of generosity but solely as an instrument of American self-interest.
Fourthly, the suggestion by Obama that America will remain a supporter of Pakistani interests is viewed in Pakistan as even more dubious. The US is seen as a serial betrayer of friendship: Pakistanis felt let down by Washington during Pakistan’s wars with India in 1965 and 1971 and again at the end of the Afghan war in 1989, when the US re-imposed sanctions on Pakistan which were only lifted in 2001 when George W. Bush declared Pakistan to be an ally in combating terrorism. Many in Pakistan are waiting for ‘the fourth betrayal’. (The contention that Pakistan is to a great extent to blame for these reversals is irrelevant to the political argument.) Obama has declared that ‘our resolve is unwavering’. But his undertaking to begin the transfer of US forces out of Afghanistan in July 2011 has strengthened confirmed the popular view that Pakistan will again be left to pick up the pieces after an American withdrawal.
Differing interests
These doubts and concerns in Pakistan mean that Washington is considerably handicapped in seeking to meet its objectives. While Pakistanis have become more aware of the dangers of extremism – and the recent Pakistani army offensives in Swat and South Waziristan attest to this – this does not mean that American and Pakistani interests are identical. Recognising this, US Vice President Joe Biden voiced his concerns about Pakistan publicly in early February. And senior US military figures are privately deeply uneasy about the Pakistani dimension of the Afghanistan challenge.
On the one hand, the Pakistani leadership, including former president General Pervez Musharraf, has never had difficulty with the killing of foreigners who fight for al-Qaeda. It also wants to see the leaders of the Pakistani neo-Taliban killed: Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the TTP who was killed by a US drone last year, was responsible for many suicide attacks and challenged both the army and the state. His successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, is also thought to have been recently killed.
However, there are limits to what the Pakistani army is willing to undertake. During a visit to Pakistan in January, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed Islamabad to build on its recent offensives and do more to root out extremism. But the army is in no hurry to resume its operations in Waziristan, which came to a halt with the onset of winter. The escape of many of Mehsud’s supporters into the hills suggested that the army was reluctant to kill too many fellow Pakistanis and become targets of the Pashtun obligation, badal, to avenge wrongs. Furthermore, the army operations in Swat and Waziristan during 2009 caused massive damage to homes and villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Though the inhabitants of Swat had previously been opposed to any military action, the tide of opinion was reversed in light of the continuing brutality of the TNSM and the failure of an earlier attempt to appease it. While there was some success in returning the population to the area after the operations, little was done to repair damaged property. The army and the government cannot, therefore, expect gratitude for their actions, even if those in Swat did largely approve of the initial operations and still resent the growth of extremist groups in their midst.
Of greater significance is the divergence of views in relation to the Afghan Taliban, whom Obama has described as ‘a ruthless, repressive and radical movement’ which harboured al-Qaeda. The sanctuary which the Taliban’s shura, or advisory council, has been given in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan has been a constant object of American resentment. While the US sees the Afghan Taliban as a target, the Pakistani army regards it as an important political and social movement in its western neighbour, with close and historic familial and other links with fellow Pashtuns in Pakistan. The official Pakistani line is that tackling the Taliban is a matter of sequencing: the army cannot take it on while also dealing with al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. Once these two more dangerous opponents have been dealt with, then it can turn to others. In private, however, senior Pakistani officers are adamant that it is not in Pakistan’s interests to alienate the Afghan Taliban, and that they will not do so, no matter what Washington says.
America’s dilemma
In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that some American commentators believe that the US should take matters more firmly into its own hands and that drone attacks should be extended from the FATA into Baluchistan and elsewhere – areas which are an integral part of Pakistan without the FATA’s special autonomous status. Perhaps recognising that this might herald the end to all Pakistani cooperation, Obama has resisted such an approach. But meanwhile, the frequency and intensity of drone attacks on the FATA have increased in the past 12 months, with a marked escalation following a suicide attack on a CIA station in the Afghan province of Khost on 30 December 2009, which is thought to have been orchestrated by the Haqqani insurgent network and al-Qaeda operating in tandem.
There is, therefore, an uncomfortable mismatch between Obama’s rhetoric towards Pakistan and his practice. Plans for increased non-military aid are an overdue attempt to narrow the gap and to shift the attitudes of the Pakistani people in a more favourable direction. The US Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, released in January by the Office of the Special Representative, Richard Holbrooke, contains specific objectives and suggests a sound understanding of what is needed. However, the Obama administration may underestimate the political and practical difficulties of successfully implementing such a strategy.
Pakistan contains many monuments to its preferred donor countries: mosques and madrassas funded by Saudi money abound; and the Karakorum Highway, the new port of Gwadar and a developing railway network attest to China’s longstanding friendship. But it will take more than a belated package of civil assistance to overcome the legacy of resentment against the US for using Pakistan as an instrument of policy towards third parties. The practical obstacles in the way of disbursement of US aid were highlighted in January in an audit report by USAID’s inspector general. In two years, only $15.5 million had been spent of a $45m package directed at Pakistan’s tribal areas; the programme was judged to have ‘made little headway’. Given the weakness of Pakistan’s institutions, concerns about transparency and accountability, and the country’s low absorptive capacity as experienced by donor countries that have been operating in Pakistan for much longer than the US, the aspiration to spend $1.5 billion a year and achieve tangible results is ambitious indeed. And if some future Pakistani behaviour, unwelcome to the US, halts the flow of aid yet again, Pakistani fears will have been confirmed.
As a nuclear power with nearly six times the population of Afghanistan, threatened by an extremist insurgency and in economic difficulties, Pakistan has great strategic importance. Obama set a public challenge to himself by saying that: ‘In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over.’ If he fails to strike the right balance, the risk is that both anti-American sentiment and the dangers emanating from Pakistan will grow further.
