Topic 1 : It’s Time for a Frank
Talk with Pakistan’s Army Chief
Topic 2 : The General’s Shot at Improving U.S.-Pakistan Relations
The world is focused on Europe and the Levant this week, but the White House
should grab a chance to address the fault lines in the US-Pakistan relationship.
The White House will devote substantial attention to Pakistan’s army chief when
he arrives in Washington this hectic week. This will prove a wise use of
precious time and energy — if Obama administration officials seize the
opportunity for frank and open talk.
Gen. Raheel Sharif arrives on the heels of last month’s visits by Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif (no relation) and the director of Pakistan’s spy agency, Lt. Gen.
Rizwan Akhtar. One might assume that such a procession of senior Pakistanis is
teeing up a diplomatic breakthrough after years of mutual mistrust and despite
fundamental differences of interest between the United States and Pakistan.
Don’t bet on it. Rumors of a nuclear deal between Washington and Islamabad, for
example, are overstated and premature.
Even so, U.S. officials have much to gain from talks with General Sharif,
starting with a no-holds-barred conversation about where the two governments
agree, where they agree on ends but not means, and where they suffer from
irreconcilable differences. As simple as such an agenda might sound, it has
eluded the U.S.-Pakistan relationship for decades. Without it, both sides will
miss opportunities for pragmatic cooperation and, as in the past, suffer the
bitter disappointment of unrealistic expectations.
Talks with General Sharif should begin with areas of agreement. U.S.
policymakers must not lose sight of the fact that the security situation in and
around Pakistan could be much worse than it is today. ISIS, or Daesh, has not
yet established a firm foothold in Pakistan. But that is at least partly because
other sophisticated terrorist groups, including “Daesh competitors” such as
al-Qaeda, are already active there. A fractured, nuclear-armed Pakistan would
threaten a humanitarian calamity for its own population of nearly 200 million.
It would also pose an international security challenge an order of magnitude
greater than that of Syria or Iraq.
President Obama has shown a willingness to support far-from-perfect partners in
confronting mutual security threats. Pakistan should be no exception. Washington
should continue to provide support to the Pakistani military’s fight against
homegrown Taliban and sectarian terrorists through budget assistance, arms
sales, and—if General Sharif is willing—joint training and exercises. Where
civilian aid can contribute to Pakistan’s security and prosperity in tangible
ways, the United States has an interest in providing that too, fully aware that
no amount of money is unlikely to reverse Pakistan’s rampant anti-Americanism
anytime soon.
Next, the United States should focus on questions of ends and means. In
Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan claim to have similar goals: a
stable and secure state at peace with its people and the region, and
inhospitable to international terrorists. But Washington and Islamabad have
always favored different means to achieve those goals. Seeking to retain its
influence in Afghanistan, Pakistan never severed ties with Taliban insurgents,
including groups like the Haqqani Network that have staged horrific attacks on
Afghan, American, and coalition forces working to build a democratic
Afghanistan.
At present, Washington and Islamabad both favor the resumption of Afghan-led
peace talks as the best way to reduce violence and eventually resolve the
insurgency. But Pakistani officials believe that the only way to bring Taliban
leaders to the table is through soft influence and incentives. U.S. officials
disagree. They demand more forceful coercion, and have delivered the message by
suspending $300 million in Coalition Support Fund “reimbursements” to Pakistan’s
military.
This friction undoubtedly takes a toll, but the United States and Pakistan are
better off having the ends-means conversation openly rather than reverting to
unhealthy past practices of pretending to agree where they do not. Clarity over
differences might even allow diplomats to craft a compromise plan that
ultimately improves prospects for getting the warring Afghan parties back to the
negotiating table.
Finally, where Washington and Islamabad disagree, they should not shy away from
saying so out of politeness, or more likely, the concern that airing deep
differences will hold all other cooperation hostage. U.S. officials should
explain, for instance, that Washington plans to pursue a closer strategic
partnership with India and, more to the point, that as long as anti-Indian
terrorists enjoy a protected status in Pakistan, American leaders will never
fully trust Islamabad’s intentions. U.S. officials should also share their
concerns about the dangers posed by South Asia’s nuclear arms race, observing
that it will inevitably bankrupt Pakistan while delivering only a marginally
improved deterrent against India.
For their part, Pakistani officials should vent their skepticism over
Washington’s long-term strategy for South Asia, express their grievances over
Kashmir and other territorial disputes with India, and share broader concerns
about India’s direction under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Of course, neither side should imagine that an airing of differences will
resolve them, but at least it will help to set more reasonable expectations
moving forward. The messy world disorder of late 2015 requires pragmatic
cooperation between the United States and Pakistan wherever possible, even as
they remain at odds over so much else.
General Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s army chief, arrived in Washington on Nov. 15,
merely three weeks after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to town. The word
among insiders is that the general’s visit will be more significant, given the
Pakistani army’s hold over key security and foreign policy issues in the
country. Indeed, many in Pakistan and the United States believe that Prime
Minister Sharif and his civilian administration have been rendered largely
irrelevant on the questions that matter most to Washington.
This power differential implies that much of what the prime minister committed
to during his Washington visit can be discounted in favor of what the general
conveys this week. Admittedly, this reflects past instances when Pakistani
civilian and military authorities approached Washington with contradictory
messages, and the military ultimately prevailed.
But there is a crucial difference this time. Even though Pakistan’s army may be
in the driver’s seat, Prime Minister Sharif hasn’t aggressively confronted
General Sharif, belying expectations. Instead, he and his army chief have
maintained a fairly healthy rapport, even as the institutions they command clash
from time to time — most recently last week, courtesy of a public statement by
the army, shaming the government for its slow implementation of the National
Action Plan to counter terrorism. The prime minister certainly doesn’t have the
final word in the relationship, but he and the general seem to have found a
workable equilibrium. Most notably, they regularly coordinate on important
foreign policy and security issues.
This reality makes the Pakistani prime minister’s messages to Washington during
his October visit far more consequential than assumed. His (and Washington’s)
signaling on the three most important issues — Afghanistan, India, and
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons — during his trip left open possibilities of fresh
misunderstandings, with potentially far-reaching consequences for the
U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Gen. Sharif’s time in Washington should be used to
clarify each side’s stance on each of these issues.
First, Afghanistan. Talking to folks in Washington and Islamabad, it seems that
they took each other’s messaging on the subject during Prime Minister Sharif’s
trip to be business as usual. True, a lot of the standard talking points were
heard. These statements also made it into the Obama-Sharif joint statement. But
Prime Minister Sharif did make one extremely consequential declaration during
his public speech on Oct. 23 at the U.S. Institute of Peace, his last stop in
town. While discussing Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan’s peace process, he
remarked that Pakistan “cannot bring them [the Taliban] to the table and kill
them at the same time.”
This has, arguably, long been Pakistan’s operational policy. For various
reasons, Pakistan has had an interest in helping start the peace negotiation
process in Afghanistan, but only if it does not entail direct military action
against the Taliban and the Haqqani network in Pakistan. And yet, Pakistan’s
leadership has never presented this view so candidly to the Washington policy
community — let alone making this admission only a day after the Obama-Sharif
joint statement, which seemed far more sympathetic to the United States’ “do
more” refrain. Despite this, Prime Minister Sharif’s intended message should be
interpreted as a signal that there won’t be any significant military operation
against the Taliban and Haqqanis, period.
That’s bad news for those who may still be hoping that hard talk with Pakistan
on the Haqqani issue will deliver results. However, this is an opportunity for
both sides to move beyond their tendency to talk past each other when it comes
to Afghanistan. This week is the time to tackle this issue head on. If both
sides could begin to define the limits of their cooperation in light of this
reality and identify how best to exploit the common ground that remains, it
would help advance policy on Afghanistan. Continuing to ignore Pakistan’s stance
on these militants will only continue to prompt Pakistani leaders to promise
more than they intend to deliver.
Second, India. After years of having toned down its anti-India rhetoric,
Pakistan has once again elevated its relations with India to the top of its list
of talking points. This renewed focus has been accompanied by the rather
reflexive Pakistani tendency to request third-party intervention, and its belief
that Washington can be persuaded to intervene. The fact that the prime minister
managed to get a mention of Kashmir and recognition of India and Pakistan’s
“mutual concerns” on terrorism into the joint statement must have encouraged
Pakistan further.
This inclusion risks creating false hope in Pakistan that Washington is willing
to accord more importance to the Indo-U.S. partnership. While I have personally
never been convinced that India and Pakistan can bridge their differences
without outside prodding, the reality is that there is no notable constituency
in Washington that thinks it is a good idea for the United States to jump into
the fray. Gen. Sharif’s visit should be used to manage expectations on this
front by being candid about the fact that Washington is unlikely to go beyond
backing dialogue between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Finally: the nuclear deal issue. Conversations on this issue during the prime
minister’s trip did not go according to plan. The Pakistani side perceives that
the United States wants only to curb its program. At the same time, the U.S.
side is peeved at what it believes was duplicitous Pakistani behavior during the
negotiations.
I worry that the bad experience may force this discussion into cold storage for
some time. The many sensitivities of this topic aside, there isn’t any way out
of it other than continuing to talk about how, and under what arrangement,
Pakistan could be mainstreamed into the international nuclear order. No other
option can ease Pakistan’s concerns about being singled out — this, in no small
part, is responsible for driving its nuclear build up — and the world’s
anxieties about the current trajectory of the Pakistani program. Both sides must
use this week to agree to continue quiet conversations on the subject, even if
there isn’t a mutually agreeable end game yet in sight.
Prime Minister Sharif’s visit left discussions on these critical issues hanging
in the balance. If his visit is followed by candid conversations that deal with
the real divergences in U.S. and Pakistani interests in South Asia, we could
move towards limited, but more honest and realistic expectations of each other.
Gen. Sharif’s trip to Washington is the opportunity to kick-start that process.
(Special thanks to Mr.Moeed & DANIEL MARKEY for this article)