Banglar Bir
SENIOR MEMBER
Will the US’ ‘Carrot & Stick’ policy to Pakistan work?
Salman Rafi, July 23, 2017
If we were to describe the nature of Pak-US relations in one phrase, uncertainty and trust deficit would undoubtedly feature in it. Clouds of uncertainty have become even more obvious ever since the beginning of Trump era. Amid the on-going talks in Washington about designing a new strategy for Afghanistan and the region, a lot of emphasis has been put on re-defining the US’ approach to Pakistan. Undoubtedly, the expressed intention seems to be to put more pressure on Pakistan to ‘do more’ in counter terrorism efforts.
It has been made particularly clear in the US State Department’s annual “Country Report on Terrorism 2016.” The central idea of the report is that Pakistan has ‘failed’ to take adequate action against the Pakistan-based terrorist “safe heavens.”
While the report does realize that Pakistan “remained an important counterterrorism partner in 2016”, it goes on to claim that a significant number of terrorist groups are located inside the country but the target of their attacks wasn’t Pakistan.
This, the report implies, is part of Pakistan’s policy of selectively targeting anti-state elements. For example, the report mentions while Pakistan supports “political reconciliation” between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan “failed to take significant action to constrain the ability of the Afghan Taliban and HQN to operate from Pakistan-based safe havens and threaten U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.”
A detailed examination of the report makes it clear that the US-Pak bi-lateral co-operation has progressively decreased with the US State Department having to “conduct certain programs in third countries due to the (Pakistan) government’s non-issuance of visas for trainers.”
The report is an explicit show of how the US views Pakistan’s anti-terror operations and its regional interests. Although it doesn’t specifically explain what policy Pakistan is following in the region, it does make it implicitly clear that both Pakistan and the US are not on the same page as far as the question of Afghanistan reconciliation is concerned.
The views expressed in the State Department report also seem to be echoing in the White House, where the newly appointed director for South and Central Asia, Lisa Curtis, is particularly known as an advocate of a hard stance towards Pakistan.
Prior to this appointment, Lisa had co-authored a report with Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, in which they ‘advised’ the US government to warn Pakistan that its major non-NATO ally status could be revoked in six months.
“Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” said the February report, published by the Hudson Institute.
The report, “A New U.S. Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions without Cutting Ties”thus seem to advocate a policy of ‘carrot and stick’ to mould Pakistan into a reliable ally, one element of which is to “enforce counter-terrorism conditions on U.S. military aid and reimbursements to Pakistan.”
The report also advanced the option of taking unilateral action against the Pakistan-based terror groups. Unsurprisingly, the US has already resumed drone attacks in Pakistan with first drone strike taking place as early as March 2017.
Even within the US defence establishment, Pakistan hardly seems to figure in as a reliable partner. In a separate report submitted to the US Congress by the Pentagon, Pakistan was blatantly accused of supporting Afghanistan-focused militant groups, including the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, who it said retained “freedom of action” within Pakistan. It called Pakistan “the most influential external actor affecting Afghan stability”, further claiming that “the trust deficit resulting from Pakistan’s support of and inaction against Afghan-oriented extremists hampers the bilateral military collaboration required to achieve enduring security.”
It is obvious that within the new US policy for Afghanistan, Pakistan has been cast as a villain, requiring to be dealt with strong measures. But such measures could equally prove counterproductive for the US because it might propel Pakistan further into the China-Russia regional camp.
Already Pakistan has become a full member of SCO, which means that Pakistan’s Afghan policy is likely to synchronise well with that of Russia and China. It is an open secret that both Russia and China don’t see the Afghan Taliban as a threat, and that both of them have been advocating a negotiated end of the Afghan war.
Will then alienating Pakistan suit the US or will it further jeopardize the US position in Afghanistan and the region?
A recent visit of a Congress delegation reached a markedly different conclusion with regard to the importance of the US-Pakistan relationship than the ones reached in the above mentioned reports. According to John McCain, who was leading this delegation, “we will not have peace in the region without Pakistan.”
Notwithstanding the delegation’s view, the small delegation also strongly reflects the small support base Pakistan has in Washington, and this base that will continue to shrink if Pakistan does not do enough on the diplomatic front.
The various reports quoted above make it explicitly clear that the US government, think tanks, and defence establishment has succumbed to a typical anti-Pakistan narrative emanating from Pakistan’s rival neighbouring countries.
While it seems to be a debateable question if Pakistan needs to ‘do more’ on the anti-terror front or not, what is clear here is that Pakistan does need to do a lot more on the clash of narratives to buttress its place in the global anti-terror coalition.
Certainly, Pakistan wants to be seen not as a sponsor of terrorism but a victim of terrorism. Indian projections in this behalf seem to have outweighed those of Pakistan. To change this, Pakistan must not fall for a typical narrative on Afghanistan that presents the Afghan problem as the one existing between the US/the Afghan Government and the Taliban only.
There is a lot more to Afghanistan. And, one crucial element that has been obstructing Afghanistan’s rise ever since the toppling of the Taliban regime is the inability and the stark failure of the US-backed Afghan government(s) to deliver. Afghanistan is a house bitterly divided against itself, and it is something that is not the doing of either of Pakistan or the Taliban.
If the various Afghan regimes have failed to deliver, it is only because the US has failed to cultivate a genuine democracy in the country. It is about time that the US realizes that as long as Afghanistan remains under the its direct and indirect occupation, the problem will not end.
[Salman Rafi Sheikh is an independent journalist based in Pakistan. His areas of interest include politics of terrorism, global war on terror, ethno-national conflicts, foreign policies of major powers, application and consequences.]
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/07/23/will-us-carrot-stick-policy-pakistan-work/
Salman Rafi, July 23, 2017
It has been made particularly clear in the US State Department’s annual “Country Report on Terrorism 2016.” The central idea of the report is that Pakistan has ‘failed’ to take adequate action against the Pakistan-based terrorist “safe heavens.”
While the report does realize that Pakistan “remained an important counterterrorism partner in 2016”, it goes on to claim that a significant number of terrorist groups are located inside the country but the target of their attacks wasn’t Pakistan.
This, the report implies, is part of Pakistan’s policy of selectively targeting anti-state elements. For example, the report mentions while Pakistan supports “political reconciliation” between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan “failed to take significant action to constrain the ability of the Afghan Taliban and HQN to operate from Pakistan-based safe havens and threaten U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.”
A detailed examination of the report makes it clear that the US-Pak bi-lateral co-operation has progressively decreased with the US State Department having to “conduct certain programs in third countries due to the (Pakistan) government’s non-issuance of visas for trainers.”
The report is an explicit show of how the US views Pakistan’s anti-terror operations and its regional interests. Although it doesn’t specifically explain what policy Pakistan is following in the region, it does make it implicitly clear that both Pakistan and the US are not on the same page as far as the question of Afghanistan reconciliation is concerned.
The views expressed in the State Department report also seem to be echoing in the White House, where the newly appointed director for South and Central Asia, Lisa Curtis, is particularly known as an advocate of a hard stance towards Pakistan.
Prior to this appointment, Lisa had co-authored a report with Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, in which they ‘advised’ the US government to warn Pakistan that its major non-NATO ally status could be revoked in six months.
“Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” said the February report, published by the Hudson Institute.
The report, “A New U.S. Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions without Cutting Ties”thus seem to advocate a policy of ‘carrot and stick’ to mould Pakistan into a reliable ally, one element of which is to “enforce counter-terrorism conditions on U.S. military aid and reimbursements to Pakistan.”
The report also advanced the option of taking unilateral action against the Pakistan-based terror groups. Unsurprisingly, the US has already resumed drone attacks in Pakistan with first drone strike taking place as early as March 2017.
Even within the US defence establishment, Pakistan hardly seems to figure in as a reliable partner. In a separate report submitted to the US Congress by the Pentagon, Pakistan was blatantly accused of supporting Afghanistan-focused militant groups, including the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, who it said retained “freedom of action” within Pakistan. It called Pakistan “the most influential external actor affecting Afghan stability”, further claiming that “the trust deficit resulting from Pakistan’s support of and inaction against Afghan-oriented extremists hampers the bilateral military collaboration required to achieve enduring security.”
It is obvious that within the new US policy for Afghanistan, Pakistan has been cast as a villain, requiring to be dealt with strong measures. But such measures could equally prove counterproductive for the US because it might propel Pakistan further into the China-Russia regional camp.
Already Pakistan has become a full member of SCO, which means that Pakistan’s Afghan policy is likely to synchronise well with that of Russia and China. It is an open secret that both Russia and China don’t see the Afghan Taliban as a threat, and that both of them have been advocating a negotiated end of the Afghan war.
Will then alienating Pakistan suit the US or will it further jeopardize the US position in Afghanistan and the region?
A recent visit of a Congress delegation reached a markedly different conclusion with regard to the importance of the US-Pakistan relationship than the ones reached in the above mentioned reports. According to John McCain, who was leading this delegation, “we will not have peace in the region without Pakistan.”
Notwithstanding the delegation’s view, the small delegation also strongly reflects the small support base Pakistan has in Washington, and this base that will continue to shrink if Pakistan does not do enough on the diplomatic front.
The various reports quoted above make it explicitly clear that the US government, think tanks, and defence establishment has succumbed to a typical anti-Pakistan narrative emanating from Pakistan’s rival neighbouring countries.
While it seems to be a debateable question if Pakistan needs to ‘do more’ on the anti-terror front or not, what is clear here is that Pakistan does need to do a lot more on the clash of narratives to buttress its place in the global anti-terror coalition.
Certainly, Pakistan wants to be seen not as a sponsor of terrorism but a victim of terrorism. Indian projections in this behalf seem to have outweighed those of Pakistan. To change this, Pakistan must not fall for a typical narrative on Afghanistan that presents the Afghan problem as the one existing between the US/the Afghan Government and the Taliban only.
There is a lot more to Afghanistan. And, one crucial element that has been obstructing Afghanistan’s rise ever since the toppling of the Taliban regime is the inability and the stark failure of the US-backed Afghan government(s) to deliver. Afghanistan is a house bitterly divided against itself, and it is something that is not the doing of either of Pakistan or the Taliban.
If the various Afghan regimes have failed to deliver, it is only because the US has failed to cultivate a genuine democracy in the country. It is about time that the US realizes that as long as Afghanistan remains under the its direct and indirect occupation, the problem will not end.
[Salman Rafi Sheikh is an independent journalist based in Pakistan. His areas of interest include politics of terrorism, global war on terror, ethno-national conflicts, foreign policies of major powers, application and consequences.]
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/07/23/will-us-carrot-stick-policy-pakistan-work/