Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is back in Pakistan from his first official visit to the US since his swearing in and Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead.
The Washington visit was important for various reasons. First and foremost, due to its powerful symbolism, given that it was the first bilateral meeting since President Barack Obama commenced his second term in the White House and Sharif took power in Pakistan.
Secondly, the visit has certainly not achieved any substantial breakthrough, but since the Pak-US relationship has always been individual-led rather than institutionalized, it provides an opportunity for both regimes to continue talking on tough issues.
Broadly speaking, the Pak-US anti-terror alliance has remained troubled ever since President Pervez Musharraf, in a well-orchestrated strategic decision, took a historic ‘U-turn’ on Afghanistan and decided to join the US-led war on terrorism. But especially in recent times, the bilateral relationship between Pakistan and the US has been more theatrical and frayed since 2011. At one point, the two countries almost became divorced from each other. Incidents like the Salala attack, the blockade of crucial NATO supply routes by Pakistan, the subject of drone attacks, and above all, the killing of Osama bin Laden in a safe hideout located just a few miles from Pakistan’s premier military academy in a covert operation by US forces, are only indicative of the stark divergence and misconceptions between the two countries.
Perhaps the tensions confronting this relationship for the last decade are more or less the same: Drone strikes, terrorists’ safe havens in the tribal areas of Pakistan, Pakistan’s support to the Afghan Taliban, and its lack of will to contend the Pakistani Taliban and organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), Pakistan’s links with the Haqqani network, anti-India militant outfits in Pakistan, Pakistan’s relations with Iran, nuclear weapons, etc. The reason the two have failed to reach any consensus is because both sides perceive their national interests as opposed to the other side’s preferences.
To be sure, this entire list of issues is intimately linked to the single imperative that continues to keep Pakistan and the US together: Afghanistan. One could argue the wisdom behind such opposing understanding, and more importantly, why the two countries have failed to move beyond looking at each other from the prism of Afghanistan for the last three decades into building an institutionalised bilateral relationship. That also raises another equally disturbing question: what will be the future course of the Pak-US relationship beyond 2014 when the US occupation of Afghanistan will no longer be frontline news?
At present, the frequency of unfortunate incidents, such as the drone strikes, is indicative of the deep mistrust that has permeated through the administrations in Pakistan and the US, both of whom are unwilling to listen or accommodate the opinion of the other. But the stark reality is that these divergences will persist for the foreseeable future. Pakistan will continue chafing at the continued US drone strikes, while the US will keep being suspicious of Pakistan, dangling a few carrots and imposing a few sticks in demanding a crackdown on militant safe havens.
However, the crisis in the Pak-US relationship is not novel to Nawaz Sharif. In the 1990s, when Mr Sharif was in the driving seat, the Kashmir dispute had aggravated the mutual apprehensions between Pakistan and the US to the extent that Pakistan was on the verge of being declared a terrorism-sponsoring state because of its implicit support — material as well as tactical — to the Kashmiri insurgents. Mr Sharif acted with due diligence and was able to mend the damage that had already been incurred.
Similarly on Afghanistan, Mr Sharif was the front man in the 1990s when the US and Pakistan worked closely to decide the fate of Kabul devoid of any communist influence, in the complete absence of any direct Afghan participation. Now 21 years later, the task is exactly the same: delivering a successful closure to the Afghan War, and letting the people of Afghanistan decide the fate of their country. Mr Sharif could be the man for the job.
As argued earlier, the strategic divergences are too many. Expecting too big an outcome from the Pakistan prime minister’s visit to the US visit may be self-hurting, but for Pakistan and the US to disengage from the past narratives and reconnect effectively for stability in the region, talk, talk and talk alone is the only solution.
Above all, Mr Sharif’s last two terms as prime minister show that when it comes to the US, India and Afghanistan, he knows how to get the job done. Fortunately, the administrations of the two countries — Pakistan and the US — have also realised, in time, the significance of their friendship for the attainment of peace in this region that has evolved into a ticking time bomb.
The writer is a graduate from Lahore University of Management Sciences