Daily Times

It is widely believed that the Americans will not stick around in Afghanistan for long, with the war not going their way and because of their internal political and economic constraints. At the same time, Pakistan’s relations with the Karzai government have never been good which, among other things, is perceived as being partial toward New Delhi.

Against this backdrop, its prior contacts with the top Taliban leadership, said to be sheltering in Pakistan, will enable it to play an important role in determining the political future of Afghanistan, in which the Taliban are likely to feature prominently. With a friendly regime in Afghanistan, Pakistan will be able to have strategic depth against India. The problem, though, is that the last time Pakistan had a friendly regime in Afghanistan, they got sucked into the war on terror that is still unfolding; its recent chapter being the US killing of Osama bin Laden and the open airing of the blame game on both sides.

Obviously, neither the US nor Pakistan want to rupture the relationship. But in Pakistan, both the civilian government and military are under intense popular scrutiny after the US killing of Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s civilian governments have been savaged in the past too for their various acts of omission and commission, thus providing the trigger for a military coup now and then. But this time the military leadership is as much under the microscope, if not more, as the civilian government. The Zardari government is a bit of a joke, though not a funny one with so much at stake for Pakistan. But with the military now joining the ranks of derision in popular imagination, Pakistan is really a troubled nation.

At the same time, US-Pakistan row, if it escalates further, has the prospect of endangering US aid to Pakistan. The US’s aid to Pakistan is critical in some sectors. The popular anger in Pakistan against the US is so widespread and so vociferous that its people want the country to recover its full sovereignty by spurning US aid. For instance, the cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, is leading the charge for this and blasting the ruling establishment for their subservience. Which is all fine but, without any alternative vision and a concrete blueprint for Pakistan’s future, these kind of angry and populist demands do not take the country anywhere.

There is a sense in Pakistan that the US needs it more than Pakistan needs the US. This is because of Pakistan’s crucial geo-strategic location regionally, and for the war on terrorism. But, at the same time, it is increasingly believed that the US might withdraw from Afghanistan because: i) it is not winning the war in Afghanistan; and ii) the Bush administration’s rhetoric of war on terror was overblown. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were unnecessary and they have simply prolonged the US’s agony.

At some point, and sooner rather than later, the US is going to disengage from Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan high and dry. In other words, however prized Pakistan’s strategic location might be, the US’s domestic political and economic constraints dictate withdrawal.

However, the US is also worried about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, fearing that the terrorists might get their hands on them through lax security or whatever. Pakistan, on the other hand, seems to fear that encouraged by the Osama operation, the US or some other country might be tempted to go after Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. And it has threatened catastrophic consequences.

There is thus an underlying distrust between Pakistan and the US, now magnified with the Osama episode. Indeed, the US doubts Pakistan’s commitment and sincerity regarding counter-terrorism. An example of this is a piece in a recent issue of The New Yorker where Lawrence Wright, a prize-winning American writer, suggests that the Pakistani military might not be all that keen to capture or kill top al Qaeda leaders because that would put the army out of business by drying up the flow of dollars from the US “just as it had in Afghanistan after the Soviets limped away…”

Such deep distrust might dissipate or moderate over time, but the bitterness and a sense of betrayal on both sides is likely to persist, more so because the Pakistani people are much more exercised over the US unilateralism, whether it is the drones’ operations in the frontier badlands or something big like Osama’s killing. This crisis of confidence is eating away at US-Pakistan relations. And Pakistan is worried because of its considerable dependence on US aid. Whether or not this aid reaches the people of Pakistan is not considered terribly relevant by the generals as long as it enables them to keep expanding their share of the pie.

Not surprisingly, at this critical juncture in US-Pakistan relations, Pakistan is turning to China for moral and material support. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s recent China visit, among other things, was designed to let the US know that Pakistan has other options and a trusted friend in China. And Beijing suitably reassured the visiting prime minister of their friendship for and support of Pakistan. China certainly would give Pakistan aid for economic projects, and equipment and weaponry for the military, as it is already doing. The military and economic aid might be expanded. But China is likely to stay out of Pakistan’s multiple fault-lines of Islamic militancy, sectarian strife, ethnic separatism, civil-military hiatus and fragmented polity.

In the ultimate analysis, Pakistan would need to launch a nation-building popular movement to raise literacy, empower women, foster economic activity and development, strengthen its institutions, promote democracy based on the primacy of civilian authority and so on. The threat to Pakistan is not so much external as it is internal. And if that is not tackled, things might get worse before they ever get better.

(Concluded)

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au