Daily Times

The Pakistan-US conversation continues. So does the diplomatic circus involving visits by civil and military officials. But the content of this conversation, however ironic, remains unchanged. The Haqqani Network constitutes the core of this dialogue.

Recent statements by US military and civilian officials revolve around the question as to when and whether at all will Pakistan crackdown on the dreaded Haqqani Network. What can incentivise Pakistan to go after the network that has been responsible for a number of high-profile attacks in the Afghan capital, they ask in private conversations.

Five major elements of content are discernible in the Pak-US conversation.

US officials remain extremely sceptical and distrustful of Pakistan and refuse to accept that the General Headquarters (GHQ) and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) would have no idea where Haqqanis live and operate from. “They are very much in Pakistan,” they insist and say the US has the resources to act against them inside Afghanistan and ready to act as Anvil if Pakistan acts as Hammer against them. But, their response is usually either muted or ambiguous when asked whether the US forces can really provide the anvil for the hunted Haqqanis and Taliban insurgents in the nearly 43 territories, that according to the US Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) are in direct or indirect control of the Taliban.

Secondly, the US demands for action are premised on the insistence that Haqqanis are the source of all high-profile attacks in and around Kabul. Yet, most of the attacks in October/November at different locations in Afghanistan have been claimed by IS/Daesh. Where does it leave the Haqqanis and how can the network still be treated as the primary source of violence in that country? Even the claim for the suicide bombing on November outside a wedding hall in Kabul came from ISIS, which US and Afghan officials, including General Nicholson, the head of the US-NATO forces, claim is proliferating the country and has upstaged Taliban and some 20 other non-state actors currently operating in Afghanistan.

Thirdly, how can the situation improve or violence can be contained by only attacking or restraining the Haqqanis, when other groups are in ascendency? No plausible answer to this big question in a context loaded with all shades of Afghan Taliban busy knocking at all possible government and military targets.

A fourth element of the Pakistan-US conversation is Washington’s obvious tilt to India; little do the US officials realise that as long as the US will appear as advocating the cause of India through Afghanistan, it will be hard to extract cooperation from Pakistan. Unfair leverage to India – as a counter-weight to China – beyond doubt is detrimental to Pak-US and Pak-Afghan relations. And Washington shall have to stop looking at Pakistan through the Indian lens.

Lastly, Pakistani officials, battered multiple times by bitter geo-political games in the past, also ask as to if there are any guarantees of relief for it at all if it instigates an Afghan war on its soil? Direct crackdown on the Haqqanis is akin to ruffling the hornets’ nest (comprising all possible al Qaeda-inspired Pakistani and Afghan non-state actors). Pakistan is driven by fears of a backlash in case it went all out against all shades of insurgents.

Although apparently sick of dealing with groups that radiate medieval mindsets, the spectre of socio-political blow-back at home continues to hold Pakistan back from an all out action against Afghan militants, who have defamed Pakistan’s image more than helping it.

Decision on the sequencing and timing action against Haqqanis and other Afghan Taliban groups will depend on Pakistan and not on demands from outside, is the message both the prime minister and the army chief have been delivering to their US and Afghan interlocutors in recent weeks.

One wonders whether the delinking of Lashkar-e-Taiba from the US certification of the coalition support funds (CSF) for Pakistan has grown out of this realisation and whether this points to a possible gradual shift in the way Washington looks at Pakistan. Let us wait and see.

The writer is Editor, Strategic Affairs

Published in Daily Times, November 22^nd 2017.