The Pak-US strategic dialogue

[Meengla]

Ok. This will be rather Off-Topic but I can't help noticing that the Pakistani delegation in these strategic talks looks young, fresh, and handsome. Full of vitality, even if perhaps over-optimistic. Contrast that with the Indian delegation which came with MMS a few months ago.
Why has India stopped projecting a more younger, fresher image since the death of Rajiv?
PS. Sorry, I will be back to this Topic soon. Currently, just trying to 'digest' from various sources.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

well they stop the propaganda and we wont hate them. they stop targeting our nuclear programme and we wont hate them. they stop talking about invading us and we wont hate them. and recently they are not doing any of that so are not hating them. simple as that.

Why would they stop?
Maybe we can act as a brokerage between Talibans and the U.S.

Remember my words..I am not being pessimistic but the U.S. will not be our long term friend for many reasons.

Rest, lets see what happens...

 

[karan.1970]

The insurgency had already gone down significantly before any of the above happened ...

Yes.. And I probably should've detailed point number 4 a little more. Despite Kargil, I think Musharraf was one of the better things that happened (by design or accident..) for India Pak peace process.. He was probably the 1st president who realized that long term returns from insurgency in Kashmir will not justify the cost of supporting it. And I am not refering to Financial aspects alone..And he had started explotring alternatives some of which were also finding favor in India.. Another couple of years may have seen a major change in the subcontinent..

 

[Fighter488]

US dangles Pakistan a carrot​

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

KARACHI - In 2008, after several years of negotiations, nuclear-armed India and the United States signed a civilian nuclear deal that in essence allowed India access to civilian nuclear technology and fuel from other countries even though it is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Pakistan, which like its neighbor India has a nuclear arsenal and is not a signatory to the NPT, has long been rankled by India's deal, wanting one of its own with the US. This topic featured high on the agenda of a top-level Pakistani delegation that held talks in Washington this week with senior US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Washington, with some reservations, has been receptive to Pakistan's wishes, especially as Islamabad has emerged as a key strategic partner in the efforts to bring the war in Afghanistan to a conclusion, and in dealing with al-Qaeda and militancy in general in the region.

There will be a price: the US, according to analysts who spoke to Asia Times Online, wants Pakistan to walk away from the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project.

Last year, Islamabad and Tehran finalized a US$7.5 billion deal to transfer gas 2,775 kilometers from fields in Iran to terminals in Pakistan, and this month they signed an operational agreement on the project, despite US opposition.

The US, as it seeks to isolate Iran and impose sanctions on it over Tehran's nuclear program, is a vocal critic of the pipeline project, which was initially to have included a third leg going to India. India dropped its participation in the project, ostensibly over pricing disagreements; there is widespread belief that it did so to secure the nuclear deal with the US.

This, according to analysts familiar with the project, is the dilemma that Pakistan now faces. In recent months, there has been talk of the pipeline being extended to China; that would be a non-starter should Pakistan pull out.

The two days of talks in Washington concluded on Thursday. All that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said was that his delegation had had "very satisfactory" talks with US on civilian nuclear cooperation.

"I am quite satisfied with the discussions we had," Reuters quoted Qureshi as saying. "We have to modernize and tap on indigenous resources like hydro[electric power], coal. We have to bring in renewables - solar, wind - and we also have the capability of producing nuclear energy and we are doing it."

Clinton was quoted as saying, "We are certainly looking at it [nuclear deal] as how to help Pakistan with its long-term energy needs."

Washington's reservations over a nuclear pact center on lingering concerns over security in Pakistan. The founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, several years ago confessed to playing a role in nuclear proliferation. In 2008, Khan, who remains under house arrest, recanted these confessions. The US is also aware that any deal with Pakistan would upset India.

Pakistan faces daily blackouts, and a power shortfall estimated at 5,000 megawatts (MW) weighs heavily on the economy. Ahead of this week's talks, Islamabad drew up a 56-page report in which it sought US support in developing a civilian nuclear program. The US earlier agreed to provide $125 million for energy development and assistance in establishing three thermal power plants.

Analysts see a major role for the US in rehabilitating the energy sector, as the US could engage international financial institutions, including the US Trade and Development Agency, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and World Bank, together with the US's private sector.

If the US and Pakistan do go ahead with a nuclear deal, it would still require consensus approval from the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and also from the US Congress - this turned out to be a lengthy process for the Indians.

China this week reacted cautiously to reports that the US was open to help Pakistan tap nuclear energy. "We believe that sovereign countries have the right to peacefully use nuclear energy with adequate safeguards," Pakistan Press International reported a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, as saying in Beijing.

China has assisted Pakistan in developing facilities for nuclear power generation since 1986, when the countries signed a comprehensive agreement for nuclear cooperation that envisaged the supply of power plants and cooperation in the research and development of commercial and research reactors. Under an agreement signed in 1990, China helped Pakistan in the construction of a 300 MW reactor in Chashma, Punjab province, which went into operation in 1998. The Chashma-1 plant has delivered full power of 300 MW to the national grid since September 2000.

In December 2006, a much-awaited agreement on Chinese assistance to build more nuclear reactors in Pakistan was not signed during President Hu Jintao's visit to Islamabad. Though Beijing had agreed to provide two more nuclear power plants, worth about $1.2 billion, China apparently succumbed to pressure from either the West or the NSG. Beijing shelved the project without comment.

At present, China-Pakistan nuclear energy cooperation is mainly focused on the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-2 in Punjab. The 325-MW capacity facility is being built in collaboration with China National Nuclear Corporation and is likely to be completed by the end of this year.

Syed Fazl-e-Haider ( Syed Fazl e Haider ) is a development analyst in Pakistan. He is the author of many books, including The Economic Development of Balochistan, published in May 2004. E-mail, sfazlehaider05@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)


Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

 

[Justin Joseph]

^^^^^^^^^^

i don't think so, they will give more in installments.

The thing is that they don't want to annoy India and spoil nuke deal, 126 aircrafts deal etc.

 

[Fighter488]

American always play a double game dear Justin. My guess was that US will try all tricks to halt IP pipeline project. Their motto is "Give and Take" ! And that happened. This is precisely the reason that Pakistan signed the IP pipeline project before moving to US, so as to have "some thing to loose", in exchange for an alternate energy deal. The carrot was not suspended by America, but it was exactly the other way round! Pakistan played a master stroke. Win or Loose the IP project, but the result is Pakistan wins energy security. The only question now is how US and Pakistan proceed on thier energy co-operation scheme? Wait and watch.

India will make its own roadways, as we in South Asia now understand Uncle SAM's policies, fairly well.

Fighter

 

[Meengla]

^^^^^^^^^^

i don't think so, they will give more in installments.

The thing is that they don't want to annoy India and spoil nuke deal, 126 aircrafts deal etc.

Yeah, that sounds about right. It is always business interests first. Anyone who really believes that any power in the world would put 'higher' ideals of democracy and freedom over business interests is living in a fool's paradise. India is a very lucrative market for American weapon dealers. Too lucrative.

About swapping the I-P Pipeline project with any 'energy-related' assistance, I don't think Pakistanis are going to fall for that: The IPP is a very do-able project with relatively more reliable and affordable energy while nuclear energy from the West will be unreliable and will probably take years, if ever, to come to Pakistan.

 

[sonicboom]

Has US-Pakistan jaw-jaw changed relationship?

Posted on March 26, 2010

The optics after the first round of the strategic dialogue in Washington are better than the results announced.

If ever a picture said a thousand words, it was that of a beaming Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, and the American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. No stiff body language here; much camaraderie, many words of friendship.

The results at first glance appear meagre: a few energy projects, assistance for the Benazir Income Support Programme and a fast track to some military hardware. Also, an apparent firm no to nuclear power plants, and hands off on an American role in promoting India-Pakistan dialogue.

This does not seem like a breakthrough or the beginning of a new strategic relationship. If anything, after the hype that preceded the dialogue, it seems more like a stalemate. But there is obviously more to it than meets the eye.

A few ground realities have to be recognised. The US needs Pakistan and Pakistan needs the United States.

First, why is Pakistan vital to US interests in this region? On two levels, the possibility of honourable settlement for it in Afghanistan hinges on Pakistan’s cooperation. The supply line of its troops and that of the Nato forces runs through this country. Without Pakistan’s cooperation, it can grind to a halt. And there are no viable alternatives.

Secondly, the conflict in Afghanistan is not of a kind where a straightforward military victory is possible. The fighting can only prepare the ground for a political settlement that allows the Americans to declare victory and leave. Pakistan has a role in both.

On the military side, it can, and has begun, to tighten the screws on the Afghan Taliban. It is no longer willing to provide them safe havens when the pressure gets to be too much in Afghanistan. This is designed to force them to think dialogue.

Politically, Pakistan started to circumscribe the space available to the Afghan Taliban leadership in this country. Whether the arrest of Mullah Baradar and others is part of a chess game to stop them from cutting separate deals or a genuine attempt to hold them to account, the fact remains that as a player in the “dialogue with the Taliban” equation, Pakistan cannot be ignored.

The other side of the Pakistan-US relationship is also equally important. Pakistan needs US support and assistance in a number of areas. In Afghanistan, it has a vital interest in its stability and a government that is not hostile to it. The much-maligned strategic depth concept, in its current formulation, is nothing more than an Afghanistan friendly to Pakistan.

This is where India’s presence in Afghanistan becomes an issue for Pakistan. As long as the current state of hostility exists between the two, Pakistan fears that India would make every attempt to turn the Afghans against it. It would also use its presence to foment trouble in Balochistan and, in a manner of speaking, encircle the country.

As an occupying power in Afghanistan, Pakistan believes, the United States can restrict Indian presence in that country. It can also ensure that no anti-Pakistan activity takes place on Afghan soil. This includes denying sanctuary to Baloch dissidents like Brahmdagh Bugti.

The India-Pakistan rivalry has thus become an important subplot for the US in the Afghan situation and in the region as a whole. Pakistan wants to leverage this to make India move forward on the composite dialogue process and on Kashmir. The US has been doing precisely that, without acknowledging it publicly.

Pakistan also wants the US to accept its nuclear status and conclude an arrangement similar to that it has with India. This is a tricky area and may not happen, but it helps to seek some alternatives, such as a nuclear power plant or conventional armaments. At least on the arms side, it appears that some progress has been made.

The big elephant in the negotiating room is Pakistan’s [economy]. This has many dimensions, including budgetary deficits, energy problems, poverty issues and support for infrastructure projects. The current US commitment of $1.5 billion is too little, given the size of the problem, and Pakistan would be seeking more.

US help would also be vital in multilateral forums. It is not a secret that without its nod institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF do not move. Pakistan would be seeking more assistance and an easing of conditions. The last aspect is vital because IMF support is conditional and some of the stringent ones are hard to meet.

To sum up, both Pakistan and the US need each other. The game is to leverage advantages and play on the vulnerabilities to gain the maximum. There are no friends among nations, just a coming together of mutual interests. There seems to be recognition on both sides that such congruence is possible. Hence, the happy optics.

A few words on the process. According to press reports, Pakistan, for once, did its homework and prepared a comprehensive document, as many as 56 pages, to outline its interests. This was made available to the Americans well before the talks giving, them time to circulate it within their system. This ensured proper consideration and well-thought-out responses.

The management of the dialogue was also done better. Instead of cursory meetings with various centres of power and little cohesion, the talks were attended by all the principle agencies and interlocutors. The fact that the secretaries of state and defence, plus representatives from the military, the National Security Council and aid agencies, were present made the process meaningful.

The presence of Gen Kayani from the Pakistani side was equally important. This was reflected in the meetings he had prior to the talks, which prepared the ground for a meaningful military cooperation. It may not correspond to pristine notions of democracy, but the military is the most powerful institution in Pakistan. The participation by its chief gave the talks the necessary gravitas to make them consequential.

What happens next? Are we entering a new and more substantive phase of Pakistan-US relations? The truthful answer is that it is too early to tell. Some broad principles may be agreed to in the Washington talks, but this will just be a beginning. It is the follow-up, working-group-type meetings that will determine the outcome.

Reports are that the next phase is likely to be in April, and probably in Islamabad. My guess is that this will not be as high-level as the current meeting, but more detailed, and will get into nuts and bolts. It is only then that the final contours of any long-term strategic partnership will become visible.

Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com.
Shafqat Mahmood

 

[ajpirzada]

Why would they stop?
Maybe we can act as a brokerage between Talibans and the U.S.

Remember my words..I am not being pessimistic but the U.S. will not be our long term friend for many reasons.

Rest, lets see what happens...

all im saying is that if they stop doing all that then we will not hate them. and as of now they have stopped.
im not talking about wat will happen in future

 

[SekrutYakhni]

all im saying is that if they stop doing all that then we will not hate them. and as of now they have stopped.
im not talking about wat will happen in future

Yes you are right...
They have stopped but we should be prepare either way.
I am very opportunistic sometimes but the foot print U.S. has left on us made me pessimistic...

I think we should not get too happy...

U.S. will only use us to get benefits...
I mean everyone does that...

 

[fatman17]

Limited options

Dissenting note

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Dr Masooda Bano

While opening the so-called, first of its kind 'strategic dialogue' with Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued that the United States had started a 'new day' with Pakistan. Her speech had a tone of optimism about the future cooperation between the two countries. She emphasised that the US government recognised the need to build a long-term reliable relationship with Pakistan's masses as opposed to seeking strategic alliance with the government in power driven by short-term US interest. There was appreciation for the attempts made by Pakistan to combat militancy. There were also promises of continued economic and development assistance to Pakistan.

All of this seems good in theory. No one would advise Pakistan to be at war with the US. However, the problem is that the Obama administration has failed to demonstrate that it actually is working on developing a long-term partnership with the people of Pakistan.

The question is if the US policy towards Pakistan has changed in practice under the Obama administration as compared to the Bush administration. The honest answer is that it is very difficult to identify such a difference. In terms of how the US views Pakistan, the Obama administration, by continuously emphasising the term 'Pak-Afghan' policy, has actually confirmed that it sees Pakistan as a major problem rather than a country with which it will likely form strategic long-term partnership. Like Afghanistan, Pakistan is facing the problem of militancy, but beyond that the comparison between the two countries ends. One is a war-torn country, with all its formal state institutions as well as social infrastructure eroded due to the long period of instability; while the other, despite its development challenges, still is a fully functional country with a proper state system in place. While the former needs institutionalisation of entirely new processes to run the state system, the latter only requires reforms.

The two countries are very complex and different. By lumping the two together, the Obama administration actually gives away its negative perception of Pakistan. A dialogue attempted in a context where one party knows that the other one is actually seeing it as a major problem is unlikely to bear fruit. There is more to Pakistan than militancy. Insisting on treating Pakistan under the banner of a generic Pak-Afghan policy, however, shows that the US is not willing to deal with Pakistan beyond the limited lens of militancy. In such a context, the claim that the present US administration is actually focused on building a long-term relationship with the people of Pakistan fails to convince.

The other indicator that shows that the policy of the current administration fails to record any major shift towards Pakistan than that of the previous government is the emphasis on drone attacks. The number of drone attacks carried out in the tribal belt of Pakistan has increased dramatically under the present US government. Many of those who die in these attacks are civilians. However, the US administration is consistently using this strategy and sadly the current Pakistani government has given its full consent to do this. Again, the emphasis on the use of drone attacks does not reflect a strategy of winning hearts and minds of ordinary Pakistanis; the drone attacks in the tribal areas can hardly create friendly feelings for the US, especially in people who are losing their family members in these attacks To keep on using military force to combat militancy is basically a simple extension of the Bush doctrine. It is difficult to see how the Obama administration claims to have developed a new policy towards Pakistan when its strategy is overwhelmingly based on the use of military force.

Finally, the third indicator that the policy has not changed much is evident by the slow progress recorded in development programmes assisted by the US. The US might have allocated increased economic and development aid to Pakistan last year, but the problem is that it has made very little practical effort to ensure that this aid is used effectively. The USAID does run many projects in Pakistan but the increased US aid for Pakistan since 9/11 has clearly failed to create any visible difference in the development sector. The education sector, which has received most of the development aid, still paints an extremely sorry picture. Had the US government put as much emphasis on ensuring that the development aid given to Pakistan was used efficiently as it did on ensuring that the Pakistani government continued to undertake military operations, there would have definitely been some progress in the education sector

The reality thus is that the Obama administration has failed to turn a new page in its relationship with Pakistan. The Bush administration worked through patronising Musharraf rather than building relationship with the people of Pakistan; the Obama administration is doing the same by patronising the sitting government. The strategy is exclusively that of the use of military force; mechanisms for ensuring long-term development of Pakistan, or gaining trust of the ordinary Pakistanis are still nowhere in sight.



The writer is a research fellow at the Oxford University. Email: mb294@hotmail .com

 

[fatman17]

First Take - Pakistan's Shrewd Shift in Dialogue

March 25, 2010

Author: Daniel Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia

There are many ways to deal with unpleasant problems. Changing the subject is one.

This week, a Pakistani delegation arrived in Washington to kick off its new "strategic dialogue" with the Obama administration. In recent memory, all visiting Pakistani leaders have been subjected to extensive American lectures about how Islamabad must do more to kill, capture, and prosecute terrorists. As a consequence, news coverage from those visits has focused on thorny challenges in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad, such as Predator drone strikes, Pakistan's frustrating pace of prosecutions against extremist ideologues and terrorist organizers, or the murky legal status of the world's most successful nuclear proliferator, Dr. A.Q. Khan.

This time around,Pakistan's delegation, led by army chief General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, cleverly changed the subject. He came armed with a fifty-six page book on ways the United States should do more to help Pakistan. Kayani also left his chief spymaster at home, practically eliminating the potential for in-depth counterterrorism debates.

Let there be no mistake, the Pakistani delegation came ready to do business, but not the business that normally sits at the top of the U.S. agenda. Many of the items on Kayani's wish list serve a longstanding Pakistani goal: to resolve strategic challenges posed by India. This diplomatic dance is far from novel. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship was also founded on an imperfect coincidence of national interest. Washington used Islamabad to help resist Soviet expansion in the region, while Islamabad used Washington as an external balance against its Indian nemesis.

A good number of the items on Pakistan's agenda are basically non-starters. Chief among them is the request for a civil-nuclear deal like the one President Bush signed with New Delhi. Leaving aside President Obama's commitment to global nonproliferation regimes that bar nuclear trade with Pakistan, it is nearly impossible to imagine a Pakistani deal getting past the U.S. Congress, much less through the consensus-based Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Yet senior Obama administration officials have gamely entertained this and other Pakistani requests, avoiding "no" when "let's keep talking" might do. Their approach has merit, even if Washington misses one opportunity to exert diplomatic pressure on Islamabad. There will be other times for pressure, and the United States also needs to turn a page as part of its broader, long-term effort to cultivate better relations with the people of Pakistan. Washington should show a capacity for listening to requests, not just making them. As long as no untenable U.S. promises were made, no illusions of nuclear deals or American-brokered Kashmir solutions fostered, the cost of listening will have been minimal.


Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Strategic dialogue opens up possibilities for further talks ​

​

WASHINGTON: The two-day strategic dialogue between the United States and Pakistan has opened up new possibilities for further talks on a range of issues — from a nuclear deal to Islamabad’s role in the Afghan reconciliation process.

But there was silence on Pakistan’s “most heavily advertised” proposal: a civil nuclear agreement similar to the one the Bush administration signed with India. The silence also underlined the need for further talks on this issue.

During the talks that ended on Thursday, the two sides also discussed a possible role for Pakistan in the Afghan reconciliation process. US officials were particularly interested in knowing Gen Kayani’s views on this issue as they believed that he was “critical to determining the role Pakistan will play”.

Three tangible results include: $125 million for energy development, $51 million for upgrading three thermal plants and $40 million for the construction of priority roads in the NWFP.

All of these come from last year’s $7.5 billion aid to Pakistan legislation known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill and some were already announced during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan in October.

Pakistani diplomatic sources confirmed to Dawn a US media report that the Obama administration also had agreed to expedite the delivery of F-16 fighter jets, naval frigates and helicopter gunships, as well as new remotely piloted aircraft for surveillance missions.


The United States, however, made some significant pledges too. These include improved market access for Pakistani goods, the creation of special economic zones, known as ROZs, along the Pak-Afghan border and a Bilateral Investment Treaty to stimulate investment in Pakistan.

The dialogue, however, also had some impressive optics: sitting side by side at the State Department, instead of confronting each other, a visit to the White House, an audience with Vice President Joe Biden, although he had no separate meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and lots of smiles and warm handshakes.

Nuclear Issue

Mr Qureshi, however, told journalists on Thursday that his delegation had “very satisfactory” talks with the Americans on civilian nuclear cooperation and that the A. Q. Khan issue was “behind us”.

Diplomatic sources also confirmed the foreign minister’s claim, but added that the Americans did not want to discuss this issue publicly and had also advised Pakistan to remain silent.

The New York Times on Friday interpreted this meaningful silence as indicating that there would be more talks on this issue.

“Given Pakistan’s history of selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, such an agreement would realistically be 10 or 15 years away,” a senior Obama administration official told the Times.

“Still, the administration was careful not to dismiss the idea out of hand,” the Times observed.

The Indian media — perhaps more concerned than the Pakistanis about the proposed nuclear deal — also noted that the Americans had not “said a no” to Pakistan’s request. “Instead they asked them to initiate steps that would restore the confidence of the international community in its nuclear programme.”

Quoting their own sources in Washington, the Indian media reported that Pakistan had apparently assured the Americans that it was willing to initiate the steps they had suggested.

The Americans told the Pakistanis that “they would closely monitor the developments” before considering the Pakistani request.

Topping the list is the complete disbanding of the Khan network, so that the US is convinced that it would not re-emerge.

The suggested steps also require international monitoring/inspection of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities.

The joint statement issued after the talks, however, stressed a mutual desire to reinforce strategic ties.

Both agreed to “redouble their efforts to deal effectively with terrorism” and would work together for “peace and stability in Afghanistan”.

The New York Times noted that the term “strategic dialogue” was by itself meant to send a message: “The administration used the term reserved for the substantive, wide-ranging exchanges it carries on with important countries like China and India. Pakistan and the United States held three such dialogues during the Bush administration,” the newspaper observed.

The Washington Post said the Obama administration’s primary goals for the gathering were to create a new level of bonding between the two countries and to win increased Pakistani cooperation in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. US officials, aware of Pakistan’s often-prickly response to perceived slights, were deferential to the Pakistanis and offered fulsome praise, the Post observed.

According to the Post, Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was clearly the star of Pakistan’s delegation, if not its official leader.

“At a Tuesday evening reception at the Pakistani Embassy, Gen Kayani’s entry brought a hush to the crowd and the appearance of dozens of cellphone cameras, wielded by Pakistanis and Americans alike,” it reported.

The Washington Times said: “Washington’s long-time suspicion and mistrust of Pakistan and questions about its commitment to fighting extremists have vanished, and the Obama administration has agreed to fast-track Islamabad’s pending requests for military equipment.”

Bruce Riedel, a Pakistan expert at Washington’s Brookings Institution agreed with Gen Kayani that the military’s campaign in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan had improved the tenor of Islamabad’s relationship with Washington. But the success has also raised America’s expectations, he warned.

“Yes, you get a pat on the back,” Mr Riedel told NYT. “But now that you’ve shown you can do something, you’ve got to do more.”


DAWN.COM | Front Page | Strategic dialogue opens up possibilities for further talks

 

[Cynic Waheed]

India and Pakistan on the U.S. see-saw
MAR 26, 2010 15:47 EDT
AFGHANISTAN | INDIA | LASHKAR-E-TAIBA | PAKISTAN | PAKISTAN ARMY | US

Few who follow South Asia could miss the symbolism of two separate developments in the past week – in one Pakistan was cosying up to the United States in a new “strategic dialogue”; in the other India was complaining to Washington about its failure to provide access to David Headley, the Chicago man accused of helping to plan the 2008 attack on Mumbai.

Ever since the London conference on Afghanistan in January signalled an exit strategy which could include reconciliation with the Taliban, it has been clear that Pakistan’s star has been rising in Washington while India’s has been falling.

If the United States wants to force the Taliban to the negotiating table, it needs Pakistan’s help. And Pakistan has shown by arresting Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar amongst others that it intends to keep control of any negotiations. In return for its cooperation, it expects Washington’s help in securing Pakistan’s own interests, including through a scaling back of India’s involvement in Afghanistan.

By contrast, the relationship between India and the United States which blossomed under the Bush administration has been fading as Washington looks to China and Pakistan to help meet respectively its economic and security needs. An initial outpouring of sympathy and international support for India following the Mumbai attack - which led to intense pressure on Pakistan to crack down on the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group blamed for the assault – has dissipated over time.

Nowadays the mantra in Washington is that India and Pakistan must talk to each other to resolve their differences. Pakistan, after initially cracking down on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, eased the pressure on the group in the second part of 2009. India suspects the Lashkar-e-Taiba is not only active again but may have been involved in last month’s attack in Kabul which targeted Indian interests. If true, this would suggest that Lashkar-e-Taiba is acting in conformity with the interests of the Pakistan Army, which is deeply sensitive about India’s growing presence in Afghanistan following the fall of the Pakistan-backed Taliban in 2001.

To rewind briefly, it has always been unclear how far the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency could go in dismantling the Punjab-based militant group it once nurtured to fight India in Kashmir. While few doubt it could shut down the Lashkar-e-Taiba if it chose to do so, the risk has been that action against an organisation which has been scrupulous in avoiding attacks within Pakistan itself would shatter it into splinter groups which would make common cause with al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. A raid on the Pakistan Army’s own headquarters last October highlighted just how vulnerable the country could be to an alliance between militants in its tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and those based in its heartland Punjab province.

So the debate amongst analysts has been whether relative inaction against the Lashkar-e-Taiba has been driven by self-preservation or a desire on the part of the ISI to retain the group’s operational capacity to use it against India. Islamabad is convinced India’s own intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), is using Afghanistan as a base to destabilise Pakistan, particularly by funding separatists in its Baluchistan province. Any evidence of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s involvement in the Kabul attack would therefore reinforce suspicions that the Pakistan Army is still using it as part of a proxy war between the two countries’ intelligence agencies. (Both countries deny the accusations levelled at each other’s intelligence agencies.)

One person who might be able to shed light on the relationship between the ISI and the Lashkar-e-Taiba is Headley, accused of working closely with the militant group in planning the Mumbai attack. And that is precisely why India is so suspicious of the U.S. reluctance to grant Indian investigators access to him.

Now to return to Washington’s policy towards India and Pakistan. The United States has been at pains to insist that improved relations with one country is not at the expense of the other - although in the zero sum game mindset prevalent in South Asia that is likely to be the way it is perceived.

The worry on India’s part is that in its haste to find a solution to Afghanistan, Washington will grab whatever help it can get even if this means putting Pakistan’s interests first. That could also mean giving priority to action against the Afghan Taliban while turning a blind eye to anti-India groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, as it has been accused of doing in the past.

The enthusiastic reception given to Pakistan Army head General Ashfaq Kayani in Washington this week - belying earlier U.S. promises to nurture democracy - has already raised concerns about a tilt towards the military which has traditionally taken a harder line on India than civilian governments.

“… in its search for an exit route from the quagmire of Afghanistan, the Obama administration is in danger of becoming over-dependent on Pakistan,” the Hindu newspaper says in an editorial. ”The presence of Pakistan’s army and intelligence chiefs at the strategic dialogue underlined the abnormality of the situation. Terrorism and extremist politics in the AfPak region are mainly the product of the Pakistani military establishment, which nurtured and patronised jihadi groups as a force multiplier. Despite this, a solution is now being sought by valorising and even strengthening the role of this establishment at the expense of Pakistan’s civilian structures of governance.”

Pakistan, on its part, has bitter experience of being used to further the U.S. agenda in ways which are not necessarily good for its own long-term interests – notably when it worked with the CIA to support the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979-1989, and then found itself left to handle the blowback of Islamist militancy alone when the Americans lost interest in the region and left.

If its new-found popularity with Washington comes at the price of a narrow focus on following U.S. interests, it could once again find itself at the losing end of the bargain.

Pakistan, writes Ayesha Siddiqa in Dawn, really needs to decide for itself the kind of country it wants, its type of government and its attitude to militant groups long seen as strategic assets against India. “We have been keeping some of the ‘strategic assets’ because of the Pakistani military’s concern for India’s nefarious activities in Afghanistan. Let’s say that we manage to convince the U.S. to give us a role in Afghanistan where we could ensure our larger strategic interests. Would we then be willing to shut down the jihad machine?” she asks.

“Pakistan’s internal dialogue would require an assessment of how far it can go in using force to draw benefits and estimating strategic benefits and costs. While it must aim for gaining a foothold in Afghanistan to secure its position, a policy to force other neighbours out would prove counter-productive. It would help if Islamabad combined the acquisition of a role in Afghanistan with multilateral assurances that India or any other country would not threaten its core interests.”

One of the more obvious ways for India and Pakistan to get off the U.S. see-saw – where when one is up, the other comes crashing down – would be for them to take control over their own relationship.

Both India and Pakistan have an interest in a stable Afghanistan. This is not Kashmir, whose disputed status goes right to the heart of both countries’ identities - Islamic Pakistan first laid claim to Muslim Kashmir on religious grounds back in 1947; secular India says Kashmir’s fate cannot be determined on the basis of religion. Afghanistan has however been a battleground for a proxy war for decades, run by intelligence agencies whose activities have probably been far bettter known to Washington than to the people of either India or Pakistan.

But finding common ground on Afghanistan would require both countries to build on the dialogue which began last month when India invited Pakistan’s foreign secretary to talks in New Delhi. The alternative – as amply demonstrated over the past week – would be to leave it to Washington to set the agenda.

India and Pakistan on the U.S. see-saw | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters

 

[sonicboom]

US-Pakistan Negotiations Leave Out Pakistani People

Warning: You are being cautioned that this article contains negativity about Pakistan Army and is PPP government centric.

Josh Mull
Posted: March 25, 2010 04:54 PM


On Monday, we discussed some of the recent negotiations happening in Afghanistan between President Karzai and representatives of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami militia (Ending the War: What We Can Learn From Taliban Negotiations | The Seminal). But these aren't the only negotiations on the AfPak war taking place this week. In Washington, Pakistan and the US are meeting for a strategic dialogue. NPR reports:

Senior U.S. and Pakistani officials meet Thursday in Washington for the second round of a so-called strategic dialogue aimed at a better long-term relationship.

Few people expected any big breakthroughs in the first round of talks between the two sides Wednesday. The nations' complicated relationship has been marked by a deep sense of mutual distrust for many years. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is hosting the two-day event, said some headway was made -- especially on security.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi is meeting with Secretary Clinton, but he's not the one really leading the Pakistani delegation. Sue Pleming tells us who is:

Pakistan's foreign minister heads his country's delegation to Washington this week for high-level talks, but there was no mistaking who was the star at a reception at the Pakistani Embassy on Tuesday night: Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

Guests crowded around Kayani at the annual Pakistani National Day party at the embassy, posing for photos and jostling for the military leader's ear. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, also drew those eager for photographic souvenirs of the occasion, but not such a feeding frenzy as that around Kayani.

U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.

Our elected representatives are swooning over the Chief of the Pakistani Army, who supposedly "rules the roost back home." Great, another US-backed military dictator in Pakistan. What about the civilian leaders though, didn't Pakistan just have an election in 2008? Our last pet general in Islamabad, Pervez Musharraf, was forced to resign and the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) were swept into power by popular vote. The PPP and PML-N formed a coalition government, with Yosaf Gillani as Prime Minister and Asif Ali Zardari as President. What happened to those guys?

As it turns out, they got to stay home and read the transcripts. UPI reports:

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in Islamabad Thursday that he was confident about the outcome of strategic talks with U.S. officials in Washington.

He said he would address the nation to highlight the developments after the end of the dialogue, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reports.

Poor guy, he's got an electoral mandate and still all he gets to do is report back to the voters on what their own military leaders are up to in a foreign country. But let's give Kayani the benefit of the doubt, maybe he's also looking out for Pakistani citizens. Mosharraf Zaidi explains for us:

Pakistan wants $400 million for Munda Dam, it wants $40 million for Gomal Zam Dam, it wants $70 million for the Natural Gas Production & Efficiency Project, it wants $10 million for Satpara Dam, it wants $27 million for the Wind Energy Project in Sindh, it wants $65 million to rehabilitate Mangla Dam, and it wants $35 million to upgrade Warsak Dam. Total cost of this dam wish-list? $647 million.

Wow, $650 million for water and energy projects, that Kayani sure seems like he's looking out for the Pakistani little guy. Only General Kayani wants more than just dams. Zaidi continues:

At roughly $40 million a pop, the still-pending delivery of 18 F-16 aircraft (from 2006) is a deal worth about $720 million. Instead of actually delivering these aircraft in June this year, as it plans to, the US government could tell the Pakistani government that it can choose. Either it can have a bunch of dams that will resolve the energy crisis, and save many hundreds, maybe thousands of lives in hospitals and clinics around the country. Or it can have a bunch of airplanes that are designed to kill people rather indiscriminately (meaning that not all of the victims of Pakistan's F-16s will be terrorists that have been tried and convicted in a court of law).

As a Pakistani, my vote is for the dams. I suspect I wouldn't be alone. But of course, the people of Pakistan don't have very much say in the direction that Pakistan's strategic dialogue takes in Washington DC.

Kayani wants dams and jets, but the people apparently just want the dams. Only the people aren't represented at the talks. That wouldn't be so bad if Pakistan actually did get both the energy projects and the military weapons. But they won't be getting both. Amazingly, General Kayani, head of the Pakistani Army, will only get the military weapons, and probably not much on the civilian, infrastructure side. Remember Secretary Clinton's statement above emphasized progress in security (that means things like drones and fighter jets) but cautioned against too much optimism on anything else.

See, General Kayani has a bit of a problem with militarism. Even when the Pakistani people overwhelmingly support representatives like Zardari and Gillani who seek peace, Kayani can't stop thinking about war, war, war. Praveen Swami writes:

"India," Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari famously said in an October 2008 interview, "has never been a threat to Pakistan." In his first major interview, given just a month after taking office, he described jihadists in Jammu and Kashmir as "terrorists." He imagined "Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India's huge infrastructure needs, Pakistani textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestion at Indian ones."

Early last month, Pakistan's army chief, General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, outlined a rather different vision. In a presentation to the media, he asserted that the Pakistan army was an "India-centric institution," adding this "reality will not change in any significant way until the Kashmir issue and water disputes are resolved." His words were not dissimilar in substance from the language used by jihadists such as Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed in recent speeches.

It's no surprise that Kayani and Lashkar-e-Taiba sound the same, the LeT are supported by the Pakistani Army and the ISI. The US supports Kayani who supports the LeT, because both Kayani and the LeT are batshit crazy for war with India. We know this already. Even Congress knows it, since Ashley J. Tellis just explained it to them a few weeks ago:

While it is, therefore, tempting to treat LeT as the cause of the current crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations--particularly in the aftermath of the Bombay attacks--it should instead be understood as a manifestation. The real cause of the problems in Indo-Pakistani relations remains those political forces within Pakistan that profit from continued hostility with India, namely the Pakistani Army, ...the ISI, and their narrow bases of support among the general population. The civilian government in Pakistan... has a very different view of the bilateral relationship... Cognizant of the fact that Pakistan will never be able to favorably resolve its disputes with India through force, Zardari has sought a non-confrontational affiliation with New Delhi that would set aside existing disputes, if not resolve them, while increasing economic opportunities...

Unfortunately... Zardari and his civilian cohort do not make national security policy in Islamabad. All such matters... remain very much the provenance of the Pakistani Army... [T]he necessity of sapping India's strength through multiple kinds of warfare--economic closure, terrorist attacks, and nuclear competition--remains deeply entrenched in the Pakistani military psyche.

Echoing the cliche that the US hasn't picked a winning side since Churchill, America is pursuing its goals of economic cooperation, encouraging democracy, and counter-terrorism in Pakistan by supporting the military dictator who uses terrorists to fuel conflict with his neighbors. Great plan!

But now we're lost on some tangent about Lashkar-e-Taiba and F-16's. Let's not forget what this is all about: the US war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISAF and the Pakistani military are daily blasting away at Pashtun insurgents, Taliban elements in both Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan, from the Northwest Frontier Province all the way down to Balochistan. This is the so-called "Pashtun belt." Surely any Strategic Dialogue on this conflict must include the Pashtun themselves. Nope. Shahid Ilyas writes:

Talking is not a bad thing, but when it is done without the participation of those who are the subject of such talks, it will most likely result in a disaster. The Pakhtun and the turmoil on their lands -- supposedly the theme of the dialogue -- are reportedly not being represented in the upcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue. The delegation heading for the US does not include either the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) led by Mahmud Khan Achakzai or the Awami National Party (ANP) led by Asfandyar Wali. These are the mainstream political parties of Pakhtunkhwa having a deep bearing on the events of their ethnic constituency. These parties represent the most influential and educated class of Pakhtun society. What benefit can a dialogue bring without the participation of the Pakhtun leadership and intelligentsia?

If indeed the purpose of the dialogue is the ongoing terrorism-related turmoil in Pakhtunkhwa, it can only be counterproductive without the participation of the Pakhtuns. Already, the prevailing thinking among them is that they are being ruled like a colony by the Punjab-dominated establishment in Rawalpindi-Islamabad. The Pakhtuns are increasingly complaining that the American opinion of them is formed by the establishment in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They argue that under a well thought-out strategy, they are being presented to the world as terrorists through the media. The planned strategic dialogue without them will only reinforce their belief in their (perceived or real) exploitation by the bigger province. An added factor now will be that they will consider the US a co-culprit, responsible for their sufferings.

So, let's add this all up.

The people of Pakistan, who support peace, are not represented at the Strategic Dialogue.

The Pashtun people, with whom the US and Pakistani military are engaged in violent conflict, are not represented at the Strategic Dialogue.

The US instead deals with General Kayani, un-elected warmonger obsessed with fighting India.

The US earnestly gives in to Kayani's demands for more military weapons, but wavers on support for civilian water and energy projects.

In addition to the Taliban and other militant groups, Kayani's military supports LeT, the al-Qa'eda affiliated group who carried out the Mumbai commando attacks, among countless other terrorist attacks against Indian and Pakistani citizens.

The whole Strategic Dialogue is a farce. We're not accomplishing any of our national security goals in the region, we're actually making our problems worse! But what are you supposed to do about this? Well, that's the good news: Unlike the Pakistani people, You actually are represented at this strategic dialogue. Let's go back to Tuesday's embassy party:

U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.

Senators and administration officials? Those are your elected representatives! You have a voice in this Strategic Dialogue. You can tell them how they need to be conducting this dialogue, and who they need to be conducting it with.

Tell them that celebrity they're snapping photos of with their cellphone is actually a terror-supporting thug, and they can read about it in their own congressional record. Tell them you want to talk to the actual leaders of the Pakistani people, the democratically elected government of Pakistan, as well as the Pashtun people. We can talk about water and energy projects, but not military weapons to be used against India and the Pakistanis themselves.

Don't forfeit your own opportunity to have a voice in this strategic dialogue. Congress, in particular has the power to stipulate how funds can be distributed in Pakistan, as we saw with the Kerry-Lugar bill last year. Contact your representatives, by e-mail, phone, Twitter, however you want. Show them that even if Pakistan is ruled by the military, democracy is alive and well in the US. Demand that the US engages in strategic dialogue with the peace makers and legitimate leaders in Pakistan. The current dialogue, as it stands, is totally unacceptable.

Josh Mull: US-Pakistan Negotiations Leave Out Pakistani People