UNITED STATES-PAKISTAN RELATIONS: Facing a Critical Juncture
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MAY 2012 Report ISPU UNITED STATES-PAKISTAN RELATIONS: Facing a Critical Juncture Imtiaz Ali ISPU Fellow Institute for Social Policy and Understanding © 2012 Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding normally does not take institutional positions on public policy issues. The views presented here do not necessarily reflect the views of the institute, its staff, or trustees. MAY 2012 REPORT About The Author Imtiaz Ali ISPU Fellow ImtiaZ ali is a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He is also an award- winning journalist from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (KP), where he worked for local and foreign media organizations such as the Washington Post, the BBC Pashto Service and London’s Daily Telegraph, and Pakistani newspapers The News, Dawn, and Khyber Mail. He has extensively written on Pakistani politics, security, militancy and the “war on terror” in Pakistan since 9/11, focusing on Pakistan’s FATA region along the Afghanistan border. His opinion pieces and research articles have appeared in various leading publications and research journals including Yale Global Online, Foreign Policy Magazine, CTC Sentinel of West Point and the Global Terrorism Monitor of the Jamestown Foundation. He has also worked with prominent American think tanks such as the United States Institute of Peace, the New America Foundation, Terror Free Tomorrow and Network 20/20, consulting and advising on Pakistani politics, society, governance, elections, social issues and media/communication. He has two master degrees in Journalism and political science from Peshawar University. He was a Jennings Randolph senior Fellow at the United States Institute for Peace 2009-10, a Yale World Fellow 2008 at Yale University and a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 2006-7. Ali is member of the young global leaders (YGL) program of the World Economic Forum. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Rodney W. Jones for his guidance and advice. I also want to thank Tayyab Ali Shah and Muhammad Ismail Khan for their help with this report. 2 United States-Pakistan Relations: Facing a Critical Juncture MAY 2012 REPORT Table of Contents 5 Introduction 7 2011: A Year of Change 9 United States-Pakistan Relations Toward the Post-9/11 Phase Obama’s War 12 Pressing Issues Anti-Americanism Drone Strikes 16 Regional Dynamics The End Game in Afghanistan Strategic Depth Dangerous Connections 22 The Players Washington’s Expectations Islamabad’s Grievances Regional Variables 28 Options Red Lines Talking to the Taliban Hard Options Election Season 35 Conclusion Recommendations for Washington Recommendations for Islamabad 3 4 United States-Pakistan Relations: Facing a Critical Juncture MAY 2012 REPORT Introduction ew would disagree that 2011 was a difficult year for the United States and Pakistan. The shaky relationship deteriorated rapidly over the past twelve months as a result of a series F A June 2011 Pew of incidents shortly after the American raid on the Pakistani compound that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 of last year. It has become a cliché to compare the rocky relationship Research poll to a bad marriage, one in which divorce is impossible yet both parties are forced to trudge along unhappily. Never smooth even during the best of times,1 the past year has brought showed that most the relationship to an all-time low. In a November 2011 CBS poll, a majority of Americans Pakistanis see the said that Pakistan is either unfriendly (39%) or an enemy (24%). Only 2% called it an ally.2 For their part, Pakistanis don’t see the relationship as any healthier. A June 2011 Pew Research United States as an poll showed that most Pakistanis see the United States as an enemy and a potential threat to their country’s security.3 This paper will address the tumultuous relationship between enemy and potential these two countries including recent turmoil, regional dynamics, often opposed agendas threat to their of each country, and options for rebuilding the relationship. country’s security. On the one hand, since joining hands in late 2001, Washington has been praising Islamabad for its commitment and sacrifice of more than 3,500 military personnel and as many as 35,000 Pakistani civilians in the “war on terror.” Last year, soon after the killing of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan, President Barack Obama said, “We have been able to kill more terrorists on Pakistani soil than just about anyplace else. We could not have done that without Pakistani cooperation.”4 On the other hand, American officials have suspected and often accused the Pakistani military of supporting militant groups, particularly the Afghan Taliban. Although Washington and Islamabad have never been on the same page since 9/11, both sides have always made an effort to maintain their ties. The two countries have longstanding historic and contemporary reasons for their paradoxical love-hate relationship5, but as of now the existing friction has largely been over strategic policy differences as regards Afghanistan.6 With bin Laden’s killing and al-Qaeda’s leadership greatly diminished by drone strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) 5 region, the United States’ highest priority is to develop an exit strategy so that it can The relationship withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014. To this end, the major challenge is the resilience of the Afghan Taliban, who have been fighting the American-led NATO and remains extremely Afghan forces for the past decade.7 Perhaps the most important source of tension is the fact that Pakistan is being accused of supporting Taliban groups. vital for both sides, though Evidently, Afghanistan’s end game is the major hurdle because both Islamabad and Washington have been pursuing quite different objectives. But it is not the only factor, perhaps more so for at times both countries pursue quite different strategic objectives that have no major overlapping mutual interests.8 for the United States because of There are other factors as well, such as Pakistan’s troubled relationship with India, the distribution of power within Pakistan’s civil-military divide (the military has supremacy its involvement over critical issues, including relations with Washington), and the recent emergence of an internal vibrant and mostly anti-American media. In addition, there are several new in neighboring realities: Washington’s assessment of Islamabad has changed since 9/11, it has down-scaled Afghanistan. its objectives in Afghanistan quite radically since the original Operation Enduring Freedom and first Bonn conference, and it has made mistakes in its Pakistani policy.9 Pakistan has also changed markedly in socioeconomic ways, not all of which are favorable to Washington. One of the most unfavorable ways has been the rapidly growing and widespread leverage of intolerant religious and sectarian groups such as the recent rise of Difa-e Pakistan Council (DPC) or the Defense Council of Pakistan – a group of more than 40 religious parties and Islamists—whose main focus is to prevent the Pakistani state from improving relations with the United States and India.10 Perhaps Washington has lost hope of a moderate Pakistan as American policy makers scratch their heads at how “ an ally and recipient of so much U.S aid- about $20 billion since 9/11, when military and civilian totals are calculated—can be so ungrateful and so uncooperative in what should be a common cause of eradicating terrorism.”11 Nevertheless, the relationship remains extremely vital for both sides, though perhaps more so for the United States because of its involvement in neighboring Afghanistan. 6 United States-Pakistan Relations: Facing a Critical Juncture MAY 2012 REPORT 2011: A Year of Change n the words of Washington-based Pakistani journalist Anwar Iqbal, “the year 2011 was like 2001—a Igame changer,” for it exposed the fragile nature of the relationship. He compares the two years by stating that “while the September 11, 2001 terrorists’ attacks brought Pakistan back into the game, events happening in 2011 are pushing [the country] out.”12 These driving events are described briefly below: • On January 27, 2011, CIA contractor Raymond Davis was arrested in Lahore for killing two Pakistanis. Some media reports said these men were robbers; other suggested they were Pakistani intelligence operatives who had been chasing Davis. The resulting diplomatic heat exposed the bilateral discord and suggested a war of spies.13 The trial became a hot show in Pakistan, which rejected the option of diplomatic immunity. So intense was the “Davis affair” that Obama had to intervene by publicly remarking that Davis enjoyed diplomatic immunity. He was later released after paying compensation (blood money) to the victims’ family. • In May 2011, a Special Operations team of United States Navy Seals conducted a unilateral operation against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad that put Pakistan in an untenable position. Despite Islamabad’s persistent denials that bin Laden was in the country, he was found in a house in a garrison town. For Washington, the next puzzle to solve was the nature of Pakistan’s military “understanding” with bin Laden. Either the military was complicit in harboring the world’s most-wanted terrorist, or it was somehow so incompetent that it could not discover him in the neighborhood of its training academy.14 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ruled out any evidence showing complicity of top-level Pakistani military or government officials.15 The resulting night-time military operation, which was perceived as a clear violation of Pakistani sovereignty, further deteriorated relations and fueled anti-Americanism.