Friday, December 30, 2011

Pakistan's Win-Win Foreign Policy and I

US cant ‘do more’ to prevent collosal foreign policy failure in Pakistan

Posted on 29 December 2011.
 
English: 05/06/09 U.S.-Afghanistan-Pakistan Tr...Image via Wikipedia
The US faces an uncertain future in Pakistan–which will tremendously affect the war in Afghanistan and its future relationship with the Central Asia states. A curtailed presence in Pakistan is a colossal disaster, and a tremendous foreign policy failure of the Obama Administration. A seminal article written by Eric schmitt discussed the fact that we have been predicting for months. Schmit’s article is blared by the New York Times sensational headline “U.S. Prepares for a Curtailed Relationship With Pakistan”.
The Schmit narrative is a obvious reflection of the times which spells out that the “broad security partnership with Pakistan is over”:
  • The United States will be forced to restrict drone strikes.
  • It will have to limit the number of its spies and soldiers on the ground.
  • America will have to spend more to transport supplies through Pakistan to allied troops in Afghanistan
It is also abundantly clear that the Pakistan have discussed the pros and cons and are asking the US, not to give it aid. The Army has already turned down military aid, which is feels is counterproductive to national interests. The Civilian government will tighten belts by 3% which reflects the amount of aid that Pakistan receives. Pakistanis have found the “aid” to be too instrusive and it comes with too many strings. If the US had really wanted to assist the Pakistanis, it would have lowered the tariffs on US exports to Pakistan. It did not give Pakistan an FTA, nor did it creates the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs). Most of the aid was spent on US consultants, and the amount given to the NGOs was used against Pakistani interests (eg the Polio Drive used by the US intelligence services).
The US now faces the results of its failure in the Khyber, the diminution of its broad security partnership with Pakistan. Realistically, Washington official who were in denial are now scrambling to salvage a sliver of a “relationship” by trying to continue the counterterrorism alliance. The reduction of its footprint in Pakistan “will complicate their ability to launch attacks against extremists and move supplies into Afghanistan”.
American overreach led to the flooding of Pakistan with US operatives, and the purchase of some key Pakistani turncoats. The plan backfired and responsible elements of the government revolted against the intrusion. This is a seminal event that almost led to the fall of the presidency in Pakistan. The era of rampant spying in Pakistan is over. In a way the Post-911, Post-Bush structure which was put in place by Obama is in shambles. According to US press reports Pakistan has told the Americans very clearly “that they are re-evaluating the entire relationship.”
Schmit writes that “American officials say that the relationship will endure in some form, but that the contours will not be clear until Pakistan completes its wide-ranging review in the coming weeks”.
  • Shrugging off US pressure, Pakistan has geared up work on bilateral agreement with Iran including Pak-Iran gas pipeline.
  • Sources informed Wednesday that Pakistan has not backed from its trade agreement including gas pipeline project with Iran.
  • President Asif Ali Zardari also made it clear while addressing on the fourth death anniversary of his assassinated wife Benazir Bhutto that Pakistan would opt for trade with international community and would develop new trade blocks.
In recent months, it is clear that the relationship has suffered. However much of this is for public consumption.
  • Pakistan closed the supply routes into Afghanistan
  • Boycotted a conference in Germany on the future of Afghanistan and
  • Forced the United States to shut its drone operations at a base in southwestern Pakistan.
While NATO supplies were blocked by Pakistan, the US continues to ship arms and equipment to Afghanistan. While Shamsi base has been closed, Shahbaz and Dilbadin are still open and the US is using them.
“We feel like the U.S. treats Pakistan like a rainy-day girlfriend.”  Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
  • They said that developing of trade ties with Central Asian States including Turkmenistan and Afghanistan has recently attracted special attention in the foreign ministry…
  • Pakistan is also focusing on business relations with Russia and far eastern countries.
There are reports in the US press that Pakistan is coming down hard on CIA informations. According to the LA Times, the “Khorasan Mujahedin, scrawled across the back in Urdu.Pulling up in caravans of Toyota Corolla hatchbacks, dozens of them seal off mud-hut villages near the Afghan border, and then scour markets and homes in search of tribesmen they suspect of helping to identify targets for the armed U.S. drones that routinely buzz overhead”.
This will jeopardies US drone attacks.
Schmit is right when he says that “Whatever emerges will be a shadow of the sweeping strategic relationship that Richard C. Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, championed before his death a year ago. Officials from both countries filled more than a dozen committees to work on issues like health, the rule of law and economic development.
  • All of that has been abandoned and will most likely be replaced by a much narrower set of agreements on core priorities — countering terrorists, stabilizing Afghanistan and ensuring the safety of Pakistan’s arsenal of more than 100 nuclear weapons — that Pakistan will want spelled out in writing and agreed to in advance.
  • With American diplomats essentially waiting quietly and Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes on hold since Nov. 16 — the longest pause since 2008 — Pakistan’s government is drawing up what Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani called “red lines” for a new relationship that protects his country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
  • Said an American official: “Both countries recognize the benefits of partnering against common threats, but those must be balanced against national interests as well. The balancing is a continuous process.”
  • First, officials said, will likely be a series of step-by-step agreements on military cooperation, intelligence sharing and counterterrorism operations, including revamped “kill boxes,” the term for flight zones over Pakistan’s largely ungoverned borderlands where C.I.A. drones will be allowed to hunt a shrinking number of Al Qaeda leaders and other militants.
  • The C.I.A. has conducted 64 missile attacks in Pakistan using drones this year, compared with 117 last year and 53 in 2009, according to The Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks the strikes.
There are reports that there is open talk “about shooting down any American drones that violate Pakistani sovereignty”. According to the New York Times “The number of American military officers, enlisted troops and contractors in Pakistan has dropped to about 100, from about 400 more than a year ago, including scores of American trainers who have all been sent home. Pakistan is also restricting visas to dozens of other embassy personnel, from spies to aid workers”.
Western diplomats quoted in the NY Times story say that “It’s a fairly gloomy picture.”
Schmit claims that “The Obama administration is desperately trying to preserve the critical pieces of the relationship. General Dempsey asked the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in a phone call on Wednesday if the relationship could be repaired, a person briefed on the conversation said. General Kayani said that he thought it could, but that Pakistan needed some space”.
Nothing seems to be working. With Pakistan ready to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and with Iran, Russia and China insisting on the US evacuation from Afghanistan, it will be harder for the US to play the army against the civilian government. The Rawalpindi gendarmes have broken with the US, and nothing seems to bring them back to the US fold.
Many see Afghanistan collapsing into Pakistan “Against this backdrop of Afghanistan’s impending economic collapse, post-Isaf, and the unique set of challenges such a collapse will raise, Pakistani policymakers need to “re-imagine” the extant Pak-Afghan relations in a new light. Matter of fact, policymakers on both sides of the Durand Line might want to look up the achievements of Jean Monnet – one of the founding fathers of European Unity. Monnet rightly realised that sustained peace in Europe was improbable unless France and Germany could be brought together on a common platform of mutual economic interests.”
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4 Responses to “US cant ‘do more’ to prevent collosal foreign policy failure in Pakistan”

  1. Khalid bin Waleed says:
    US Aid is a deliberate tool used by US Admin. to blackmail the gangs in political parties and the army. Reminding them that never forget they are their slaves and must follow the lines of their forefathers the “Mirs”.The aid never reaches the poor Pakistanis and yet they have to return it with their blood for generations to come.
    This is not an alliance. Pakistan must get out of the slavery and identify and eliminate all the traitors and publicly display their heads on the streets of Pakistan.
    Hazrat Abdullah bin `Amr bin Al-`as (May Allah be pleased with them) reported: Messenger of Allah [SAWW](PBUH) said, “Successful is the one who enters the fold of Islam and is provided with sustenance which is sufficient for his day’s needs, and Allah makes him content with what He has bestowed upon him.”[Muslim Book 005, Chapter 40: Hadith # 2293].
  2. Dr abdul jamil khan says:
    INDIA ,a Pakistan’s trump and american nightmare.
    Biggest nightmare USA has faced is to get india attack and dismember pakistan. They realised that Pakistan’s sworn enemy will not do this as it will be suicidal end of hindu dominated india;A muslim dominated hindustan will become a reality–a most hated scenario for any hindu indian.SO all that ” alliance of democracy” talks or ” natural strategic brother hood” delusion were plain simple hogwash.
    Pakistani mandarin know this dam well though ‘ indo phobia’ is played on the street for common man. USA now realizing the reality is under corrective policy change. western media too is foolishly naive abt it.
    Real peace is very much on the cards.Pakistan will get much more attention/aid as tempers cool. Afgh-pak will be twins in real sense;India will love to solve Kashmir to cut its major losses and get access to west via pakistan.
    It is not obama’s failure but USA’s biparisan nightmare; nothing can correct it. USA sees it limit here.
    • Akhbar Navees says:
      Bharat cannot attack Pakistan. Mutually assured destruction confirms it.
      AfPak are twins and one country. This is Bharat’s nightmare, and the result of 1971
    • alansaralhaq says:
      Dr Sahib,
      Nonsense.
      India tried its hardest to destroy Pakistan who are you kidding.
  3. Sid Harth says:
    Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    Rather lengthy article, mostly, based upon, one man’s views, Eric Schmidt of NYT, followed by whispers and unsupported evidence does not make this article any better than, less is more, simple observation, without the added load of rumors and past references to European unity problems.
    I suggest, Pakistan, offloads their master, USA, Preferably in the Arabian sea, mostly in the Gulf of Hormuz. That way, Iran does not have to sink their own flotilla at that narrow waterway. Iran has openly challenged America and their NATO co-conspirators with more and stricter sanction over Iran’s civil nuclear research.
    Iran has no use for any (Atom) bombs. They can, whenever Pakistan’s internal and external problems overwhelm Yousuf Raza Gilani’s government, borrow few, maybe more than few to bury Satan of the West at sea.
    Pakistan, on the other hand, may allow Iran’s clandestine (nuclear) research facilities located within her national boundaries, with heavy rent, to be paid in gold, Oops, black gold.
    It is a win-win solution. Iran gets (nuclear) bombs and Pakistan gets Bombay, Kolkata, New delhi and Kashmir, Oops, IOK. OK?
    …and I am Sid Harth@arabuhuru.org

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