Opinion Gamble on Pak,not Af

Partnership with the Americans also has a peculiar political dynamic. They want your assistance,but you have virtually no say in shaping the political context of that assistance. The United States has not made any ally a serious partner in shaping the political strategies for its interventions. Let us suppose that we have different ideas on which groups to possibly negotiate with in Afghanistan. Will our positions carry any political weight? Any entanglement with the American project will be an asymmetric political relationship; we will be defined by the context the Americans impose.

Just at the moment of the troop surge,there is also news of the expansion of drone operations inside Pakistan. Almost nothing has created as much resentment against the Americans. If the Taliban are squeezed more towards Pakistani areas,the Americans will continue to rely on air operations,rather than boots on the ground,to secure Pakistan. There is truth in Pakistan’s anxiety that all that the troop surge will do is shift the centre of battle,putting enormous pressure on Pakistan. We also have to recognise that no military,especially an ethnically heterogeneous one,finds it easy to wage war on its own territory,against its own people. Pakistan is right to not relish the prospect of having to pick up even more of the pieces of the collateral damage the American strategy in Afghanistan will impose upon it.

From our security standpoint Pakistan is more important than Afghanistan. Even Afghan groups that act against us operate via Pakistan. If the net effect of the American intervention in Afghanistan and the drone strikes in Pakistan is to make Pakistan potentially more unstable,we will be more vulnerable. Pakistan’s elites have engaged in unconscionably self-serving behaviour,and their strategy on India has been culpably violent. But one aspect of Pakistan’s narrative has a grain of truth. One source of Pakistan’s problems is that it has been consistently doing the West’s bidding in Afghanistan. It had to take in more than three million refugees as a result,with all the attendant destabilising consequences. It looks like the Afghan war is going to destabilise Pakistan even further.

We have to be measured in our choice of commitments in Afghanistan. What we should hope for,and aid as much as we can,is a real awakening in Pakistan’s elites. If they do not fight their own battles and let American power use them,more disaster is going to follow. The pattern of American aid and largesse has been in a form that has strengthened the militarisation of their society. Pakistan’s political selfhood has been scarred by two humiliations: first,the Bangladesh war,for which it has engaged in slow long reprisal. And second,its peculiar relationship with America. Having allowed them in,Pakistan has felt caged. This is a relationship it cannot live with or throw off. The fusing of the Indian and American narratives of the region,rather than serving as a wake-up call,puts Pakistan under a greater sense of siege.

Nations under siege are even less likely to work through their domestic politics constructively. This is not a normative judgment,simply an analytical fact. The truth is that America is deeply unpopular and rightly seen as acting on pretexts more than real objectives. We should worry about what political options aligning with it will foreclose.

History has turned full circle. Pakistan has to recognise that the only reasonable way out for it is to do its best to reduce tensions with India. The odds of this happening may not be high. But they are no lower than the odds that American strategy will fix the region. India’s security concerns can also be only met by Pakistan,not American-led adventures in Afghanistan. But it will have to find a way of calling Pakistan to account on terrorism without humiliating it.

Manmohan Singh,following Vajpayee,has been right about one thing. With Pakistan we have no option but to keep trying. Our major security concerns are linked to it. Admittedly given the stakes that parts of the Pakistani establishment have in keeping the conflict going this may not be easy. But we have also been blindsided by the allure of a strategic partnership with the United States,risking more political and military entanglement than is wise. Instead of risking so much on an uncertain American venture in Afghanistan,we would be better risking more on Pakistan,if we knew how to engage with its public opinion without sounding patronising. It is a fantasy,but not one entirely out of bounds. What would be the effect on Pakistan public opinion,if instead of being forced to accept a billion and a half of development assistance with humiliating conditions from the United States,they had recourse to five billion or so of India’s forex reserves,with only one string attached?

The subcontinent has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This crisis can still be converted into one,if both India and Pakistan realise one truth: outside powers will complicate the politics of this region,not help solve it.

The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi

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