09 pakistan riedel

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presidents karzai, obama,

and zardari at the white

house, may 2009.


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war

by bruce riedel

if the u.s. wants out of afghanistan,

it must turn things around with pakistan.

an uneasy alliance

pakistanis are used to being dis-

appointed and betrayed by America.

For 63 years, the relationship betweenthe U.S. and Pakistan has oscillated

between periods o intense, close alli-

ance usually revolving around large,

secret projects and periods o intense,

angry animosity centering on sanctions

and abandonment. Pakistanis who

value democracy are even more used todisappointment and betrayal. Washing-

ton has allen in love with every Paki-

stani military dictator, and done little to

help elected civilian governments cope

with the countrys enormous problems.

Now that U.S. President Barack

Obama has set July 2011 as the target date

or drawing down American orces inAghanistan, Pakistanis ear abandon-

ment is in the works yet again. No one

knows what will happen next year, but

Obama will probably not walk away romeither Pakistan or Aghanistan. He will,

hopeully, broaden engagement instead.

The Pew Research Center survey

released in June shows only 17 per-

cent o Pakistanis view the U.S. avor-

ably and just 7 percent want U.S. and

NATO troops to maintain presence in

neighboring Aghanistan. Poll ater poll

shows Pakistanis do not believe Amer-

ica is a reliable ally. They are right. Forover six decades, the U.S. has had a love-

hate relationship with Pakistan.

In the 1950s and 1960s Pakistan was

a most allied ally, belonging to Com-

munist-bulwarks the South East Asia

Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Cen-

tral Treaty Organization (CENTO) and

hosting U-2 ights over Russia. Presi-

dents John F. Kennedy and Richard

M. Nixon both adored Pakistans rst

military rulers. Kennedy eted Gen.

Ayub Khan at the exclusive Mount Ver-non retreat, American ounding ather

George Washingtons manor home.

And Nixon tilted toward Gen. Yahya

Khan during wartime in 1971 when

East Pakistan broke away with Indian

intervention to become Bangladesh.

President Ronald Regan supported

Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. President George W.

Bush was entranced by Gen. Pervez

Musharra and stuck with him long

ater the Pakistani people had made it

clear they wanted democracy.But this did not mean the U.S. was

not averse to walking out on its partner.

The rst instance came in 1965, when

the rst Pakistan-India war broke out,

and again in 1977, when the democrat-

ically-elected government o Zulkar

Ali Bhutto was ousted in a military

coup. Another estrangement came in

1990. With the Soviets gone rom Kabul,

America gave up on Aghanistan and

Pakistan. A. Q. Khans bomb urther

roiled relations. Aid to Islamabad was

cut o in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush invoking the Pressler Amend-

ment, which made military and eco-

nomic assistance to Pakistan subject

to the U.S. president certiying to Con-

gress each year that Pakistan did not

possess the bomb. President Bill Clinton

tilted America toward India, amously

spending ve days there and ve hours

in Pakistan in 2000.Obama, a critic o the junior Bushs

embrace o Musharra, promised in his

presidential campaign to wage the war

in Aghanistan relentlessly, saying that

he would go ater Al Qaeda in Paki-stan. Obama has stepped up unmanned

aerial drone strikes in Pakistan which

have proven more eective than they

did under Bush, partly because Paki-

stan is providing more target inorma-

tion. But doubts persist in Pakistan

whether Obama is in or the long haul.Those doubts are strongest in Rawal-

pindi, home to Pakistans Army, which

has the least condence in America o

any institution. It has repeatedly relied

on U.S. weaponry to ght its wars and

ound arms supplies cut o when most

needed. In the last decade, dozens oAmerican politicians and generals have

promised to help Pakistan ght the mili-

tancy but Islamabad has gotten ar less

than it said it required to wage war. Pak-

istans doubts are understandable.


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But this time America has a big-

ger stake than ever in the stability o

Pakistan and Aghanistan. Obama has

rightly called the borderlands between

the two countries the most danger-ous place in the world or American

interests today. It is the epicenter o

the global jihadist movement centered

around Al Qaeda that still sends terror-

ists to New York City to blow up subway

trains and Times Square. As long as

that threat remains acute, America has

a vital national interest in helping Paki-

stanis, and Aghans, disrupt, dismantleand deeat the syndicate o terror that

operates in their countries.

In the best case a year rom now,Obamas strategy will show signs o

modest success. In Aghanistan, the

momentum o the Taliban insurgency

will be broken, Kandahar will be a

somewhat saer place and perhaps parts

o the insurgency will be open to politi-

cal dialogue with the government led by

Aghan President Hamid Karzai. But

it remains to be seen i the Taliban or

some part o them are interested in rec-

onciliation once they know they are not

on the path to the inevitable victory they

are expecting. In Pakistan, the Taliban

will be on the deensive as well and Al

Qaeda will be urther degraded.

I that is the caseand it is a big

ithen the U.S. and NATO can beginthe long process o gradually handing

over more control to Aghan nationalsecurity orces. This process will take

years and even when accomplished will

require substantial residual presence

rom NATO to provide intelligence and

nancial support to the Aghans.

America will also need to be Paki-

stans partner during the process. One

crucial lesson o the last three decades is

that stability in Aghanistan and Paki-

stan are interlocked. Chaos on one sideo the Durand Line, the international

border drawn almost arbitrarily by the

British, begets chaos on the other. The

jihadist Frankenstein cannot be eec-tively ought with partial measures on

one side only or with a strategy that

ocuses on the short term. Thus the

Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation Obama

signed last year to triple nonmilitary aid

to Pakistan commits Congress to main-

taining that level or at least ve years.

I the situation a year rom now is

not moving in the right direction, then

Obama will ace the same tough options

he has looked at since his inauguration

in January 2009. He knows he cant cut

and run. That would give Al Qaeda aworld-changing victory, threaten the

stability o Aghanistan and Pakistan

as well as Central and South Asia, and

vastly increase the threat to the Ameri-

can homeland rom a larger, re-ener-

gized terrorist base.

So the alternative option will be to

trim down NATO presence in Aghani-stan and ocus on a smaller counterter-

rorist mission. U.S. Vice President Joe

Biden has been associated in the press

with this approach although he says heis rmly onboard with Obamas bomb-

and-build Counter Insurgency (COIN)

strategy. But this option still requires

America to have a signicant military

presence in Aghanistan and a robust

relationship with Pakistan.

In practice this option could be best

described as Fortress Kabul. NATO

would concede much o the south and

east o Aghanistan to the insurgents

but would maintain a large base, or

bases, in the north to wage attacks by

general terms

(from left) johnson, ayub khan and

kennedy at the white house, 1961;

nixon and yahya khan in lahore, 1969;

reagan and haq in washington, 1982.


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obama should declare

freer trade with pakistan a

national security imperative.

unmanned drones and Special Forces

on Al Qaeda and afliated terrorists

to try to keep them o balance. Rather

than shortening the time rame or a

complete American and NATO with-drawal rom Aghanistan, it would

lengthen it. We would be committed to

an open-ended containment approach

to ghting terrorism with little hope o

destroying the terrorist nest. The coun-

terterrorism-ocused strategy accepts

living in an Aghan quagmire or years.

This would make a robust relation-

ship with Islamabad all the more critical

as the U.S. containment strategy would

require even more drone attacks in

Pakistan to try and disrupt terror plots.

The tension between the two would be

a challenge or both Washington and

Islamabad to manage. While one can

hope that Gen. David H. Petraeus, com-

mander o U.S. troops in Aghanistan

since June, delivers the best outcome,

there are several things America cando now to help strengthen Pakistans

young democracy.

Following through on commitments

already made is crucial. It is time

to get Pakistan the helicoptersand other military equipment it

needs. The economic assistance

promised in the Kerry-Lugar

Bill, now the Enhanced Part-

nership with Pakistan Act o

2009, should be concentrated

on some visible inrastructureprojects in highway construc-

tion and power plants so Pakistanis can

see the U.S. is serious. Some $60 million

rom this aid is being routed to assist

Pakistans ood victims. Americas tar-

is can be adjusted so that more Paki-

stani textiles are sold in the U.S. EveryAmerican think tank that has studied

the Pakistani economy has concluded

that trade will do more than aid. Obama

should declare reer trade with Pakistan

a national security imperative.

The U.S. president will also have a

unique opportunity in November, whenhe visits India, to nudge along dialogue

between Islamabad and New Delhi.

Obama has wisely kept his public pro-le on this issue low, and he should keep

it there, but behind the scenes there

is every reason to encourage Indian

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and

Congress Party chie Sonia Gandhi to

do what they already know is in Indias

own interest: reduce tensions with Pak-

istan, open communications links, and

stimulate cross-border trade. Progress

on this track is the game changer or the

better in South Asia.

Obama will need help rom Islamabadon the critical issue o Lashkar-e-Taiba

to move New Delhi. Taiba, the outlawed

jihadist organization that continues

to operate in Pakistan under assumed

names and which is linked to the Mum-

bai attacks o November 2008, is the

ticking time bomb that could wreck the

nascent U.S.-Pakistan partnership, and

take the subcontinent to disaster. Thanks

to Taiba henchman, Pakistani-American

David Headleys extraordinary cones-

sions, we now know how thoroughly


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Taiba planned the Mumbai attacks and

how closely linked it is to Al Qaeda. There

is no excuse or not pursuing a more

robust crackdown on Taiba and its ront

organizations. So ar only good counter-

terrorism cooperation with India andothers has prevented Taiba rom striking

in Denmark and Bangladesh. Another

Mumbai would be the game changer or

worse or the U.S. and Pakistan.

America has pursued its short-term

gains at the expense o Pakistan, whose

civil institutions crumbled and whose

civil-military ties became unbalanced. In

the 21st century, Pakistan will be one othe giants o Asia, not as big as China or

India, but a major player whose actions

will aect every major global issue. Pak-istan can become an economic tiger that

lits tens o millions rom poverty and it

can become a unctioning democracy.

Americas new vision or Pakistan

should be based on what the people o

Pakistan want. One way to help Paki-

stan is to provide an automatic $1 bil-

lion in extra aid each year that the

U.S. president can afrm Pakistan is a

democracy. This was proposed in the

original Kerry-Lugar legislation. Paki-

stans inclusion in the summit on secur-

by the numbers

color of

moneyPakistans importance to the U.S. can begauged rom the military and economic

assistance it has received over the years.

Most aid has fowed in during periods

o military rule in Pakistan. Heres the

rundown:

10.8billion dollars during the period 1950-

1979, which covers the military rule

o Gen. Ayub Khan and his successor

Gen. Yahya Khan

5.0billion dollars rom 1979-1990,

coinciding with Gen. Zia-ul-Haqs rule

and the Aghan jihad against Soviet

occupation

0.4billion dollars came rom 1991-2000,

during which time Benazir Bhutto and

Nawaz Shari both led two civilian

governments each

12.6billion dollars rom 2001-2009 on the

watch o Gen. Pervez Musharra, a

central fgure in the war on terror

7.5billion dollars or nonmilitary pur-

poses expected to come rom the

Kerry-Lugar legislation over fve years

constitutional

musharraf and bush on the

grounds of the presidential palace,

islamabad, march 2006.

f

rom

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ing nuclear weapons rom terrorism

was a good start. The U.S. should also

invite Pakistan to sit at the high table

or world summits on issues like cli-

mate change. I Pakistan is treated like

a global player, it will perorm more byglobal rules.

In the end only Pakistanis can decide

their uture. In the last couple o years

the Pakistani people have rejected

military rule and rewritten their Con-

stitution. They ought or democracy

without Americas help using the power

o civil society. Now they are ghting

the jihadist problem they helped to cre-ate over many decades (with our help

in the beginning) and need American

support. America and Pakistan needconstancy and consistency in their part-

nership. We have had enough highs and

lows. What we need now is a sustain-

able partnership. We will have honest

disagreements but we both need to rec-

ognize that we need each other. No more

estrangements, no more dictators: just

two democracies working together.

riedel is a Senior Fellow at the Saban

Center in theBrookings Institute, a think-

tank in Washington, D.C., and a former

09 pakistan riedel

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