Nato, no-tow, knowtow

Courtesy:- Mohammad Malick
March 16, 2012


  To open or not to open – that is the question. Parliament is all set to discuss and decide the issue of the reopening of Nato supply routes, which were shut down in the wake of the Salala massacre. While the executive buck is being passed on to parliament for cosmetic purposes – praised be the citadel of democracy – the expected resumption of business as usual, sanctioned by the army as usual, has already begun albeit in the guise of humane considerations.

According to the official version, only stuck up ‘food supplies’ are being allowed passage into Afghanistan but since the containers are immune from inspection by local authorities, they could be carrying food for the soldiers as well as fodder for their guns. The sheer number of ‘food containers’ also suggests a sudden massive increase in the appetites of Natotroops. But who cares.

Twenty-four soldiers and army officers lost their lives at Salala and we saw the army chief and his brothers in uniform hit the roof in indignation. Yanks were yanked out of the ally equation. The civilians were told to put lead in their pants, just like Gen Ziaul Haq had told Junejo during the Geneva parlays, and to take a tough ‘nationalistic’ stand. And they did. But all along the intelligence services of both countries remained engaged, betraying the compulsion of having to working together even under such unusual circumstances. Barring the momentary understandable cooling of passions, the two never really broke up in the real sense of the word – a fact also ceded by Islamabad-based relevant American functionaries.

Imran Khan’s promised dharna and the violent threats of the mysteriously born Pakistan Defence Council notwithstanding, it is a given that supply routes shall be ‘officially’ reopened in the coming days. For public consumption, the negotiated reopening will also surely have perceptible gains forced out of the Americans by Islamabad. The time has come however to move beyond the stage of having an event-based engagement process and instead carve out a sustainable strategic long-term relationship with the US. But this will depend as much on Washington’s acceptance of certain ground realities as on Pakistan’s ability to drive home priorities pertaining to its ‘legitimate’ national interests.

So much has happened but unfortunately the US is either unable to ‘get it,’ to use the Americans’ own favourite phrase, or is deliberately refusing to. US functionaries appear convinced that the delay in the resumption of Nato supplies is not because of a deliberate, message being sent jointly by Islamabad and Rawalpindi but simply the accumulative consequence of various local political and legal developments such as the prime minister’s indictment in the contempt case, the memo affair, the 20th amendment, senate elections and so on. Talking to the Americans, one gets the impression that they believe that the pause is not a signal to back off.

They couldn’t be more wrong in their basic analytical assumption.

The US must ‘get it’ that the cessation and the continued delay is not a consequential event but a deliberate, targeted message. The stunningly stern reaction was against the grain of our typically pliant civil and military establishments and therefore responsible compelling factors must not be ignored by the US. It may have happened for the first time but it may not be for the last, if misunderstood and dismissed as a transient phenomenon.

In this context, the Pak-Iran gas pipeline attains critical importance. If any one factor has the potential to derail future US-Pakistan relations, this is it. It needs to be contained before it implodes. For starters, the US must stop looking at Pakistan through the Afghan and Iran prisms. A relationship based on if-you-don’t-do-this-in-Afghanistan and if-you-do-this-in-Iran will no longer do. Instead of giving ultimatums, as Hillary Clinton served on the pipeline project, the US must offer viable alternatives. It must come up with legitimate alternatives addressing Pakistan’s legitimate energy needs; otherwise things will simply not work out.

On the quiet, the US has been suggesting quite a few alternatives to Islamabad on the gas pipeline project such as establishing CNG terminals in Karachi, a heavier reliance on LNG etc., and heavens forbid, telling the government to jack up tariffs in an election year. No targeted priority spending or short-term quick fix for Pakistan’s crippling energy woes here. On the other hand, the Iranians are offering to pick the entire tab for the project on deferred payment basis and get the gas going within months. Which side Pakistan will lean on should not be that difficult a guess.

Question number 2: Will the US risk its entire Afghan-war scenario by ‘punishing’ Pakistan for going ahead with the Iran gas pipeline as suggested by Hillary Clinton in her recent comments? Highly unlikely, even though US officials tacitly point out to the fact that despite seemingly not going ahead with their Pressler Amendment threat for years, they finally did and in a similar vein would not want Pakistan to underestimate their resolve in this instance as well.

Without underestimating Washington’s resolve or its own pressing compulsions, it however needs to be told that the prevalent circumstances are altogether different. Making Pak-US relations cogent upon the US-Iran equation would be a recipe for disaster in US plans for Afghanistan. The US has the option to leave Afghanistan or ignore Iran; Pakistan has neither. Pakistan is looking at the pipeline not as some political, symbolic gesture of defiance but as a pure, quickest possible solution to its energy crisis. Pakistan must secure implementable commitments from the US vis-à-vis any possible reaction on the pipeline project by linking them to the reopening of Nato routes and could also link its own committed role in Afghanistan and the overall war on terror to the US keeping its promises on the project.

The Pak-US dialogue needs to be brought back to the strategic status from the current tactical engagement at the military and diplomatic levels. And it is equally important that while remaining cognizant of the larger picture involving other regional and global developments, it must essentially be treated as a bilateral arrangement. Pakistan may not be big enough to influence the global plans of the US but neither is it small enough for the US to ignore in the execution of its strategy for this region.

It is believed that the report compiled by the parliamentary committee on national security is not loaded with bellicose rhetoric but has made a decent and realistic assessment of ground realities, which will spawn a whole series of issues out of the basic issue of Nato supply routes.

For instance issues like reigning in or talking to the Haqqani faction, Pakistan facilitating and supporting the dialogue process (both inside Afghanistan and Qatar), tagging of fertiliser etc used in IED manufacturing to name a few, will come up, warranting exhaustive introspection and ultimate mutually acceptable agreements between the two sides. And the point does not appear to be lost on the Americans either. In private exchanges, US functionaries cede the importance of reconciliation and there is talk of even reconstituting the US-Afghan-Pak trilateral group. The realisation is there that old divisive issues need to be repositioned. That Washington needs to work closely with both the military establishment and the civilian setup. So far, Pakistan’s assessments on the Afghan conflict have proven the correct way more often than those of Langley or Washington and its time egos are abandoned in favour of realism.

For its part, Pakistan needs to come cleaner than has been the case in the past. Holding its cards close to the chest is one thing, being duplicitous another. Washington must be honestly and logically told what is doable, and why, under our short-term obligations as a US ally and our own long-term national interest. What is needed here is a convergence of interests – not necessarily a consensus of views. And that is doable.