The trajectory of Pakistan-US relations has never run smooth. It is a relationship that has seen constant crests and troughs. The bilateral ties are described often as transactional, with deep-rooted antipathy and mistrust.

The last brief period of mutual bonhomie came when former army chief and president General Pervez Musharraf joined the ‘war against terrorism.’ Gen Musharraf remained an ‘indispensable ally’ before being spurned as a pariah. The differences between Pakistan and the US grew wider as the war in Afghanistan dragged on.

Signs are that the bilateral relationship is going for another downhill slide. Americans have long complained that Pakistan has not exerted enough pressure on the Taliban to reduce violence inside Afghanistan. The cacophony of complaints is likely to get louder.

In many ways, the essential differences over how to deal with the Afghan conundrum have remained the same. The feeling in Islamabad is that Pakistani advice was never taken seriously by the Americans. The concern of the Pakistani establishment about the Indian footprint in Afghanistan was shrugged off soon after 9/11.

In subsequent years, the strategic partnership between the US and India only grew stronger and crystallised in the terms of greater cooperation while Pakistan continued to be viewed with suspicion and a latent hostility.

Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani held extensive and intensive interactions with US officials during the course of his tenure as he urged the Americans to focus on stabilising Afghanistan.

Within the American establishment however, competing and at times, parallel policy priorities and preferences made that goal elusive. Pakistan playing a double-game remained a constant chorus of allegations, vehemently denied by officials here.

Now, after 20 years of a failed effort at nation-building, the US has finally left Afghanistan. But the hasty withdrawal, without a political settlement brokered by the US between the Kabul regime and the Taliban, has left the region uncertain and fraught with dangers.

Pakistan, being the immediate neighbour, has stakes in peace in Afghanistan. The concerns here remain high about a civil war that will spill over into Pakistan and throw the country into another period of tumult.

Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa is acutely aware that Pakistan needs political and economic stability to increase standing in the world. In fact, economic stability has been one of the core themes of Gen Bajwa’s vision for the country’s progress and prosperity.

To achieve this aim, the country needs internal stability and officials say that a conscious decision was made under Gen Bajwa that no militant armed group will be allowed to operate. Within the last few years, Pakistan has made substantive efforts to go after local militant groups.

The Afghan Taliban, however, pose a much more complicated and tricky problem. They have managed to make deep inroads in some urban centres, their sympathisers operate legitimate businesses and a large number of Pakistanis feel a religious based affinity.

Officials say that the Afghan refugee camps, fortified over the last thirty years, act as sanctuaries where any armed action by the Pakistani forces can lead to serious security implications. The vast numbers of madrassas spread across the country remain filled with Taliban sympathisers.
The Taliban leadership—political based in Doha, military inside Afghanistan—feels it has the upper hand. Buttressed by the tacit support of China, Iran and Russia, the Taliban feel their time has finally arrived. They remain reluctant of power-sharing with the other Afghan groups. Even if they agree to any such formula, their demand is of the lion’s share, unacceptable to the detractors.

Officials here assert that Pakistan's limited leverage over the Taliban has further diminished after the US withdrawal.  

Pakistan, officials say, has been trying for a negotiated, all-inclusive political settlement but Afghan history is marked by lack of power-sharing. Meanwhile, the Taliban are making rapid advances on the ground.

The Kabul regime has concentrated itself in some major cities and plans to check Taliban advances on these fronts. But as the rest of the country falls to the Taliban, the sense of vulnerability of anti-Taliban forces grows exponentially.

Pakistani leaders are tightlipped on their course of action if Kabul eventually falls to the Taliban. Pakistan, however, unlike in the past, does not want to be seen as the sole supporter of the Taliban, like in the 1990s.

Pakistan is also making efforts to make the Taliban realise that even if they take Kabul by force, running the country without global support would remain unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the country’s leadership thinks it can come under renewed pressure from the United States as frustration and anger over the Afghan failure of twenty years mounts in Washington DC. Pakistan seeks greater investment and trading ties with the US but it is still viewed only under the Afghan lens.
The feeling in Islamabad is that the country has done all it could to sway the Taliban. Going any further would lead to a serious blow back. The country simply cannot afford another war inside its borders.