The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is reported to have said last Sunday on the sidelines of the Tokyo conference on Afghanistan that the US and Pakistan “are both encouraged that we have been able to put the recent difficulties behind us so we can focus on the many challenges ahead.”
Yes, the “difficulty” with regard to the movement for Nato supplies has been removed. But has there been any change in the way the two estranged countries view each other?
P.J. Crowley, a former US Assistant Secretary of State, recently told the BBC: “Both parties have something they want - a working relationship,” adding that, “there is so little trust and transparency on both sides - two essential ingredients to creating such a relationship.”
Referring to how the US carried out the Abbottabad operation without even informing Pakistan and how Pakistan reacted inter alia by rushing to clamp a conviction on Dr Shakil Afridi, Crowley emphasised the point that while the two countries have overlapping interests, they have “dramatically different views of the threat”, they face.
How can trust be nurtured if there is no meeting of the minds and no transparency?
There is need to analyse and understand clearly the nature of their highly complex relationship. The image of Pakistan in the USA is negative and so is the USA viewed in Pakistan. Both need each other, but their behaviour hinders rather than helps. There are long lists of acts of omission and commission on both sides. Pakistan is dubbed as “the most dangerous country in the world.” It provides not only sanctuaries to Afghan militants, who cross the border to attack Kabul and Nato vital points (and kill Americans), but actually extends help these elements. Some of the Congressmen have gone to the length of calling Pakistan an “enemy” state. There are frequent moves to introduce legislation to stop aid to Pakistan. The most recent development is the initiative to declare the Haqqani group a “terrorist organisation” and thus prepare the ground for proceeding against Pakistan for harbouring such undesirable and menacing elements. One may here also recall US Defence Secretary Panetta’s sharp utterances while visiting Delhi where inter alia he said: “The US is fighting a war in Fata.”
I need not dilate on Pakistan’s grievances against the USA. Just mentioning Raymond Davis, Abbottabad and Salala is enough to make the point. Also, as Shuja Nawaz, Director of the South Asia Centre at the (US) Atlantic Council – a prestigious think-tank, put it, in an article, the other day, Pakistan’s experience with USA makes it consider Washington as “a fickle and a mercurial master.”
How to explain the near policy paralysis, which gripped Pakistan after November 26 when our soldiers were blatantly killed by the America-led Nato helicopters. We wasted seven-long months to resolve the stalemate. While a Congressmen, the State Department and senior American military officers kept coming to Pakistan and meeting our top civilian and armed forces decision makers, there was correspondingly little done to send delegations consisting of our leading MNAs and Senators and specialists to the USA to meet their counterparts, media and think-tanks. We left everything to a protocol-bound Embassy in Washington where a beleaguered Ambassador had to be replaced by a political appointee.
Our attitude during this period remained ambivalent - a cross between defiance and inactivity. We refused to go to Bonn. We were keen to be present at Chicago where we were given a cold shoulder. We botched an opportunity in February to secure an “apology”. We put forward unacceptable terms for the charges for the Nato containers passing through Pakistan. We let attitudes and feelings harden in Washington. We let air transport of supplies to Afghanistan continue. And we kept seeing drones hitting targets in Fata and killing Pakistanis. We found escalation in raids from Afghanistan and atrocious killing of our troops in the Fata territories.
Our Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, according to a report, is to visit Washington soon to engage the authorities in Washington for resetting our relations with the US, starting with an agreed written document clearly lying down terms of the recent accord. (Musharraf’s acceptance of American dictats is said to be mostly verbal.)
But are we clear as to what exactly we are to talk about? As Ayesha Jalal wrote in a recent article, after the July 4 understanding that she describes as “a belated exercise in damage control”, a host of “contentious issues” remain unaddressed. Shuja Nawaz too has drawn attention to the dire need of dealing with the crucial question of “mistrust” that exists on both sides. He says that there is also lack of clarity in regard to the “clearly defined goals on both sides.” While Pakistan wants a strategic relationship which safeguards its interests in Afghanistan, the US wants Pakistan to act as “a compliant ally.” Shuja further refers to “lack of a centre of gravity to decision making on either side.” Often one sees Pentagon and State Department in the USA differing in their approaches to various matters of high import. The case of State Department suggesting to White House to “apologise”, soon after Salala and Pentagon succeeding in staling it readily comes to mind.
In Pakistan, the army has been calling the shots on foreign and defence policies. Although the civil authorities backed by USA have been increasingly assertive of their viewpoints. The hot potato after Salala, was passed on to Parliament, which came up with an uncompromising set of conditions.
To conclude the column, the time has come for Pakistani rulers to thoroughly examine the changing world scenario, fully grasp what the long-term objectives of the US are in Afghanistan, and what America, Afghanistan and India are up to (in the light of the strategic pacts between US and India, US and Afghanistan and Afghanistan and India). How Russia, China, Iran and the Central Asian States are viewing the Afghan situation and relating themselves to the endgame is important as well.
Add to it, the American insistence that Pakistan undertakes a military operation against the Haqqanis, as well as increasing lethal incursions from across the Afghan border. These are, indeed, matters of highest importance. There is also the problem of covert American special forces operating in Pakistan. How is Pakistan to address the fact that the USA has decided to stay on in Afghanistan after 2014 in pursuance of its interests and goals in the region? And finally, how is Pakistan to relate itself to the regional powers, especially India (which too has chosen to do another turn of the screw capitalising on Abu Jandal’s disclosures)?
All this taken together makes for an exceedingly tough task for the Islamabad helmsmen. Do, however, they have the will, capacity, resources and imagination to understand the complexity of the challenges faced by them and the sagacity to arrive at a national consensus on the outline of a policy and the contours of a workable strategy?
Can a besieged divided, tainted and vulnerable government rise to undertake, even partially, the formidable tasks spelt out above?
Good luck Madam Khar!

    The writer is an ex-federal secretary and ambassador, and political and international relations analyst.
    Email: pacade@brain.net.pk