Testimony of Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum
Scholar-in-Residence, Middle East Institute
March 21, 2007
Hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
The United States and Pakistan: Toward Strengthening a Troubled Partnership
The U.S.'s strategic partnership with Pakistan is in a troubled state.
Neither country is at ease with the current relationship. Both operate with misperceptions and retain unrealistic expectations. Mutual suspicions have increased among senior officials, as have negative public images in both countries. Yet forging a more cooperative relationship is timely and critical to efforts by the U.S. to secure Afghanistan against a mounting insurgency and confront global terrorist threats from the region. Also at stake is our ability to ensure against nuclear proliferation and major conflict on the subcontinent, and to promote a stable democratic Pakistan.
Recent strains in relations grow from evidence that Al Qaeda has managed to reconstitute an organizational presence in the border areas with Afghanistan and that the Afghan Taliban plan a massive spring offensive. Many hold the Islamabad government accountable for failure to check Taliban recruitment, training and financing. With the signing of the North Waziristan agreement, there are fears that control over this tribal agency and elsewhere along the Afghan border has been ceded to extremist elements supporting the insurgency.
At the same time, Pakistan's intelligence services are known to have cooperated closely with the U.S., notably in apprehending several major Al-Qaeda and Taliban figures. The Islamabad government also points to the many thousand Pakistani troops still present in the border areas and the heavy sacrifices incurred in military operations that began in 2003. Pakistan's in fact limited success in counter insurgency is usually explained in terms of insufficient capacity. Yet its contributions to the region's counter-terrorism efforts also seem inconsistent, incomplete, and at times, insincere.
Our policy has been similarly confusing: lavishing praise on President Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation on terrorism while also pressing him to act more aggressively. We regularly commend Musharraf for publicly aligning his country with our strategic aims, for his appeals for Islamic moderation, and for his conciliatory overtures toward India. Our continuing military and economic assistance serves as reward for cooperation. Any criticisms are carefully balanced with favorable comments so as to avoid undermining Musharraf, especially with his own military. Increasingly, however, there is impatience with what appears to be Pakistan's very selective coercion against Afghan insurgents and domestic extremists. Both unwarranted praise of Musharraf and ill-considered demands could threaten the future of the partnership.
The difficulty with our approach is its failure to recognize what Musharraf can in fact deliver and why. It does not appreciate how facts on the ground in the critical border areas, domestic political constraints, and Pakistan's traditional strategic concerns have affected the level of cooperation. We need to acknowledge that the Islamabad government has effectively lost control over three tribal agencies and northern Balochistan. They are largely no-go areas for the Pakistani military. Islamabad's three-year policy of militarization in Waziristan was a dismal failure. A humiliated army, not well trained, equipped, or motivated for counter-insurgency, grew frustrated.
At the same time, a disaffected public turned against a war on the frontier that it believed pitted Pakistani against Pakistani at the behest of the U.S. The army's negotiated disengagement last year has resulted in a state within a state under the sway of radical clerics and young militants known for their sympathy for the Afghan insurgents. Agreements with supposed traditional leaders are mostly a charade as those sympathetic toward the government have been intimated or killed by the militant extremists. The agreement in North Waziristan was only made to appear to be signed by traditional leaders. While the army has lived up to its part of the agreement or more accurately its sell out, the Taliban have observed very little of their end of the bargain.
For policy makers in Islamabad to undertake a more concerted effort to close training camps, apprehend militant leaders, and minimize cross-border activity will also entail curbing those jihadi groups-many created pre-9/11 as surrogate arms of the Pakistan military for struggles in Kashmir and Afghanistan-that give aid and comfort to the Afghan insurgents. Several are associated with religious parties and are popular for their social welfare activities. Aside from those extremists engaged in sectarian killing, Musharraf and his army are also loathe to put these groups out of business as long as they believe that U.S. and international forces will eventually tire of the fight in Afghanistan. When that occurs, they believe that the jihadi groups together with their Pashtun clients will insure Pakistan a Pashtun-based sphere of influence in a disintegrating Afghanistan.
A More Promising Approach
How then can the U.S. win greater cooperation and also build a more trusting, sustainable relationship? Expressions of appreciation for Musharraf's assistance do little good and, in fact, mostly re-enforce the popular view that he basically serves American interests. Sometimes even saying nothing on a controversial issue can be read in Pakistan as signaling our approval if not our instigation of government policy. Also counterproductive are threats of economic sanctions such have come from this Congress. They merely succeed in confirming for most Pakistanis-even our friends-that the U.S. is an unreliable partner. We tried sanctions against Pakistan over its nuclear program in the 1990s and lost vital links to its military and intelligence services. In fact, even though sanctions any time soon seem unlikely, judging from the reactions in Pakistan, the damage to American credibility has already been done. We would have better results if we devoted more of our efforts to identifying policies that would change some of the strategic thinking of Pakistan's leaders, and give them the political confidence needed to confront militant Islamic radicalism.
An American policy should at a minimum assume three tasks: First, the U.S. must do more to convince Pakistan's strategic planners that the international coalition has a long-term commitment to a regional presence. Second, we must dispel the near consensus view among Pakistanis that the American partnership is not with them so much as with Musharraf and the army. And third, we should make a far greater effort to convince Musharraf that his professed desire for "enlightened moderation" for his country cannot be realized without reconfiguring his political constituency.
Pakistan requires assurance that history will not be repeated, that the U.S. will not abandon it on realizing its major objectives in the region. The U.S. is still perceived as having forsaken its ally in the war with Bangladesh in 1971, and as losing interest in the region after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Above all, the U.S. and its NATO allies must leave no doubt of their determination to defeat the Afghan insurgency and willingness to remain long enough to build the Afghan security force necessary to secure the country's long term defenses. Nor can there be any question that the international community is committed to the extended investment that will be necessary to build Afghan state institutions and the economy. Only the demonstration of an international determination to prevail can force Pakistan leaders to rethink their strategy of retaining a Pashtun proxy card in the event of a failed Afghan state. However, Islamabad should be assured that Afghanistan will not used by India to mount activities aimed at destabilizing or dismembering Pakistan. More positively, the U.S. must do more to end the blame game between Kabul and Islamabad mainly by promoting further mediation that allays mutual suspicions and begins to remove the border issue from contention.
The general view in Pakistan is that the benefits of the partnership with the U.S. have been one-sided. Popular backing of Musharraf's decision to desert the Taliban in late 2001 was widely interpreted as earning Pakistan handsome rewards from the U.S. But Washington's offer of nuclear cooperation with India and its denial to Pakistan are seen as testimony that the U.S. has cast its lot economically and strategically with India. Washington meanwhile appears anxious to thwart Pakistan's attempts to address its serious energy requirements. Further sore points are the failure to reach an investment agreement with Pakistan, and Washington's refusal to amend U.S. textile policies. Pakistan also feels that the U.S. could encourage New Delhi to show greater flexibility in India's on-going composite dialogue with Pakistan.
The estimated $10 billion in aid has gone overwhelmingly for military and for budgetary support, and is barely noticed by Pakistan's public. The strategic partnership that now exists between the U.S. and Pakistan must be affirmed not just through continuing programs aimed at security and regime stability but in long-term and convincing contributions to uplifting Pakistan's society. As the U.S response to the 2005 earthquake suggests, aid to the public health sector can have an immediate and favorable-if only short lived-impact on public attitudes. Additionally, a stronger commitment in the U.S. aid program nationwide for education at the primary and secondary levels is overdue. Most of the support is earmarked for the contentious tribal areas where these and other development projects are primarily intended to win political loyalties away from the Pakistani branch of the Taliban.
Changing the public's image of American foreign policy is obviously more difficult. Without doubt, wide opposition to our military interventions and allies in the Middle East contribute to our dismally low popular standing in Pakistan. That these sentiments also include the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is likely because we have indiscriminately labeled all insurgencies and use of violence in the region as part of the war on terrorism. Thus most Pakistanis have come to see international involvement in Afghanistan including the fight in the borderlands as a war against Islam, and thus not their war. Musharraf obviously finds it difficult to move decisively against the Taliban when it is widely believed that he is acting on the behest of the Americans.
Altering the Political Landscape
Any hope for a more vigorous effort by Pakistan against domestic extremism will take a significant change in Pakistan's domestic political landscape. Musharraf cannot be expected to take the risks involved in greater cooperation with the U.S. or, for that matter, realize the aspirations of most Pakistanis with his jerrybuilt political party and contingent loyalties of his generals. He cannot succeed with a party, ambitious only for the perks of office, cobbled together by defectors brought onboard by bribes and intimidation. He must move quickly to build a more inclusive constituency that co-opts progressive political elements that he has demonized and tried to cripple. Another five years in the political wilderness may very well destroy the remaining political mainstream. It may not be too late to promote a new contract among the major political parties that could shape a more authentic democratic political culture. By failing to give up his uniform Musharraf has passed up opportunities to invest Pakistan's civilian presidency with greater moral and constitutional authority.
We should not be afraid of Pakistan's opening its political system. Despite the dismal performance of elected governments during the decade prior to 1999, those politically aware in Pakistan still generally aspire to democracy. Even the military often feels obliged to honor some democratic norms. Polls and election results continue to show that Pakistan's public prefers political moderates. The country's religious parties, many with jihadi or sectarian offshoots, have traditionally fared poorly in competition with the secular parties. Whatever successes the religious parties achieved in the last national election for the National Assembly and provincial assemblies could not have been achieved without the military's manipulation of the process. But by continuing to marginalize or buy off political moderates, Musharraf may succeed in leaving the religious parties as the default choice for those displeased with military rule.
Our official position is that democracy in Pakistan is "a home grown affair," and that it is up the Pakistanis to decide on their system of governance and democracy. But the U.S. has too much at stake to act indifferently. Washington refrained from cautioning or criticizing Musharraf when he claimed the presidency through a fraudulent referendum, arbitrarily enhanced his constitutional powers, pre-cooked national elections, and then reneged on a pledge to take off his uniform. We have indicated our preference for free and fair elections but have never set a very high bar for compliance. Our recent overly cautious reaction to the suspension of the country's chief justice is another example of how the U.S. regularly manages to reinforce the perception among Pakistanis of double standards and preference for military-ascendant governments.
Musharraf may continue to remain at Pakistan's helm through expedient alliances and electoral manipulation. But 2007 could be a critical election year. Musharraf may feel the need to ensure a parliamentary majority by aligning his party loyalists with one of the jihadi-supporting, pro-Taliban religious parties. Should he also refuse to doff his uniform, insist that he be elected by a lame duck parliament, and his supporters too transparently pre-cook the election results, the credibility of the political process and his legitimacy could be seriously challenged, if not in the courts then in the streets. The implications of this outcome for the U.S. are certain to be far reaching.
Conclusion
Cooperation on counter-terrorism and, in particular, targeting high-value Al- Qaeda leaders, has trumped all other American demands on Pakistan. But Washington's confidence in Musharraf, designed to strengthen his resolve, has, in effect, given the president a pass on satisfying us on the issues of democracy, nuclear proliferation, and extremism. Strengthening our partnership through new resources for the military and measures intended to bolster Musharraf domestically will not serve our interests if it appears that the U.S. is also in lock step with a leadership that is presiding over a country beset with increasing corruption and lawlessness. If Pakistan fails to make progress in resolving its civilian-military strains, compromises with forces of intolerance and radicalism, and ignores popular economic and political grievances, we could find ourselves without a partner for realizing any of our objectives or the greater interests in the region.
While the U. S. cannot tell Pakistan how to fashion its political system, it does have leverage that it has been reluctant to use or has employed in counter-productive ways. A more reliable partnership calls for the U.S. to be clear, consistent, and realistic in its demands while also addressing Pakistan's legitimate concerns and complaints. With these policies Pakistan's leaders may be more willing to accept the reasonable risks associated with harnessing popular forces against extremism. Very probably most Pakistanis would welcome greater American activism that stood up for democratic principles and interventions unambiguously designed to help the country to overcome its socioeconomic deficits.
As it is, our strategic partnership with Pakistan is fragile. It rests too heavily on the political survival of one man and a military rule facing formidable domestic challenges and declining legitimacy. As a consequence, the relationship lacks the kind of broad institutional and public supports that could better insure its continuity. In our preoccupation with counter-insurgency, we have allowed Musharraf to appear indispensable to U.S. interests. Indeed, any change at the top would bring uncertainty and is unlikely to produce a leader able to offer greater cooperation. But if Musharraf's presidency loses its credibility, the military will judge him a liability and soon replace him.
While the U.S. will not exercise much influence over the outcome, a new leadership will remain mindful of American stakes in the region. The military has no desire to lose the material benefits of the relationship or chance pushing the U.S. toward a close strategic alignment with India. One possibility is that the military might, as in 1988, step back to allow somewhat wider berth to an elected civilian government. However, for a functional democracy and a productive partnership with the U.S., the Pakistan military must finally conclude that it serves the country best as its constitutional guardians and not rulers. For the present, it would indeed be tragic if, in seeking to win over Musharraf and his military, we lost Pakistan.
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