By Haider Ali Hussein
Mullick
President Obama's new Afghanistan
and Pakistan strategy is
status-quo plus -- counterterrorism sprinkled with elements of nation building
in Afghanistan.
However, long-term U.S.
interests in the region depend on a stable Pakistan deterred from nuclear
proliferation and fomenting regional insurgencies. The real war in Pakistan,
however, is not about military actions but about perceptions.
The United States
has signed billions of dollars in aid over to Pakistan
but sitting in Islamabad
two weeks ago I could hardly find a happy Pakistani. The overriding narrative
usually goes as follows: the U.S.
sporadically uses Pakistan's
military, colludes with local leaders, and leaves millions of Pakistanis to
clean up the mess. Failing to explain or market its soft power -- aid for
schools and hospitals -- Washington relies on Islamabad to highlight its
goodwill and mistakes. While this ostensibly strengthens local governance and
protects foreign aid workers, it has placed Pakistanis in a state of
combustible ignorance. After eight years today most Pakistanis are equally
anti-Taliban and anti-U.S. That spells failure for U.S. public diplomacy.
There are several concrete actions both U.S. and Pakistani officials could
take to improve the situation.
First, make U.S.-Pakistan partnership clear to Pakistanis by
launching a nation-wide media campaign that answers three basic questions in
plain language: why should Pakistanis befriend Americans? Why are Americans
helping Pakistanis? What will happen if they cut off support? A web portal
should be formed (see, for example, my pilot project at www.usaidforme.com), with the help of
independent international and national watchdogs that could track and break down
U.S.
development aid to ordinary Pakistanis. That most of them are rejecting the
$7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar aid bill should be a wakeup call that selling -- and
not just giving -- such aid is essential for any hope of creating American
goodwill.
Islamabad has already engaged
in a successful marketing campaign against the Taliban, which it should replicate
in order to sell the U.S.'s
goodwill to Pakistanis. The Taliban's brutality and their true intentions to
create a parallel state were highlighted in private electronic media when
Taliban beheaded
four Pakistani Special Forces soldiers and lashed
a young girl for alleged adultery. Similarly, Pakistanis must be persuaded that
Americans are also against the Taliban -- not supporting them as some
conspiracy theorists allege -- and want to build their country, but will not
tolerate a nuclear-armed failed state.
(Read on)
Keeping ordinary Pakistanis aloof is dangerous. Despite
tattered democracy today fewer than half of Pakistanis can read, and many are hooked
to firebrand TV anchors blending anti-Americanism with religious nationalism. The
majority of Pakistanis I talked to measured relations with the United States
in drone attacks and suicide bombings and never in roads, schools, or hospitals
built. They have a point: I have yet to see a 'made in America' or 'gift from Americans' sign
on a school or shelter. Promoting transparency in the U.S.-Pakistan
relationship is only way to break this vicious cycle of ignorance.
Secondly, the recent State Department $30
million public diplomacy campaign will fail if Islamabad does not end its pervasive doublespeak.
Pakistani officials I talked to tell me that the mantra in Awan-e-Sadr (the Pakistani
White House) is to take full credit for U.S. weapons, satellites, and dollars
and still use the United States as a punching bag for drone attacks (even as
they secretly tolerate them). This duplicity is must end with a reasonable
‘roadmap to transparency' that explains and sells the U.S.-Pakistan
relationship.
For example, United
States should
initiate public tours of its embassies and consulates. Pakistanis
constantly hear rumors of expanding U.S. embassies that house thousands
of Marines ready to occupy their country. The surest way to lay them to rest is
to show journalists, students, teachers, diplomats, and development experts at
work.
Thirdly, Washington and Islamabad should market U.S.-supported socio-economic and
investment programs such as private electricity producers, Fulbright
scholarships, and building roads for the tribal areas abutting Afghanistan.
These are critical, but rarely highlighted, victories. Marketing reconstruction
projects in war torn areas, and synchronizing stabilization efforts between security,
development, political, and media experts from both countries, is essential.
Supporting the Pakistani Army's Engineer corps teams -- the nearest thing to
provincial reconstruction teams like those in Iraq
and Afghanistan -- in the Swat
Valley
and surrounding areas, recently allegedly cleared of Taliban, are great places
to start working and publicizing.
Lastly, most ordinary Pakistanis, besieged by rising
unemployment, energy shortages and food prices, are suspicious of American
security firms creating havoc in their country. While necessary, these firms
and their personnel must be registered in a public manner and made accountable
to local laws.
These are not overnight cure-alls, but rather elements of a roadmap with
specific metrics such as frequent polling and benchmarks that will help the United States win the war of perception in Pakistan.
Pakistanis are acutely aware of the U.S. calling their
country the hub of global terrorism and making contingency plans to secure
its nuclear arms, but no one knows about U.S.-sponsored schools or job
programs. President Obama must pay heed by implementing a holistic Pakistan
policy that jointly measures actions and manages perceptions.
Haider Mullick, who recently returned from a research
trip to India and Pakistan, is a senior fellow at the U.S. Joint Special
Operations University, a research fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and
Understanding, and the author of the forthcoming book-length monograph Pakistan's
Security Paradox: Countering and Fomenting Insurgencies.
John Moore/Getty Images
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