Next
week, senior U.S. and
Pakistani officials will meet in Washington
for the first ever strategic dialogue between the two countries. The Pakistani
delegation will be led by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, but make no
mistake: at least when it comes to the Pakistani side, this will be the Gen.
Ashfaq Kayani show.
If there
was any ambiguity remaining as to who's the
principal architect of Pakistan's national security policy,
then it should have dissipated on Tuesday, when Kayani
chaired a meeting of federal secretaries -- the first time an army
chief has done so under a civilian government. They met at the army's general
headquarters, instead of the originally designated venue, the ministry of
foreign affairs. Kayani sought to coordinate the government's agenda for the
upcoming talks with the United
States, which includes security issues as
well as non-military topics, such as agriculture and energy.
When
Kayani and company roll into Washington, their
objective will be to maximally capitalize upon Pakistan's
peaking strategic value as it pertains to U.S.
interests in Afghanistan.
Pakistan
has a closing window of opportunity to successfully press for its interests
more assertively. The Pakistanis, with good reason, believe the United States has one foot out of Afghanistan -- even as it surges its presence
there -- and is dependent on Pakistan
to secure a favorable and efficient endgame. At the same time, they fear that
an end to the Afghan war and a drop in Pakistan's
utility for the United States
will result in a colder, tougher approach by Washington
toward Islamabad, combined with a warmer
American embrace of arch-rival India.
So, for the Pakistani establishment (its military, allied bureaucracy, and
political fellow travelers), the challenge is to leverage its short-term
utility for the United
States to extract benefits that will stretch
over a longer-term and insure against potential future losses.
Broadly,
the Pakistani establishment seeks to secure Pakistan's
influence in a post-American Afghanistan,
deny India a strategic pivot
there, and maintain a reasonable degree of strategic parity with rising India. More
specifically, Pakistan seeks "tangible deliverances" [sic] -- the most ambitious, and
perhaps improbable, of them being a
civil nuclear deal with the United States akin to the one with India.
Despite
statements to the contrary, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship remains
transactional and wanting of a long-term vision. American officials frequently
state that Pakistan must "do more" to combat militants in its border region
with Afghanistan -- the phrase has been said so much that it's become a part of
the local political lexicon -- and now Pakistani officials are returning the favor. Cementing a U.S.-Pakistan partnership will require
forging a shared regional vision. And that will be difficult to develop as long
as India remains intransigent on the issue of Kashmir, Pakistan continues to
support anti-India insurgents and terrorists (some of whom, such as Lashkar-e
Taiba, might have extra-regional ambitions), and both the United States and
Pakistan deepen alliances with each other's rivals (respectively, China and
India).
But
progress could perhaps be made if Washington delicately reduces New Delhi's
expectations for influence in Kabul, facilitates Pakistan's
partial movement in favor of "good" actors in Afghanistan and push against
the Afghan Taliban, and prods both India and Pakistan further
along the negotiation table. There is no perfect formula for stability in South
Asia, but it will require both India
and Pakistan
to learn how to share space and for the bigamous United States to carefully
manage its relationship with its two warring wives.
Arif
Rafiq is president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, which provides strategic guidance
on Middle East and South Asian political and
security issues. He writes at the Pakistan Policy Blog (www.pakistanpolicy.com).
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