Putting Pak-US ties on an even keel

The Pak-US anti-terrorism relationship remains out of gear given their respectively hardened positions on issues which once were the linchpin of that collaboration. The deterioration to that bilateralism was creeping in ever since the Raymond Davis saga early last year and had accelerated in the wake of the get-Osama raid in May but it was the Nato attack on the Salala post killing 24 Pakistani soldiers that broke the camel's back. On the face of it, there are no signs yet in sight to prove the opposite - with President Obama consenting to stop aid assistance instead of offering an apology for the deadly Nato attack and Pakistan sticking to its move of shutting down Nato supply routes. But even then the vibes are thickening by the day suggesting that the inertia besetting the co-operative relationship is likely to shatter in the coming days. Credit for the emerging possibility is said to go to the Doha meeting last week (whatever it was we don't know yet), and the accentuated buzz permeating the Taliban circles. And, no less significantly, as to what the Pakistan military thinks the future shape of the co-operative relationship should be a kind of blueprint was made available to the AP news agency by the ISPR chief Major General Athar Abbas. Since it is now the Parliamentary Committee on National Security that takes all the critical decisions concerning defence and security the ball is said to have been thrown into its court, and if a newspaper report is to be believed, the Pak-US anti-terrorism engagement is likely to be restored before this month is out. But an equally strong possibility is that the resumed co-operative relationship will have quite a modified framework, some of it outlined by Abbas in his talk with the AP: "From here on, we want a very formal, business-like relationship. The lines will be drawn. There will be no more a free run of the past...We want it very formal with agreed-upon limits," he said. Since the contributions made by other US allies, including those in the Nato, are fairly pre-determined, particularly as to what kind of risks their soldiers would take, it should be no problem with Washington to settle the terms of engagement with Pakistan. Pakistan has paid colossal cost for its anti-terror alliance, mainly because fixed as it was by a one-man rule of General Musharraf, in line with his personalised power considerations, the national interest was relegated. That is no more possible; the ground-realities have greatly changed and a very different kind of situation has obtained. The Afghan war is nearing its end, the Taliban remain undefeated and are on the other hand getting an invitation to come and talk, and Pakistan is now a democratically run polity. At this stage no one should expect Pakistan to incur war-generated costs more than what are inevitable and at the same time its national interest vis-à-vis Afghan settlement cannot be overlooked. Crudely said, the key to peace in Afghanistan is with Pakistan, and that reality must be embraced in the larger regional peace. Wars do end in the clear defeats of the vanquished but they never bring clear victories to the winners; so if some of the stakeholders are less than happy with the emerging outcome, they should read the history of their own wars. The ongoing turmoil gripping Pakistan Taliban circles is in an equal degree an expected outcome of the endgame of the Afghan war, their disarray symptomatic of the uncertainty that has come to haunt them. While only last week sources close to Afghan supreme commander Mulla Omar called to the Pakistani Taliban to stop their fights, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan said there would be no halt in fighting against the Pakistani forces. Seen against the backdrop of the impending Afghan Taliban's readiness to join the peace negotiation with the US-led coalition and Pakistan's success in halting the deadly drone attacks, the TTP's move is indeed very disappointing. Wouldn't it cost them their acceptability in the circles that are sympathetic to their cause, the TTP leaderships should ask itself? Or, have they joined the forces hell-bent on destabilising Pakistan? No doubt the coming days and weeks are pregnant with hope that the Pak-US relationship will acquire rationality dictated by the evolving regional scenario, which we believe is only possible by putting the relationship on an even keel. As the alternative is fraught with unpredictable risks and uncertain fallouts. Copyright Business Recorder, 2012