Can the current US-Pakistan relationship be summed up in the words of a poet who in her How Do I Love Thee said: "I love thee to the depth, breadth and height My soul can reach..."? Or, can it be described in the words of another poet: "Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you"? The US-Pakistan relationship perhaps fits both the descriptions. Consider:
That the US has not given up on the quest for a more effective relationship with Pakistan is an admission made by both Donald Trump's point person for the region and a top US general. It was only recently that Commander US Central Command, General Joseph L. Votel, told Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa that the recent turbulence in the bilateral relationship remains "a temporary phase". According to Alice Wells, Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan's support is critical to the success of the US strategy for Afghanistan. Her remarks, therefore, clearly indicate that Washington is not seeking a divorce with Islamabad despite Trump's growing belligerence against a non-Nato ally. She was the first high-ranking official to visit Islamabad since the infamous New Year Trump tweet and subsequent suspension of military assistance to Pakistan. In Brussels, Marine General Joseph Dunford was telling journalists that he is still strongly committed to the US-Pakistan relationship. "Do we agree on everything right now? No we don't. But are committed to a more effective relationship with Pakistan? We are. And I'm not giving up on that," Dunford, the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, was quoted as saying. Acknowledging Pakistan's efforts in eradicating terrorism and conveying US' desire to work with Pakistan in "furthering the shared objective of stabilizing Afghanistan", Wells, however, did not come clean about the present status of US-Pakistan relations. Why does Washington still consider Pakistan critical to its success in a landlocked country and wants its cooperation after certain US actions that have been found to be inimical to Pakistan's long-term interests? Why are US President and his men in the Pentagon and the State Department conducting themselves as overbearing persons who have been trying to badger and intimidate Pakistan? Her argument that as an immediate neighbour and important country of the region Pakistan's support is critical to the success of US strategy is a strong reflection of the role that Pakistan has played in the war against terrorism so far. In other words, the US successes, however controversial, would not have been possible in the absence of Pakistan's greater cooperation. Employing the diplomatic jargon by underlining the need for strengthening intelligence between the two sides to improve coordination in counter-terrorism efforts, she was, in fact, making a request to Islamabad to revisit its decision of suspending intelligence-sharing with the US. After all, the Trump administration is not unmindful of the fact that Pakistan has played an important role in overcoming the al-Qaeda challenge.
Apprising Ambassador Wells about recent counter-terrorism actions taken by Pakistan's law enforcement agencies, Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua came up with some hard evidence to substantiate her claim, but the thrust of her argument was the need for moving forward in an environment of mutual trust and respect. Mutual trust, therefore, cannot be restored until and unless the US acknowledges some critical facts related to the relationship: elements hostile to Pakistan's stability, particularly India, have been continuously using the Afghan soil, border management could be a key to addressing to concerns relating to cross border movements; Afghan refugees living in Pakistan for the past several decades are required to be repatriated to their own country without any further loss of time; and the Trump administration must stop making irresponsible statements about Pakistan. The foreign secretary also drew the attention of the US delegation to recent irresponsible statements made by the Indian army chief and the pattern of escalation by India on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary. Urging the US to advise restraint to India and stop its escalation tactics, secretary Janjua was in fact sending a message to the White House that President Trump's policy on South Asia and Afghanistan has emboldened New Delhi to speed up its aggression against Islamabad; hence the need for revisiting a policy that has clearly added to the Afghan conundrum in particular. The US administration must not lose sight of the fact that Pakistan reaped a deadly harvest for itself through its proactive participation in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Since then, or much before that, Islamabad has been at the beck and call of Washington. It is, therefore, imperative for the US to stop denigrating Pakistan's sacrifices in the war against terrorism. The current developments clearly show that there is no love lost between the US and Pakistan.