WASHINGTON : After President Trump bluntly accused Pakistan of “lies anddeceit” on New Year’s Day, then suspended all security aid to the longtimeU.S. military ally, Pakistan was widely described as acting like a jiltedlover, secretly stricken but publicly defiant and pretending not to care.
Now, a flurry of quieter military and diplomatic contacts over the past twoweeks have patched things up, but only to a point. At a deeper level,analysts here say, both partners acknowledge that their relationship isbeset by irreconcilable differences but that neither can afford a divorce,Washington Post reported on Friday
For decades, the two have maintained a formal but uneasy strategicalliance, first against Soviet designs on Afghanistan and recently againstIslamist terrorism. But the breach precipitated by Trump has exposed theunderlying reality: that Islamabad and Washington view the region’s threatsthrough opposing lenses.
One sees India as a menacing next-door behemoth; the other views it as anemerging democratic partner and strategic ally. One sees Afghanistan as apermanent backyard nuisance and a useful platform for countering Indianinfluence; the other views it as a dependent war zone and potential Westernredoubt against dangerous Islamist groups in the region.
“Pakistan and the United States have finally come to the undeniableconclusion that the other partner is playing footsie with its enemy,” saidMoeed Yusuf, a South Asia expert at the U.S. Institute for Peace inWashington, who is on an extended visit to Pakistan. “They have given up onstrategic convergence, but they want to keep the channels open so they cancooperate on tactical matters and ensure the relationship does not totallyrupture.”
Since the initial shock of Trump’s accusatory tweet and punitive action,which suspended more than $300 million in security aid and could affectbillions more, the signals from both capitals have been revealing.
Pakistan, under unprecedented U.S. pressure to rein in Islamist groups thatoperate in Afghanistan and India, has continued to flatly deny that itsupports them. It also insists that it has done all it can to curbmilitancy and regularly denounces terrorist attacks such as the deadlyassault Sunday on a luxury hotel in Kabul. Yet it also recently releasedtwo militant leaders with histories of fomenting religious violence, one ofwhom the United States has demanded that it rearrest.
Some hawkish Pakistani commentators, expressing outrage at Trump’s“betrayal,” have suggested that Pakistan retaliate by cutting off overlandsupply routes to the U.S. military in Afghanistan or even by severingrelations with Washington, now that China has become Pakistan’s mostimportant international economic partner and appears poised to join it in astrategic alliance. But others, including senior military officials, haveurged restraint.
“There is no panic in Islamabad, rather, a carefully calibrated, mature andunemotional response to the raving and ranting of a mercurial leader of adeclining superpower,” said Senator Mushahid Hussain. While China isbuilding a solid, steady partnership with Pakistan, he said, the UnitedStates’ “bellicosity” and expanding relationship with India and its Hindunationalist leader “could spark a new Cold War.”
American officials, seeking to lower the decibel level without abandoningthe administration’s demands, have initiated calls and visits to theircounterparts in Islamabad. Within days of the aid cut, Gen. Joseph L.Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told Pakistan’s army chiefthat the bilateral “turbulence” was “a temporary phase.”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who had repeatedly pressed Pakistani leadersto take tougher action against anti-Afghan insurgents or face U.S.sanctions, told reporters in Washington after the aid suspension that thetwo military communities would “continue talking with one another, as wealways have,” and said he was not concerned about China replacing theUnited States as Pakistan’s strategic partner.
Current and former U.S. diplomats also advised keeping the door open, ifonly for pragmatic reasons. Richard Olson, a former ambassador to Pakistan,wrote in an essay that U.S. sanctions would not work because of Pakistan’ssize, military strength and national pride, adding that if Islamabad cutssupply routes to Afghanistan, the U.S. military there could become a“beached whale.” Last week, Alice Wells, the top U.S. diplomat for SouthAsia, visited Pakistan in what was portrayed here as a “fence-mending”trip, albeit one short on substance.
The message from both sides, in essence, was an agreement not to slam thedoor shut, even as reminders of major unresolved issues and divergentpriorities continue to crop up.