WASHINGTON: Former US ambassador to Islamabad Richard Olson has said thatthe Trump administration’s attempt at humiliating and penalizing Pakistanis unlikely to work, adding the South Asian nation has greater leverageover America than many imagine.
In an opinion piece for The New York Timeslink>,Olson said that the harsh truth is that American leverage over Rawalpindiand Islamabad has been declining. And as United States aid levels havediminished — reflecting bipartisan unhappiness with Pakistani policy — aidfrom the Chinese has increased.
China has invested around $62 billion in Pakistani infrastructure under theChina-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an element of the “One Belt, One Road”initiative. Its magnitude and its transformation of parts of Pakistan dwarfanything the United States has ever undertaken.
Thus, the Trump administration’s attempt at humiliating and penalizingPakistan is unlikely to work. Pakistan, like most countries, reacts verybadly to public attempts to force its hand. It is likely to respond byshowing how it can truly undercut our position in Afghanistan.
He said that a better approach would be to privately convey, at the highestlevels and without equivocation that the only way to preserve anyrelationship with the United States is to cut all ties with the Taliban,including the Haqqanis.
The Trump administration, with its hard-line reputation and willingness toreject all previous United States policy, could credibly deliver thismessage, he said. “But the path of the tweet and highly public aid cuts isnot a method that will engender success. The United States can addressAfghanistan only with a political initiative.”
Start a diplomat initiative
Olson urged the Trump administration to start a diplomatic initiative tobring peace to war-torn Afghanistan by opening talks with the Taliban.
“The ultimate answer to the Pakistan conundrum is to start a diplomaticinitiative to bring peace to Afghanistan by opening talks with the Taliban.Much of diplomacy is taking away the other side’s talking points, orexcuses.”
The Trump administration has publicly stated that it sees the conflictending only through a negotiated solution. It is difficult to understandwhy no such diplomatic initiative had been started.
Pakistan has greater leverage over US
While perhaps it is emotionally satisfying to penalize a country that hassupported American enemies in Afghanistan for the past 16 years, theadministration’s approach is unlikely to work. Pakistan has greaterleverage over us than many imagine.
The keys to understanding Pakistan’s policy and the limitations of Americanoptions lie in geography and history. Pakistan essentially amounts to arelatively indefensible sliver astride the Indus River, with flat plains inthe east and mountain redoubts populated by hostile tribes in the west.This fragile geography would not matter if not for Pakistan’s long historyof enmity toward its far larger neighbor, India.
Since its founding in 1947, Pakistan has defined itself as a nationalsecurity state in opposition to the Indian behemoth to its east. Pakistanishave long dreaded the prospect of Indian tanks from the adjoining plains ofIndian Punjab rolling unimpeded into Lahore and beyond. We may not agreewith how Pakistan assesses the threat from India, but in my experience,almost all Pakistanis perceive India as an existential threat.
US supported proxies against Soviets
During the 1980s, the United States found it convenient to support some ofthese proxies against the Soviets in Afghanistan. That policy ended in 1989as the Soviet war in Afghanistan wound down. Under the 1990 PresslerAmendment, we punished Pakistan for development of nuclear weapons bycutting off security assistance.
But Pakistan, having these groups on its territory and a large Pashtunpopulation of its own, never had an easy option of breaking with Afghanmilitants. And it has continued to allow the Taliban, including the Haqqaninetwork — a group the United States supported during the Reagan era — tooperate from its territory and at critical moments has provided quietsupport.
The geography that defines Pakistan’s security worries has also been a banefor the United States. For the past 16 years our military efforts inlandlocked Afghanistan have been dependent on transit through andespecially overflight of Pakistani territory.
Absent an implausible similar arrangement with Iran, other options are notgood. Supply through the Central Asian states to the north is theoreticallypossible, but would rely on Russian good will. Enough said. WithoutPakistani cooperation, our army in Afghanistan risks becoming a beachedwhale.
The American solution has been a robust package of assistance to Pakistan,beginning with the Bush administration in 2001. The United States sought toreimburse Pakistan for the costs of supporting our war in Afghanistan. Inthe eyes of the Pakistanis, this became payment for their war againstdomestic terrorism, which has cost Pakistan 50,000 lives and untoldbillions, and was widely perceived as a bad deal.
Despite an infusion of about $1 billion per year of development assistanceduring the Obama administration, money never gave the United States theleverage it desired. The Pakistani generals who run Afghanistan policy fromtheir headquarters in Rawalpindi were never convinced that they had tochoose between their relationship with the United States and theirrelationship with the Taliban.
I can vouch from bitter personal experience that I hammered away at theneed to make that choice for four years, but never got any purchase. Thegenerals knew that as long as the United States maintained an army inAfghanistan, it was more dependent on Pakistan than Pakistan was on it.This disconnect between Washington and Rawalpindi led to the decline inUnited States-Pakistan relations that was already highly visible in thelast year of the Obama administration.