WASHINGTON - A US expert on South Asia has asked the Obama administration to understand Pakistan’s resolve to achieve a government in Afghanistan friendlier to them than to India, stating that the war-torn country’s future matters much more to Islamabad than to the US.
“This elemental truth is forgotten in US deliberations about how best to leverage Pakistan to achieve a political settlement in Afghanistan,” wrote Michael Krepon, Director of the South Asian Programme at the Stimson Center, a think-tank.
“Pakistani military and intelligence services have demonstrated that they are willing to risk ties with Washington to achieve a friendly government on their Western border — a government that most Afghans and Washington would oppose,” he said in an op-ed piece:  Haggling over Afghanistan.
“This is the central roadblock to US-Pakistani relations and to a stable Afghanistan,” Krepon added.
“Pakistan’s leaders will continue to seek US assistance even as they tirelessly pursue a government in Kabul that, after most US troops withdraw in 2014, will be friendlier to them than to India. If the Pakistanis fail to ensure this negotiated outcome, they will employ allies to upend an Afghan government that they deem unfriendly,” he wrote.
“Pakistani resolve is rooted in the assumption that, if India gains a strong foothold in Afghanistan, then Pakistan’s largest and most resource-rich province, Balochistan, would be ripe for an India-supported insurgency. “Pakistani distrust is heightened by events of four decades ago: India severed East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from West Pakistan in their 1971 war. Pakistani leaders will not abide another territorial loss or an extended, foreign-backed insurgency, not when they are feeling so vulnerable....”
In this context, Kepron wrote that US drone strikes against targets in Tribal Areas will fail to influence the outcome of an Afghan settlement.
“These strikes will ultimately fail to influence the outcome of an Afghan settlement — but they have already succeeded in making the US more hated in Pakistan than India.”
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the US and Pakistan have have maintained a strained, transactional partnership, Krepon noted.
“When faced with the George W. Bush administration’s ultimatum — Are you with us or against us? — Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistan’s chief executive, agreed to a limited US presence at air bases, restricted use of Pakistani airspace and a logistical supply corridor for US troops. Pakistani agents were instrumental in capturing al Qaeda leaders, including Sept 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in March 2003. Pakistan was allocated US military and economic assistance, although far less than its bill for services rendered.”
On the current developments, the expert recounts the tensions were inflamed by the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the NATO attack on a Pakistani border post that killed 24 Pakistani troops in November.
“Now the United States and Pakistan are again haggling — over the price of hauling freight and the wording of an apology for the November incident,” Kepron wrote.
“While Pakistan’s policies have remained consistent, US policies are becoming more incoherent. President Obama invited President Asif Ali Zardari to the recent NATO Summit in Chicago, then declined to meet privately with him before publicly declaring, “We think that Pakistan has to be part of the solution in Afghanistan”.