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Time for Sober Realism: Renegotiating U.S. Relations with Pakistan

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01636600902775680

1530-9177

C. Christine Fair,

Bangladesh Politics, Society, and Development

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements The author is thankful to Lisa Curtis, Seth Jones, and David Ochmanek who provided invaluable feedback to earlier versions of the draft. Mistakes and misjudgments are attributable solely to the author. The views represent those of the author and not the RAND Corporation or any colleague who was kind enough to peruse drafts of this essay. Notes 1. K. Alan Kronstadt, “Pakistan-U.S. Relations,” CRS Report for Congress, RL33498, August 25, 2008, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33498.pdf. 2. Data on Pakistanis’ views of al Qaeda are difficult to interpret. Many survey participants in Pakistan often decline to answer questions about al Qaeda, sometimes out of fear of repercussions or doubts that al Qaeda exists in terms attributed to it. Many Pakistanis who accept al Qaeda's existence and Osama Bin Laden as its leader find it difficult to believe that bin Laden is a terrorist and cling to the belief that he is a good Muslim and because good Muslims do not kill innocent persons, bin Laden could not have done what is alleged. For an example of how Pakistani respondents’ survey participation differs from other countries, see Steven Kull et al., “Muslim Public Opinion on U.S. Policy, Attacks on Civilians and al Qaeda,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, April 24, 2007, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/apr07/START_Apr07_rpt.pdf. 3. Terror Free Tomorrow (TFT), “New Poll of Pakistan Before June 2008 By-Elections,” 2008, http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/PakistanPollReportJune08.pdf. 4. See C. Christine Fair, Clay Ramsay, and Steve Kull, “Pakistani Public Opinion on Democracy, Islamist Militancy, and Relations With the U.S.,” USIP Working Paper, February 2008, http://www.usip.org/pubs/working_papers/wp7_pakistan.pdf; “IRI Index: Pakistan Public Opinion Survey, January 19–29, 2008,” International Republican Institute, http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan.asp; TFT, “New Poll of Pakistan Before June 2008 By-Elections.” 5. CSF funds are received by 27 countries in total, and Pakistan is the largest recipient. For critiques of the program, see U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Combating Terrorism: U.S. Oversight of Pakistan Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Funds,” GAO-08-932T, June 24, 2008, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-932T; U.S. Government Accountability Office, “The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas,” GAO-08-622, April 2008, http://nationalsecurity.oversight.house.gov/documents/20080417120235.pdf; Craig Cohen, A Perilous Course: U.S. Strategy and Assistance to Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 2007); Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet, “When $10 Billion Is Not Enough,” The Washington Quarterly 30, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 7–19; Greg Miller, “Pakistan Fails to Aim Billions in U.S. Military Aid at al Qaeda,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2007, p. A1. 6. In 2008, convoy movement and security emerged as a significant factor. In March 2008, some 40 fuel trucks destined for Afghanistan were attacked. Kathy Gannon, “Attacks on Khyber Trucking Threaten U.S. Supply Line,” USA Today, May 20, 2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-05-20-455816233_x.htm. In September, the NWFP government denied NATO fuel trucks access to Torkham in likely protest to unilateral attacks on Pakistani territory. Bill Roggio, “Pakistan Closes Torkham Border Crossing, Shuts Down NATO's Supply Line,” Long War Journal, September 6, 2008, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/09/pakistan_closes_tork.php; “Hijackers in Pakistan Seize Supply Convoy,” International Herald Tribune, November 11, 2008, http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/11/asia/AS-Pakistan.php; Riaz Khan and Fisnik Abrashi, “U.S. Supply Line Threatened by Pakistan Truck Halt,” Associated Press, November 16, 2008, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan. 7. C. Christine Fair, The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation With Pakistan and India (Santa Monica, CA.: RAND, 2004). 8. In addition, numerous U.S. intelligence and military officials have attested to the role of Pakistan's tribal areas as sanctuaries for these groups. J. Michael McConnell, “Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Armed Services Committee,” testimony before the Senate Armed Forces Committee, February 27, 2008, http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080227_testimony.pdf; John D. Negroponte, “Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence,” testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 11, 2007, http://intelligence.senate.gov/070111/negroponte.pdf; Carlotta Gall, “Afghan Rebels Find a Haven in Pakistan, Musharraf Says,” The New York Times, August 12, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/world/asia/12cnd-afghan.html; Kathy Gannon, “Pakistan Militants Focus on Afghanistan; Jihadist Groups Are Increasingly Attacking U.S., NATO Forces in Afghanistan,” Associated Press, July 14, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=5366235. 9. Mandakini Gahlot, “Antony Warns of Increase in Infiltration Bids,” IndianExpress.com, May 14, 2008, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/antony-warns-of-increase-in-infiltration-bids/309331 (comments by Indian defense minister). 10. For a test of the dossier, see http://www.hindu.com/nic/dossier.htm. See also “Terror Evidence in Indian Dossier Credible: U.S.,” Times of India, January 7, 2009, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Terror_evidence_in_Indian_dossier_credible_US/articleshow/3947694.cms. 11. Immediately after the September 11 attacks, Congress enacted the 2001 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, which appropriated $600 million in cash transfers under Economic Support Funds (ESF) for Pakistan. See 2001 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, Public Law 107-38, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (September 18, 2001). Congress also authorized Islamabad to use the fiscal years 2003 and 2004 ESF allocations to cancel nearly $1.5 billion in concessional debts to the U.S. government. Between FY 2005 and FY 2009, the administration agreed that Pakistan would receive about $200 million of its ESF as “budget support,” which amounts to about two-thirds of the total allocation. In principle, Islamabad was to use these cash transfers to increase public expenditures on education, enhance macroeconomic performance, improve the quality of and access to health care, and complete the “Shared Objectives,” which are derived from Pakistan's own Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, which guides the work of the international donor community. See “Pakistan: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper,” IMF Country Report 04/24 (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, January 2004), http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2004/cr0424.pdf. Both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) maintain that the funds were used in accordance to the shared objectives and were closely monitored. Yet, criticisms regarding the fungibility of those funds, which could be redirected by the Pakistani government to support other programs, remained. Finally, in December 2007 the State Department announced that budget support for Pakistan will henceforth be “projectized to ensure the money is targeted at the most urgent priorities.” Kronstadt, “Pakistan-U.S. Relations.” 12. After securing Musharraf's agreement to step down as army chief by December 2004—a demand advanced most strongly by the MMA—the national assembly passed the seventeenth amendment to the constitution in December 2003, which legitimized Musharraf's decrees since he seized power in 1999, including the LFO. Zaffar Abbas, “Analysis: Musharraf Sidelines Parliament,” BBCNews.com, August 21, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/; K. Alan Kronstadt, “Pakistan's Domestic Political Developments,” CRS Report for Congress, RL32615, September 19, 2005, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/54312.pdf. 13. Clark C. Gibson et al., The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 14. Indeed, many USAID employees interviewed by this author about programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan suggest this conclusion. Independent verification of these assessments is not easily available. According to the 2005 testimony of Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute, “[a]lthough exact figures are unclear, USAID spends a significant percentage of international development funds on domestic goods and services. Data from USAID's Buy American Report, the best available assessment, indicates that over the last decade, between 70 and 80 percent of funding appropriations were directed to U.S sources.” Roger Bate, “The Blind Hydra: USAID Policy Fails to Control Malaria,” testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security, May 12, 2005, http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.22508/pub_detail.asp. See Rubén Berríos, Contracting for Development: The Role of For-profit Contractors in U.S. Foreign Development Assistance (Westport, CT.: Greenwood, 2000). 15. Frederic Grare, “Rethinking Western Strategies Toward Pakistan: An Action Agenda for the United States and Europe,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 2007, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/grare_pakistan_final.pdf. 16. The most developed and optimistic of such efforts was forged by Daniel Markey at the Council on Foreign Relations. Unfortunately, Markey's well-considered plans either have been overtaken by events or assume a level of commitment by Pakistan that is simply untenable. Daniel Markey, Securing Pakistan's Tribal Belt (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2008), http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Pakistan_CSR36.pdf. See Joshua T. White, “Pakistan's Islamist Frontier: Islamic Politics and U.S. Policy in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province,” Religion and Security Monograph Series, no. 1 (2008), http://www.pakistanstudies-aips.org/English/PDF/Islamist%20Frontier%20(summary).pdf. 17. Pakistan has declined to extend the political parties act to FATA, which is the legislation that regulates the activities of political parties. 18. See C. Christine Fair and Peter Chalk, Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace (USIP), 2006); Seth G. Jones et al., Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? Evaluating U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Selected Repressive and Transitioning Regimes (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 2006), pp. 125–160. 19. Ahmed Rashid, “Pakistan's Worrisome Pullback,” Washington Post, June 6, 2008, p. A19. 20. David O. Smith. “Facing Up to the Trust Deficit: The Key to an Enhanced U.S.-Pakistan Defense Relationship,” Strategic Insights 6, no. 4 (June 2007), http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2007/Jun/smithJun07.asp. 21. Richard P. Cronin et al., “Pakistan's Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: U.S. Policy Constraints and Options,” CRS Report for Congress, RL32734, May 24, 2005, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32745.pdf. 22. To achieve a reasonably stable Afghanistan whose leadership was positively disposed toward Islamabad, Pakistan supported a Pashtun militant faction, Hizb-e-Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. When Hekmatyar failed to deliver, Pakistan shifted course and threw its support behind the Taliban. 23. Stephen M. Meyer, The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). 24. See Robert Hathaway, “Confrontation and Retreat: The U.S. Congress and the South Asian Nuclear Tests,” Arms Control Today, January/February 2000, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_01-02/rhchart.asp; Barbara LePoer et al., “India-Pakistan Nuclear Tests and U.S. Response,” CRS Report for Congress, 98-570, November 24, 1998; Jeanne Grimmett, “Nuclear Sanctions: Section 102(b) of the Arms Export Control Act and Its Application to India and Pakistan,” CRS Report for Congress, 98-486A, October 5, 2001, https://www.policyarchive.org/bitstream/handle/10207/628/98-486_20011005.pdf?sequence=2. In addition, both the Zangger Committee and the Nuclear Suppliers Group came into being in response to India's test. See http://www.nti.org/e_research/official_docs/inventory/pdfs/zang.pdf. 25. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 51. 26. Cronin et al., “Pakistan's Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.” 27. Cronin et al., “Pakistan's Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.”. 28. Husain Haqqani, “Pakistan Crisis and U.S. Policy Options” (speech, Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., November 27, 2007), http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/archive.cfm?startdate=12/31/2007&days=364. 29. In 1995, Congress made a one-time modification to the Pressler Amendment that allowed Pakistan to receive non–F-16-related military equipment. This reduced Pakistan's claim to $463.7 million. Thomas W. Lippman, “U.S. Pays Pakistan for F-16s Withheld Over Nuclear Issue,” The Washington Post, January 1, 1999, p. A17. 30. Much of the settlement ($324.6 million) came from a fund maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to pay litigants who succeeded or would probably succeed in court claims against the U.S. government. Utilizing these funds allowed the administration to avoid asking for an appropriation from Congress, which likely would have refused the request because many lawmakers believed that Pakistan created the problem by providing false assurances on its nuclear program and by continuing to pay for the planes with full knowledge of U.S. law. Lippman, “U.S. Pays Pakistan for F-16s Withheld Over Nuclear Issue.” Other accounts report somewhat different figures. Arms Control Today reported that the “United States agreed to pay Islamabad $326.9 million, almost all of which will come from the Treasury Department Judgment Fund (used to settle legal disputes), and provide goods worth another $140 million, including $60 million in wheat. Washington had earlier reimbursed Islamabad $157 million for the fighters…. New Zealand announced on December 1 that it would purchase, through two consecutive five-year leases, the 28 fighters previously sold to Pakistan. The proposed deal is estimated at between $105 [million] and $125 million.” “U.S. to Repay Pakistan for Undelivered F-16s,” Arms Control Today, November/December 1998, http://www.armscontrol.org/node/3191. 31. Shireen Mazari, “Islamabad Rejects New Demands,” The News, March 8, 2008, http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=13430. 32. See Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking, 2008). 33. Many Sikh and Hindu families from Afghanistan have moved to India. 34. For an example of such a view, see Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 6 (November/December 2008), http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20081001faessay87603/barnett-r-rubin-ahmed-rashid/from-great-game-to-grand-bargain.html. 35. In 1947 the nascent Pakistani army trained and facilitated a tribal militia to invade Kashmir in an effort to take it by force, culminating in the first India-Pakistan war in 1947. 36. John H. Gill, “India and Pakistan: A Shift in the Military Calculus?” in Strategic Asia, 2005–06: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty, ed. Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2005). 37. Ayesha Jalal, The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defense (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2004), pp. 57–58; Zulfikar Khalid Maluka, The Myth of Constitutionalism in Pakistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 38. See Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008); Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy (London: Pluto Press, 2007). 39. Paula R. Newberg. Judging the State: Courts and Constitutional Polities in Pakistan (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Maluka, Myth of Constitutionalism in Pakistan. 40. Walter C. Ladwig, “A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine,” International Security 32, no. 3 (2008): 158–190. 41. For a discussion of compellence, also sometimes called coercion, see Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). 42. Steven Greffenius and Jungil Gill, “Pure Coercion vs. Carrot-and-Stick Offers in Crisis Bargaining,” Journal of Peace Research 29, no. 1 (1992): 39–52. They found that that carrot and stick offerings produce more accommodation than coercion alone when the target has already demonstrated resolve. 43. See Alexander L. George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War (Washington, D.C.: USIP, 1991). 44. Russian News and Information Agency, “Russia, NATO Agree on Transit of Non-Lethal Cargo to Afghanistan,” April 4, 2008, http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080404/103017125.html. 45. Iran has its own litany of contemporary complaints (e.g., U.S. military presence on nearly every border, U.S.-led efforts to retard Iran's nuclear program, commitments to regime change) and historical concerns over U.S. interference in Iranian governments, most notably the 1953 overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government under Prime Minister Muhammad Mosaddeq. 46. C. Christine Fair, “India and Iran: New Delhi's Balancing Act,” The Washington Quarterly 30, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 145–159. 47. Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 201. 48. Pakistan Policy Working Group, The Next Chapter: The United States and Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, September 2008), http://www.usip.org/pubs/ppwg_report.pdf. The author was a participant in this group. Additional informationNotes on contributorsC. Christine FairC. Christine Fair is a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation and an expert on security relations between India and Pakistan, U.S. strategic interests in South Asia, and Pakistan's internal security