Finally, ‘back on track’

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been on a crucial ‘fence-mending’ mission to Washington seeking to turn a new page in the Pakistan-America relationship. At the end of the visit, there were no surprises, good or bad. Despite the unnecessary media hype in our country, the visit followed a normal course of routine meetings and speeches. The mere fact that the visit took place and resulted in the Sharif-Obama meeting is itself seen as a positive development in a relationship that has mostly remained soured in recent years. It is good to see the two sides back on track.

Indeed, Nawaz Sharif did manage to turn not one but six pages in the form of an unusually lengthy joint statement encompassing the whole range of the US-Pakistan relationship. We would have been better off with a shorter but more meaningful communique. There are many inconsistencies in the joint statement which could have been avoided if it was kept brief to focus only on substance. Too many things seem to have been inserted in the text with no relevance or coherence. For the dummies, the whole document can be summed up in one sentence: The visit marks the beginning of dialogue with both sides talking again and seeking to remove each other’s concerns.

The contents of the joint statement in greater part constitute non-consequential ‘affirmations’ appreciating and acknowledging each other’s role and interest in promoting regional stability and mutually determined measures to counter terrorism. Among the blatant inaccuracies, the most conspicuous one is the emphatic claim that “our enduring partnership is based on the principles of respect and sovereignty and territorial integrity”. If anything, the biggest weakness of this relationship has been the absence of these very principles of interstate conduct enshrined in the UN Charter.

The last few years present a pathetic glossary of total neglect of these principles and norms applicable not only to interstate conduct but also to our intrastate affairs. Pakistan has been experiencing the worst territorial transgressions in the form of frequent drone attacks and totally unprovoked military incursions inside its territory. Ironically, the joint statement also welcomes the resumption of US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue as “the suitable framework for guiding the bilateral relationship”. In contrast with the actual ‘strategic partnership’ the US has with India since 2005, this ‘strategic dialogue’ is no more than a lollypop stuffed in our mouth.

The Indo-US nuclear deal, in particular, seriously aggravates Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns. Any policies that create strategic imbalances between the two nuclear-capable neighbours are no service to the cause of peace and stability in this region. All this notwithstanding, one thing is clear. Because of their respective geopolitical interests, both countries need each other. Both realise the need to refix their troubled relationship and to remove each other’s concerns. This requires a deeper ‘strategic partnership’ based on their long-term common geopolitical objectives and interests.

The problem is that despite all the cliche-laden rhetoric on both sides, this relationship throughout its existence has lacked continuity, a larger conceptual framework and a shared vision beyond each side’s ‘narrowly based and vaguely defined’ issue-specific priorities. It has never had any conflict of interest; yet it also remains without genuine mutuality of interests. The only mutuality in this hinge has been one of expediency with each side always aiming at different goals and objectives to be derived from their relationship.

For Pakistan, the issues of security and survival in a turbulent and hostile regional environment and its problems with India were the overriding policy factors in its relations with Washington. The US policy goals in Pakistan, on the other hand, have traditionally been rooted in its own regional and global interests. Unpredictability has been another consistent feature of this relationship which has gone through regular interruptions in its intensity and integrity.

Pakistan’s post-9/11 alliance with the US was indeed the beginning of a painful chapter in Pakistan’s history. In the blink of an eye, we became a battleground of the US-led war on terror and have constantly been paying a heavy price in terms of human and material losses including violence, trade and production slowdown, investor hesitation and a worsening law and order situation. And yet, one is bewildered at Pakistan’s demonisation by its friends and allies. We are accused of not doing enough. In recent years, we have also being targeted with military incursions and drone attacks in our tribal areas.

It is time to correct this approach. Unfortunately, besides persistent trust deficit, in recent years, the two countries have had no control over the growing list of irritants, some of which could have easily been avoided if both sides were guided by the concept of mutuality in their relationship. The US-Pakistan relationship is not all about any particular incident or an individual or even any isolated irritant. Let us be honest. The problem is not this relationship. The problem is its poor and short-sighted management on both sides.

For Washington, it remains an issue-specific and transactional relationship. They give us errands and we get paid. On our side, this relationship is all about our rulers’ self-serving personal interests. Even the current crisis in our relationship with the US is the result of commitments made by our self-centred rulers, not in the state’s interest but in their own interest. For the first time in our recent history, however, we have a prime minister who doesn’t need any foreign crutches to remain in power and is well-entrenched politically at home with a popular mandate of his own.

Unlike his predecessors, Nawaz Sharif this time did not go to Washington with any excess baggage that could have made him vulnerable to his US interlocutors. In his public appearances at least, he seemed to be presenting himself with a difference. Instead of hurling our usual begging bowl, he used the ‘trade not aid’ mantra while also presenting a rosy picture of his country for foreign investments. First and foremost, he should have sought to regain his country’s lost freedom of action to be able to withstand pressures in matters that pertain to Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns and to take decisions in its own national interest.

Only time will tell what tangible difference Nawaz Sharif’s current trip to Washington has made in the Pakistan-US relationship. Meanwhile, what both sides now need is to set a better bilateral perspective to make it a normal and functional relationship with a policy focus on mutuality of interests. The objective must be not to weaken this important equation but to strengthen it by infusing in it greater political, economic and strategic content.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2013.

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