Little hope, no change

Republican or Democrat, the PML-N or PPP: these are choices that hold little bearing in our relationship with the US.

Events, not elections, decide the trajectory of US-Pakistan relations. There is a perception here that Republican presidents tend to be more pro-Pakistan, with favourability being measured by the amount of dollars strewn at the feet of our rulers. Leave aside the wisdom of equating monetary support of the government — which has often been an illegitimate dictatorship — with the well-being of the country’s citizens, this is a distinction that does not hold up to scrutiny. US foreign policy since the Cold War has been metronomic in its consistency regardless of which party occupies the White House.

Thus you had the Democrat, Harry Truman, who invited Liaquat Ali Khan to Washington and kicked off the alliance between the two countries to forestall a proposed Pakistani visit to Moscow. Truman himself greeted Liaquat at the airport, not because of any personal fondness he had for our prime minister, but because he considered this a vital visit. And it was his successor, the Republican Dwight Eisenhower, who cajoled Pakistan to sign the anti-Communist SEATO and CENTO treaties, again, not out of love and goodwill for Pakistan, but because it suited the American’s Cold War needs. Similarly, Republican Ronald Regan was willing to overlook the fact that the US embassy in Islamabad had been attacked to embrace General Ziaul Haq after he portrayed himself as indispensable in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

On the flip side, the Democrat Bill Clinton did not harbour any particular animosity against Nawaz Sharif or General (retd) Pervez Musharraf; it’s just that we were no longer so vital after the Cold War and so there was no need to pretend our nuclear programme was not a source of worry.

The Republicans-are-better-for-us canard continues to persist, which is why many were optimistic about a possible Mitt Romney win. Just as there was no reason to be optimistic that he may snatch the presidential election, there is equally little cause to be despondent about President Barack Obama’s triumph. For Pakistan, the US presidential election is just a whole lot of white noise.

We are in the strange position of being showered with both US dollars and bombs and both would have continued to rain down no matter who the president. As is there in just about every other crucial matter of foreign policy, the bipartisan consensus in DC is that Pakistan needs to be kept afloat so that the terrorists don’t take over and that drone attacks are the best way to eliminate terrorists.

If there is to be any change in US policy, it will be dictated by changing circumstances. Once the US starts reducing its troop levels in Afghanistan, there is a possibility that the Taliban will enter a power-sharing agreement or even take outright control. Consigning themselves to that fate, President Obama and whoever succeeds him may just decide that the Haqqani network and other Afghan Taliban groups can be endured rather than eliminated.

Similarly, our own upcoming elections are hardly likely to change the Pakistan-US equation either. Our politicians love campaigning on a populist anti-American platform but quickly adjust to reality. Recall Nawaz Sharif, so willing to defy the US when it came to our nuclear tests, meeting Clinton after the Kargil fiasco. Our political and military class has decided that, for the most part, our national security needs require US assistance. Ignore the rhetoric and look at the reality of cooperation. It is going to require more than the ballot box to change that. Republican or Democrat, the PML-N or the PPP: these are choices that hold little bearing in our relationship with the US.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2012.