Author: Keith Yost
Publication: The Tech
Date: September 30, 2011
URL: http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N41/pakistan.html
The ISI's ties to an insurgent network undermine
any hope of real cooperation with the US
A pitfall of writing for this newspaper as
frequently as I do is that sometimes a major event comes along and I find
that I've already said most of what I wish to say. Such is the case with Admiral
Michael G. Mullen's recent admonishment of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
for its ties to the Haqqani insurgent network.
It's difficult for me to add more than what
I've already written in "While Karachi Slowly Burns" (Sept. 10,
2010), or "Mission Accomplished" (May 6, 2011). Pakistan is a state
with a major security problem - India - and two mutually-exclusive strategies
to deal with that problem: a stable security partnership with the United States,
or an increasing reliance on jihadi proxies. The former is a realistic path,
as Pakistan and the United States have considerable mutual interests, while
the latter is a monumental blunder, built on the quixotic notion that terrorists
and guerrillas can somehow bleed India down to parity despite its seven to
one advantage in men and materiel.
We have long hoped that Pakistan would choose
America, not terrorists, as the guarantors of its security, but that hope
has been in vain. Now, Admiral Mullen, Pakistan's greatest remaining booster
in the U.S. foreign policy establishment, has delivered what amounts to an
ultimatum: either Pakistan severs its connection with the militant groups
that are attacking NATO forces in Afghanistan, or America will sever its connection
with Pakistan. The Pakistanis have refused to abandon the Haqqanis, and so
the die is cast. The dissolution of the relationship between the United States
and Pakistan is a fait accompli; it is inconceivable that the U.S. Congress
will renew billions of dollars of aid for a country that is actively (and
now publicly) engaged in the killing of U.S. troops.
The decision by the Obama administration to
deliver the ultimatum to our nominal ally is not without its downsides. Our
counter-terrorism efforts, as well as our war-fighting in Afghanistan, rely
a great deal on Pakistan's cooperation. However, in the long run, given Pakistan's
behavior, long-term U.S. interests in South and Central Asia are best served
by a realignment toward India. The Obama administration deserves praise for
its execution of this realignment. Years have been spent carefully setting
the stage, giving the Pakistanis every opportunity to edge themselves back
from their suicidal geopolitical strategy while simultaneously testing the
waters of a U.S-India partnership. And the choice of timing is impeccable:
U.S. forces in Afghanistan are higher than they have ever been before, giving
the U.S. its maximal leverage against Pakistan, but the president's political
capital to remove those forces is also at its zenith, which undercuts Pakistan's
main source of leverage over the U.S. - namely, its supply routes to Afghanistan.
It is important that Obama (or the next president
of the United States) appreciates the gravity and finality implicit in Pakistan's
rebuff of Mullen's ultimatum. Already, some pundits are selling the cutesy
notion of the U.S. being "frenemies" with Pakistan, as if international
relations followed a script out of some Hollywood high school drama. But there
is no intermediate status between friends and enemies to be found here - as
the U.S. withdraws its support from Pakistan, Pakistan will compensate for
this loss by relying even more strongly on militant groups like the Haqqanis
to provide for its national security. The break-up, once initiated, can only
accelerate.
In the long run, the U.S. playbook on Pakistan
should grow to resemble that of India's. The way to neuter an enemy is to
carve them up into multiple states - such was Germany's treatment by the allies
after World War II, as well as the Soviet Union's fate after its fall. India
has already cut Pakistan in half, dividing it between modern Pakistan and
Bangladesh. It seeks to do so again, exploiting the ethnic fault lines in
Pakistani society to carve it up even further. With its parting shots in Afghanistan,
the U.S. should use its military might to aid in this strategy. In its least
extreme form, this strategy might merely ensure that Baloch-dominated provinces
within Afghanistan retain a high degree of autonomy from the Afghan federal
government. In its most extreme form, the U.S. could funnel arms to Baloch
nationalists in southern Pakistan or take direct action in support of a free
Balochistan. Where the U.S. should fall on this spectrum of policy choices
is open to debate - what must be avoided is the naive optimism that Pakistan
will have a Damascene moment and suddenly become the ally that the U.S. requires.
Now is the time to restructure Afghanistan in the way that makes Pakistan
weakest, not to dither in a nonexistent middle ground.
History will look upon Pakistan's embrace
of jihadists as one of the greatest geopolitical missteps of the 21st century.
To prevent itself from appearing with Pakistan in history's list of blunderers,
the U.S. must make its break with Pakistan a decisive one and resist the urge
to force nuance into a situation that deserves none.
