It's quite familiar - in the past also Washington resorted to aid cut-offs and sanctions to exert pressure on Pakistan to gain leverage in certain areas of bilateral interest. So now that the Obama administration has announced its decision to withhold some 800 million dollars in aid to Pakistan there is not much that hasn't provoked much of angst and anxiety among the people.
To most of them it was expected as a follow-up to the growing perceptional mismatch between the two countries over the situation in the region as it tends to evolve in the wake of President Obama's decision to wind up America's combat mission in Afghanistan. If the people of Pakistan were prepared to face it, the military didn't have a different position; only some weeks back the military top brass too had indicated its inability to be the beneficiary of conditional assistance by asking the US government to divert its funds to civilian projects.
Since the US decision to cut-off aid has largely vindicated the position of the anti-alliance circles, who have been insisting all along that Washington should not be trusted as a durable friend. Some 300 millions of the withheld money is Pakistan's reimbursement claim and its payment was already overdue - the American move has all the ingredients of arm-twisting to which there is just no possibility of succumbing by the country's armed forces.
Not that one would feel jilted at the prospect of this money being refused to Pakistan; it's the crude manner the whole thing is being presented by the Obama administration that brings out the fallacy of the anti-terrorism alliance relationship, which has cost Pakistan more lives than all that the US-led coalition suffered in Afghanistan. Even then if you are being told to 'do more' then it is time to revisit the rationale of that relationship. And Pakistan is just doing that. Add to this narrative the fact that the cut-off decision has been made by the Obama administration and not the US Congress and that the funds delivery was made conditional to Islamabad agreeing to 'welcome' more spies in the garb of 'trainers', the one-sidedness of the so-called co-operative relationship becomes quite obvious.
Though from day one of the Afghan saga the partnership General Musharraf stitched with the United States carried the stigma of coercion and appeasement was not a popular move, but Pakistan did carry out its responsibility as member of the United Nations by fully supporting the foreign forces in Afghanistan. And in the process it not only ditched the Taliban government, which it had recognised, and handed over Taliban leaders and affiliates to Americans in violation of due process of law, it also opened its military facilities, quite unwisely, to them.
Isn't it ridiculous to think that the Pakistani authorities would not take action against bomb-making factories, as if we take pleasure in killing our own people and to be told to undertake "change of behaviour"? What that behaviour should be the New York Times is less diplomatic: the US action of withholding aid is to "chasten Pakistan for expelling American military trainers and to press its army to fight more effectively".
That is not the right expectation and there is no chance of Pakistan too dangerously bending backward to please Washington. As the Afghan war enters its endgame, ground realities have undergone complete metamorphosis - after 10 years of war with them, the United States is seeking their friendship while denying the same on the part of Pakistan. Then Pakistan is also fully conscious of the fact that it cannot endorse US' strategic perspective in this region, with India as its regional bully. Given that the agreed aid and assistance can only be withheld by the US Congress and the announcement made by the White House is only a threat as of now, the negative reaction it tends to provoke cannot be overlooked.
It's essentially a counter-productive move and only will add to the negativity that is fast creeping into the Pak-US bilateralism. Clearly an air of desperation has begun to pervade the corridors of the Obama government, particularly of the Pentagon for the American generalship has failed to win the Afghan war. Let that be as it is, but what worries Pakistanis is the nefarious moves afoot in Washington to shift the blame for this failure onto Pakistan. Not only do the American generals keep dishing out accusations of sheltering al Qaeda leaders and going soft on the Taliban, they make the American media work overtime to invent stories projecting Pakistan as an unreliable partner.
This is not on. History tells us it won't work. Pakistan is a sovereign country; it has its own strategic interests in the region, which may not be fully compatible with America's, but still plenty of commonality and conversion of interests obtains between the two. Instead of resorting to the policy of brinkmanship, the US government would do well to itself and Pakistan by working to expand that common ground.
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