Category: Pakistan

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U.S., Pakistan Need to Reboot Relationship

Karachi Street, photo by Hassan, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hassam/2743778197/sizes/m/in/photostream/

The recent announcement that the United States is suspending about one-third of its military assistance is understandable at one level — but both the United States and Pakistan still need each other, and this is not the way to avoid a breakup. Instead, they need to rebuild the relationship around a civilian core, recognizing the strategic importance of Pakistan’s economy, and to focus on a more modest and concrete set of shared objectives on the security side.

Read Teresita Schaffer’s op-ed on CNN.Com, posted July 14, 2011.

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Riding the Roller Coaster: Excerpt – Dealing with India in the US-Pakistan Relationship

In its dealings with the United States, Pakistan starts from the threat it perceives from India and emphasises India’s shortcomings. It will continue to use the United States as a balancer, barring a major improvement in India-Pakistan relations.

This excerpt from our book describes on the basis of our experience and extensive interviews how we believe Pakistan looks on India and on U.S.-India relations, and how Pakistan expresses these views in its dealings with the United States. It’s a perspective many will not agree with or welcome, but it affects how Pakistan deals with both India and the United States.

Read an excerpt from our book, as first published in The Hindu on June 13, 2011.

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The U.S. and Pakistan: The Third Divorce?

Turnover of last US Mash in Pakistan. From http://www.flickr.com/photos/travlr/104367309/in/photostream/

May 17, 2011: Two weeks after the “Abbottabad incident,” as the raid that killed Osama bin Laden is being called in Pakistan, the United States and Pakistan increasingly look as if they are moving toward a break. Neither seems prepared to agree to the other side’s public demands. Such a “third divorce” between Washington and Islamabad is not yet inevitable. Rather than trying to put back together an open-ended relationship that is undermined by the strategic gap between the two partners, we believe they should focus on concrete goals and specific operating guidelines that both can honor.

In the wake of Abbottabad, both sides are angry. In the United States, the focus is on bin Laden. NSC Adviser Thomas Donilon said that he had seen “no evidence” that senior Pakistani leaders knowingly sheltered bin Laden, but that leaves unstated the agonizing question – who did know, and what unwritten guidance did they have? On the Pakistani side, Prime Minister Gilani on May 3 referred to the death of bin Laden as a “great victory.” By the next day, the Foreign Ministry was expressing “deep concern.” Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif excoriated the violation of sovereignty involved in the raid. In the media, the stress, increasingly, is on how Pakistan is suffering from “America’s war.”

  Continue reading “The U.S. and Pakistan: The Third Divorce?”

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Abbottabad Investigation: Don’t Hold your Breath

 

May 15, 2011: Pakistan-watchers like ourselves were hardly surprised last week when Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told the Pakistan parliament that the government’s investigation of the May 1 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad would be conducted by a military commission headed by a three-star army general, not, as some had hoped, by a more broadly based body that would include civilians. The Pakistan military has always been zealous in securing its own professional interests. It does not countenance interference by civilian officials in a matter of such importance Continue reading “Abbottabad Investigation: Don’t Hold your Breath”