Doubling Down on Civilian Engagement in Pakistan

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Letter From

Is Pakistan Preparing for War?

Omar R. Quraishi

Neither Islamabad nor Rawalpindi wants a major showdown with Washington, but an increasingly anti-American public is pushing them to stand up to the United States in ways they cannot afford.

For a decade, the United States sought to allure -- and increasing cajole -- Pakistan into better military and intelligence cooperation. The United States believed that it needed Pakistan to secure Afghanistan, fight terrorism, and control nuclear proliferation. It also believed that Pakistan needed American support, even though the country often argues that China could easily fill the United States' shoes. All the while, U.S. policymakers simply resisted countenancing the simple reality that, security-wise, Pakistan and the United States hold fundamentally divergent priorities.

In the wake of frequent revelations this spring about Pakistan's extensive support of militant groups in Afghanistan and elsewhere, however, U.S. citizens and policymakers became increasingly wary of continuing to provide Pakistan military and financial assistance. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's recent testimony that the Jalaluddin Haqqani network -- which has attacked the Indian and American embassies, as well as a number of other high-profile targets -- is a "virtual arm of the ISI" exacerbated congressional and public outrage towards Pakistan. Some members of the U.S. Congress, such as Senators Lindsey Graham and Carl Levin, are increasingly hesitant to continue writing checks to the country.

For its part, Pakistan has also been cooling to the United States. After the notorious January 2011 Raymond Davis affair, in which Davis, a CIA contractor, shot two men whom the ISI had hired to menace him, Pakistan slowed intelligence and counterterrorism partnership with the United States. Pakistan even ousted U.S. military trainers who were helping its Frontier Corps develop basic combat and survival skills. Then, following the unilateral May 2011 U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden, Pakistan called off cooperation indefinitely and arrested Pakistani citizens who had helped the CIA in the bin Laden operation. Americans were dismayed to learn that the ISI was more interested in ferreting out "traitors" than discerning how bin Laden could find sanctuary in a cantonment town near Pakistan's prestigious military academy at Kakul.

Oddly enough, all this may be a good thing. Washington's search for military and intelligence partnership in Pakistan has dominated the bilateral relationship to the exclusion of other power centers. Washington's support has buttressed the praetorian tendencies of the army, leaving civilian institutions ever less capable of functioning effectively. In turn, these institutions are less and less able to fend off military aspirations to power. Meanwhile, the United States' military involvement in the region has even made it more difficult for the country to fight extremists, which would be seen by the Pakistani public as "fighting America's war."

The 2009 Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation aimed at rebalancing U.S. engagement somewhat toward civilian institutions. Due to execution problems, security issues, and budgetary shortfalls, however, the bill is moribund. As U.S. legislators increasingly view Pakistan as dangerously duplicitous, they may well decide to defund the program completely. This would be disastrous. Despite the widening gap in U.S. and Pakistani interests and objectives, the United States must continue to try and engage Pakistan, particularly its civilian institutions, in the hope that one day Pakistan will be more firmly controlled by civilians. That is the most likely path toward a Pakistan that is stable and at peace with itself and its neighbors.

No matter how challenging, in the immediate future, Washington will still have to engage Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies as much as possible. However, there are ways to adjust the parameters of the relationship and, indeed, normalize those ties to the greater benefit of everyone. For one, the United States should follow its standard protocol for high-level exchanges. The Pakistani chief of army staff should meet and communicate with his American counterpart, not with the secretary of state or the president, as he does now. Rather than consult on political issues, the two countries' military leadership should focus on security matters, such as the war in Afghanistan, continued joint training, and foreign military sales -- preferably all geared toward supporting Pakistan's counterterrorism and insurgency capabilities. It is worth remembering that the U.S. secretary of state meets with the military leadership of virtually no other country. Meanwhile, flagrant disregard for diplomatic protocol in almost every high-level exchange between Pakistan and the United States, is frustrating for even ordinary Pakistanis who are exhausted with U.S. pandering to their men on horseback, even if Americans are oblivious to it.

Alongside diminished contact with the military, the United States should engage Pakistan's civilian centers of power, including the parliament, the judiciary, educational institutions, and the economy. Pakistan's parliament desperately needs assistance of all kinds. Its parliamentarians lack fundamental legislative skills, are beholden to systems of patronage, and have little interest in advancing the lives of ordinary Pakistanis. Without a doubt, their performance will improve on its own the longer the country stays democratic, but much more can and should be done in the short term. Given the entrenched patronage networks around current national and even provincial-level politicians, the United States (and partner organizations such as the United Nations Development Program) should focus on fostering a commitment to sound and transparent policymaking among the younger generations of legislators.