Relations with Pakistan

Pakistan is an important ally for the United States in the War in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a land locked country, and heavy supplies - too heavy to be brought in by air cargo ships - are brought by ship through Pakistani ports and carried by truck through the country and into Afghanistan. Pakistan shares a long and perforated boarder with Afghanistan, which allows the Taliban and other militants to easily cross between the two countries - which means Pakistan is an important battleground for the U.S.'s war in Afghanistan, and without the cooperation the Pakistan government who allow U.S. drone operations, the fight against the Taliban would be all the more difficult for the U.S. However, despite Pakistan being our "ally" and their complacency with the U.S. drone attacks, they continuously play a double game - often supporting the Taliban and other militants for their own purposes, and their secret spy agency the ISI's never ending cold war with India has put serious strain on U.S. relations with Pakistan as of late.

The first major problem this year began with the whole Raymond Davis debacle, the apparent CIA agent who killed two would-be robbers, who may have actually been ISI agents and was arrested by Pakistani officials. For several days this resulted in an almost complete breakdown in diplomatic relations between Washington and Islamabad, as neither side wanted to provoke outrage from their own people by caving to the others position. Now, less than six weeks after Davis's release, a team of Navy Seals conducts an operation in which Osama Bin Laden is killed - in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. There had been some suspicion that the ISI was protecting Bin Laden, and finding him living in the same town as one of Pakistan's top military academies has essentially confirmed that suspicion. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks what all of this means for U.S. - Pakistan relations, but I can't imagine things are going to go well.

It's understandable why Pakistan was protecting Osama, if you understand the ISI's obsession with India and Kashmir. Pakistan can not attack India directly, but they can support and encourage Islamic extremists to carry out terrorist attacks in Kashmir and continue to harass and fight a sort of proxy war with India. To this end, the ISI must maintain the trust of these extremists if it wishes to continue to use them as a convenient tool in this territorial dispute. So from this perspective, it was "necessary" to provide protection for Osama, despite the fact that Pakistan is supposedly an ally in the "War on Terror".

The United States so far has largely ignored the hypocrisy and double crosses of the ISI and Pakistani military, probably because they've been too valuable to us to do otherwise. However, with these recent events involving the killing of Osama Bin Laden, it may become more and more difficult for Washington to allow Pakistan so much leeway, especially if Obama wishes to maintain his new found mane. If it is Obama's intention to end this War sometime during his second term in office, then where does that leave U.S. - Pakistan relations in the future? When this war finally comes to an end, I think Pakistan will have to reap what it has sown during the past ten years, and I highly suspect that Washington will want very little to do with the country once we no longer have a use for them.

There is, however, the question of what Pakistan's role in a future Afghanistan will be. It would be convenient for the U.S. to have an ally in the region who shares a common set of goals to help manage the re-building of Afghanistan and the transition to a stable and self-sufficient government. Unfortunate, that ally is not Pakistan. It seems to me that it is in fact in Pakistan's interest to maintain a weak and dependent Afghanistan for as long as possible, and to continue to exploit the fact that the U.S. needs a way to move supplies into the country, and that the Taliban use Pakistan as a save haven. When the war inevitably ends though, what leverage does Pakistan have left, and for what reason would the U.S. continue to put up with their shenanigans? To me, it seems that this current "friendship" with Pakistan is one which is not made to last, and as time goes on I can foresee some serious conflict of interests between the two countries - especially as India becomes more and more important in the world.

If Pakistan were smart, they would realize that their actions, motivated by India and the Kashmir dispute, are putting them at serious risk of losing this current friendship with the U.S., and frankly in the coming years I think it will become apparent that as the Pakistani economy continues to stagnant and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan begins to gain strength, that Pakistan will need the U.S. much more than the U.S. will need Pakistan. It is a very dangerous game they are playing.