Daniel S Markey

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by No Exit from Pakistan (pdf)


  to assist Pakistan’s civilians. These efforts were met with initial enthusiasm on

  both sides, but the high-flying bubble burst within less than two years. A series

  of crises over the course of 2011 sent the relationship crashing to its lowest

  point since 9/11. The apparent failure of Washington’s intensified diplomacy

  threw the entire enterprise into doubt. If any experience could prove that no

  amount of American effort would “fix” Pakistan or build a better working

  relationship between Washington and Islamabad, this looked to be it.

  Yet, here too there was more to the story than initially meets the eye. Amer-

  ican assistance programs were freighted with great fanfare and terrible follow-

  through. Washington’s intention had been to demonstrate the value of U.S.

  partnership to a wide swathe of the Pakistani public, but the diplomatic rollout

  of new American aid was botched from the start. In addition, Washington’s

  inadequate planning, the limitations of the U.S. Agency for International Devel-

  opment (USAID), and bureaucratic infighting delayed the delivery of most new

  aid dollars for over a year after they were announced. Long after that, well-

  informed Pakistanis complained that whatever U.S. funds were entering Pak-

  istan were invisible to the public, perhaps even unknown to the beneficiaries

  themselves. In retrospect, it is possible to imagine that U.S. officials might have

  handled each of these challenges more effectively. Some of the missteps were

  even apparent without the benefit of hindsight. This suggests the strategy itself

  was not impossibly overambitious.

  Any effort to improve America’s relationship with Pakistan during this

  period would have faced stiff headwinds, some of Washington’s own creation.

  Expanded U.S. efforts at diplomacy and development were taking place within

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  No Exit from Pakistan

  the context of the Obama administration’s intensified counterterror operations.

  As he had promised during his 2008 campaign, President Obama was deter-

  mined to deliver a crushing blow to al-Qaeda, if necessary without Pakistan’s

  cooperation or consent. U.S. armed drones toted up major new kills, and the

  raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout was a spectacular demonstration of

  America’s twenty-first-century fusion of military power and intelligence work.

  These were important victories.

  That said, neither these counterterror victories nor Washington’s military

  surge in Afghanistan were crafted in ways designed to contribute to a strategic

  breakthrough with Pakistan. In practice, what would that have meant? On

  the one hand, if the Obama administration had placed a greater value on

  Pakistani public sentiment, it might have taken a very different approach to the

  counterterror war. Washington could have stressed diplomacy and cooperative

  operations over drone strikes and unilateral Special Forces missions. On the

  other hand, if Washington had sought to back Pakistan’s leadership into a

  corner and force it to take painful steps against terrorists based on Pakistani

  soil, the impressive demonstrations of U.S. power – like the military surge in

  Afghanistan or the bin Laden raid – might have been used as points of coercive

  leverage.

  Instead, counterterror operations were pursued for the urgent yet narrow

  purpose of eliminating specific threats, above all, Osama bin Laden. This

  achievement should not be minimized. When viewed from the perspective of

  Pakistan’s intransigent military leadership, however, even the most successful

  American counterterror missions like the raid on Abbottabad were humiliating

  irritants. They undermined trust without being quite threatening enough to

  coerce a constructive shift in Pakistan’s outlook or behavior.

  Once again, it is not clear that the American problem was an over-ambitious

  agenda in Pakistan. Faced with multiple continuous challenges, Washington

  focused on counterterrorism. Success in the fight against al-Qaeda’s leader-

  ship was real, but it was achieved in a way that gave less priority to other

  goals.

  Pragmatism, Not Fatalism

  Although even the best-laid U.S. plans could well fail, Americans should not

  be too quick to run from realistic self-criticism into paralyzing self-doubt. Suc-

  cesses are possible, even with Pakistan. It is important to recall that throughout

  the 1990s, the working relationship between Washington and Islamabad was

  sharply constrained. Points of cooperation were few and far between, overshad-

  owed by fundamental policy differences and stiff U.S. sanctions. Then, after

  9/11, working under intense American pressure, Pakistan executed significant –

  if incomplete – changes in its foreign and defense policies. These changes opened

  the door to U.S. financial assistance and expanded cooperation on a range of

  counterterror and counterinsurgency missions.

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  No Exit

  25

  Pakistan’s dramatic policy shift after 9/11 is best described as the product of a

  cold calculation by its top generals who control national policy. They reasoned

  that working with America on certain issues served their interests better than

  obstruction or inaction. Their motives may always have been more cynical than

  altruistic or sympathetic. But they were not, in the main, implacably hostile or

  irrational.

  This remains true; the primary purpose of the Pakistani military is to advance

  or defend its institutional interests. As Pakistan’s dominant institution, these

  interests are often consistent with a broader national interest, but not always.17

  Recognizing that Pakistan’s leaders tend to be tough negotiators with high

  thresholds for pain, Washington can cut new deals and level credible threats to

  achieve U.S. goals. This is not a friendly game, but out of it both sides can still

  benefit.

  At the same time, it bears noting that the United States has already made last-

  ing contributions to Pakistan’s economy, infrastructure, security, and quality

  of life, a fact that is too rarely appreciated by Pakistanis or Americans. Projects

  like Pakistan’s colossal Tarbela Dam, for instance, have shown that the United

  States can assist Pakistan’s economy, and – indirectly at least – address some of

  the country’s underlying causes of instability and violence. Built in the 1960s

  and 1970s with heavy infusions of American cash, Tarbela now serves as an

  essential part of Pakistan’s national water management system.18 It provides

  roughly 30 percent of the nation’s irrigation water in the dry season. Tarbela

  also generates over 3,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid as it has

  for decades. In 2010, the United States began to refurbish and improve the dam

  as part of its exp
anded assistance programming in Pakistan.19

  This is not to suggest that U.S. assistance can solve all, or even most, of

  Pakistan’s internal challenges. Pakistanis must do that job. Fortunately, every

  day millions of Pakistanis search for new ways to improve conditions for

  themselves and their countrymen. Some of their projects are paying remarkable

  dividends.

  One example of this reality is the Indus Hospital in Karachi. Opened in

  2007, the hospital was the brainchild of a group of Pakistani graduates of the

  city’s prestigious Dow Medical College. Their common bond was forged when

  they chose to work for Karachi Civil Hospital’s Patients Welfare Association, a

  student group dedicated to helping indigent patients. As the hospital’s bearded

  17 Indeed, it is even possible to argue that the military’s institutional interest in maintaining its budgets and autonomy leads it to overstate the threat posed by India and, as a consequence, to work at cross purposes with the national interest.

  18 “$2-Billion Irrigation Project Will Tame the Indus,” New York Times, January 19, 1968, search.proquest.com/docview/118371546/fulltextPDF/1381FD9F3D74626F4CF/1?

  accountid=37722.

  19 “Energy: Tarbela Dam Project,” USAID, January 25, 2012, http://transition.usaid.gov/pk/db/

  sectors/energy/project 10.html.

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  No Exit from Pakistan

  and kind-eyed CEO, Dr. Abdul Bari Khan, explains, that volunteer experience

  convinced him of how much more work needed to be done. Together, he

  has joined forces with a dedicated team of clinicians motivated by a similar

  humanitarian and religious spirit.20 They have built a world-class institution

  that routinely hosts volunteer surgeons and specialists from some of the best

  hospitals around the world. After two years, the hospital’s doctors had already

  conducted over 10,000 surgeries. By the end of 2010, they had treated over

  100,000 patients in the hospital’s emergency room.

  The Indus Hospital owes some of its success to smart, first-in-Pakistan inno-

  vations. The hospital is paperless; tens of thousands of patients and their pro-

  cedures are tracked by a proprietary database that was conceived and coded at

  the hospital (and cost much less than off-the-shelf computer programs). Most

  important of all, every bit of the hospital’s work is free to the patients, financed

  by charitable contributions.

  The leaders of the hospital are far from ready to rest on their laurels. They

  have plans to enlarge the facility from 150 to 700 beds; to build Pakistan’s first

  pediatric hospital; to expand a program to use inexpensive cell phones as a

  means to monitor outpatient care; and to open a nursing school to train more

  high-quality hospital staff. Their success has won national and international

  attention. The World Health Organization is eager to partner with the hospital

  to tackle Pakistan’s many public health problems, like tuberculosis.

  Perhaps more significant than its own individual success story, the Indus

  Hospital has established a model for care that its visionary leaders intend to

  replicate in other Pakistani cities. With outside help, including from the United

  States, other projects of this sort could be implemented. If Pakistan finds a way

  to tap the economic potential inherent in its geographic location, especially

  by opening its doors to greater trade and economic cooperation with India,

  even more significant breakthroughs await. By revising its own trade policies,

  America may be able to assist here too, and all the more so if Washington

  enjoys good relations with both New Delhi and Islamabad.

  Above all, the United States must recognize that as dim as the present outlook

  may seem, Pakistan is not yet a lost cause. It is no North Korea, no Iran. Not

  yet. Nor is the U.S.-Pakistan relationship necessarily condemned to repeat the

  disappointing patterns of the past.

  america’s options

  Painting with a broad brush, America has three options for dealing with

  Pakistan in the future: defensive insulation, military-first cooperation, and com-

  prehensive cooperation. All three are explored at length in Chapter 7. To be

  20 Author conversations with Dr. Abdul Bari Khan, Dr. Muhammad Amin Chinoy, and

  Dr. Akhtar Aziz Khan, May 22, 2012.

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  No Exit

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  clear, these options are in fact points along a spectrum of U.S. policy choices

  and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

  In a defensive insulation strategy, Washington would devote the bulk of its

  efforts to protecting the United States from Pakistan-based threats. Assuming

  that mounting mutual frustrations stymie cooperation with Islamabad, U.S.

  policies would rely on coercion, deterrence, and closer military and intelligence

  cooperation with Afghanistan and India.

  In a strategy of military-first cooperation, Washington would focus on cul-

  tivating a businesslike relationship with Pakistan’s military, not unlike the one

  China enjoys. By taking its diplomacy out of the public eye, as the United States

  has long done with other important but difficult states, Washington would seek

  greater flexibility in its negotiations with Islamabad. Both carrots and sticks

  could be used to advance specific U.S. counterterrorism and nuclear goals.

  Washington’s third option of comprehensive cooperation would mean work-

  ing with and providing support to Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership

  as well as with its civil society. The goal would be to help tip the scales inside

  Pakistan in ways – such as improved governance, infrastructure, and educa-

  tional opportunities – that would, over time, render its state and society more

  peaceful and less threatening to American interests.

  Unfortunately, there is no perfect path for America to walk in its relations

  with Pakistan. As has been true in the past, Washington faces conflicting pri-

  orities, political pressures, and logistical hurdles. If the United States insulates

  itself from threats through coercion and deterrence, it increases the likelihood

  that Pakistan will respond with unremitting hostility. That pattern could take

  decades to break. If the United States puts all its eggs in the Pakistani military’s

  basket, it commits the same error it did with Musharraf or as it has with other

  authoritarian allies like Mubarak’s Egypt, the Shah’s Iran, or Marcos’s Philip-

  pines. A return to military rule in Pakistan would contribute to the country’s

  unhealthy political culture and the hollowing out of its civilian government as

  well as the dangerous politicization of the military itself. That, in turn, would

  tee up the prospect of revolutionary change and instability in a nuclear-armed

  state. Finally, if the United States takes another shot at comprehensive coop-

  eration, it would require
new U.S. policies characterized by less hype, more

  tangible follow-through, and longer timelines. Any one of these would be a tall

  order.

  Alone, each of these broad strategic options is therefore conceivable but

  flawed. The real question is how best to balance (and re-balance) between the

  three in order to advance American goals in the short and long run.

  get on with it

  At the very end of Sartre’s No Exit, his sinners finally accept their sorry circumstances and agree that they have no choice but to “get on with it.” Sartre’s

  tragic sense of the world – written at one of the darkest periods in human

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  28

  No Exit from Pakistan

  history – will always resonate with pessimists and pragmatists alike, but it is

  only one aspect of reality.

  In the summer of 1944, just months after Huis Clos debuted in Paris, invad-

  ing American and allied forces collapsed the German occupation of France and

  went on to destroy Hitler’s Nazi menace. After terrible human sacrifice, the

  Second World War ended and brighter days returned. Progress is possible; the

  U.S.-Pakistan relationship is not necessarily trapped in a perpetual hell.

  Yet progress of any sort will only be achieved through a patient, sustained

  effort, not by way of quick fixes or neglect. No U.S. policy or set of policies will

  solve the challenges posed by Pakistan all at once, or maybe ever. Managing

  and mitigating threats over time is a more realistic expectation, as hard as

  that may be to stomach for Americans, whose “can do” spirit often mobilizes

  crests of energy followed by troughs of impatience. We are better at waging

  total war or thriving in peace; the murky gray of uncertainty sits poorly with

  us. Compromise and trade-offs are unwelcome concepts for a superpower,

  especially in dealings with a country that is so relatively poor and weak. Yet

  we must face up to all of these challenges in Pakistan.

  The first order of business is to better understand the nature of the vari-

  ous problems Pakistan poses (Chapter 2). The next step is to learn from our

 

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