Locked in grand posturing

In layman’s parlance in Pakistan, the name of the game — where two adversaries have their horns locked, ostensibly, but seeking to cut a deal behind the curtain — is muk muka. It’s hard to think of a befitting English equivalent. However, loosely translated, it’s akin to two tired and exhausted pugilists desperately trying to work their way out of a tight corner, with each concerned that he mustn’t lose face in the process. Pakistan-US relations have been in a cul de sac for almost a year. Last year opened with the Raymond Davis saga that enraged just about every other Pakistani.

Then on May 2, the Pakistanis were caught flat-footed when US Navy SEALs raided the lair of Osama bin Laden, in Abbottabad. The embarrassment of it injected more Pakistani venom and bile in their tangled relations with Washington. The year closed with a US drone attack killing 24 Pakistani soldiers at a check-post, abutting the border with Afghanistan. Since then not one supply truck has been allowed to cross the border into Afghanistan, thus choking off a vital life-line for the beleaguered US and NATO troops. The alternative routes of supplies — across Central Asia and Russia — are not only time-consuming but also manifold more expensive.

In January this year Pakistan heaped the ultimate insult on Washington by refusing, point-blank, to receive Marc Grossman, President Barack Obama’s point-man for Af-Pak, in the course of his swing across the region. New Delhi was one of the stops on Grossman’s safari but Islamabad did not receive the emissary despite frantic, behind the scene efforts by Washington. That Islamabad wouldn’t budge and stuck to its guns only underlined the gravity of the crisis of confidence between the so-called allies and the deep pit both have dug themselves into.

Not that the snarled equation with Washington is without its toll for Pakistan. The transit of NATO and American supplies was a huge boon for Pakistan’s trucking industry. The plugging of the system is exacting a stiff price from it; thousands of truck drivers have been laid off work, adding further to Pakistan’s alarming unemployment and the penury of daily wage-workers. Tens of thousands of idle trucks are choking off roads and highways and causing dislocation on a very large scale. This is not taking into account the increasing gap in the provision of US arms and military assistance to Pakistan which has been frozen since before the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers and the fallout from Memogate.

The challenge for the Pakistan military, the principal actor in the boycott of contact with America, was undoubtedly huge and multi-faceted. The military brass interpreted all three developments off Washington’s bat as a calculated snub to its special position in the context of governance of Pakistan and GHQ’s overarching focal position in it.

And while the military high command was still grappling with the gauntlet thrown at it, it was hit with the bombshell of Memogate, in which the civilian government ruling the roost in Islamabad is suspected of conspiring with Pentagon to check and rein-in the preponderant influence of GHQ over the running of Pakistan.

Torn fences between the GHQ and the Obama administration have impacted Pakistan’s overall governance and the direction of its government. It’s an open secret in this three-way equation that the civilian government, so beholden to Washington’s patronage for its survival, is being goaded into keeping its mentors at arm’s length largely because of the GHQ’s diktat. This has spawned a crisis of confidence and breach of trust between the military and civilian arms of the state. Memogate has morphed into an epic battle of wits between the civilian government and the GHQ, with the latter obviously enjoying vociferous support of the people and an increasingly assertive and pro-active judiciary.

Washington, finally, seems to have drawn a logical conclusion from the trilateral tug-of-war of the past several months that any mending of fences with Islamabad will have to have the GHQ on board. That’s where the contours of a muk muka-in-the-making between Pakistan and US get into focus.

The first indicator of a thaw came from Washington when it swallowed pride, lumped Islamabad’s deliberate insult to Grossman with aplomb and put icing on it by saying it wanted to give Islamabad time to deliberate over the future of its relations with the US. The point was well taken in the corridors of power at the GHQ, in evidence of the Pakistani brass’ desire to not take its discord with the Americans to breaking point, take its own first step in the direction of mending fences with the Americans and not let the building momentum toward the snatching of blood go unresponded. This is notwithstanding Memogate and keeping the equation between the civilian government and the military on hot coals.

The road to recovery is still fraught with pitfalls. Along with feelers, as per American claims, from the GHQ that it’s inclined to give early consideration to the resumption of NATO and US supplies into Afghanistan, there are also gathering clouds on Pakistan’s political scene daunting optimism. As if they have sniffed the air, Pakistan’s rambunctious political parties in the opposition have quickly rallied against any idea of thawing the current freeze and warned of violent public reaction if Pakistan pussyfooted.

Washington’s manoeuvres on Afghanistan don’t seem calculated to bring Pakistan back into the American fold. The air from Washington is thick with talk of the Taliban getting on to its right flank by agreeing to open a representative office in Qatar as prelude to open dialogue. This gambit looks strictly like a two-horse race — US and Taliban — with no room for Islamabad, or even the Karzai regime.

In what could only be described as a countervailing gambit of their own, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are said to be fairly well into their own arrangement with the Taliban to conduct a parallel peace dialogue in Saudi Arabia. The Karzai government seems not only well aware of it but its spokesman in Kabul has welcomed the move, obviously believing in the dictum ‘more the merrier.’ And to give the Americans a taste of their own medicine, Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, is visiting Kabul.

The Americans should take note that a muk muka with Islamabad will not be a piece of cake that Washington wizards may take for granted.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own)

Karamatullah K Ghori is a former Pakistani diplomat.

E-mail: k_k_ghori@yahoo.com