Matters of mutual interest

IN days when Karachi’s wanton bloodletting grabbed almost all the news space, two important events occurred without anyone taking detailed notice.
DG ISI Shuja Pasha went to the US and met acting CIA director Michael Morell and other officials. Far quieter was the visit of Gen David Petraeus, the outgoing US commander in Afghanistan, and his soon-to-be successor Marine Lt Gen John Allen, to Pakistan where they met Pakistan army chief Gen Parvez Kayani.
Two days before Petraeus’ meetings in Islamabad, and Pasha’s in Washington, Marine Gen James Mattis, head of the US Central Command, also flew to Pakistan for meetings with the top brass here.
The US embassy in Islamabad was quoted in press reports as saying that those gathered “discussed various topics of mutual interest and ways to improve regional security”.
Just as bland was the press note issued by the ISPR on Thursday’s meetings. It said: “Gen Petraeus, Commander, International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) called on Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani today. The visiting dignitary remained with him for some time and discussed matters of professional interest.”
Reportage on these meetings was lost in Karachi’s chaos, but their importance can hardly be over-emphasised. Symbolically, realistic interaction between the two sides is indicated.
This suggests that the Pakistan military high command, for all its sizzling rhetoric of scaling back military ties with the US, is nevertheless quite keen to stay engaged with Washington and is not ready to allow relations to go into freefall. From Washington’s decision-makers, the meetings carry the message that there is still some carrot left for Pakistan to nibble at, provided the country does not mind the accompanying stick.
This phase of engagement by Pakistan’s military circles with the US is particularly remarkable considering the fact that in the weeks preceding these meetings Washington lost no opportunity to rub Pakistan’s security establishment’s nose in the dirt.
The number of drone attacks surged since the attack on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel on June 28. The pounding of alleged safe havens in both the Waziristan agencies indicated that the US had decided that this facet of counterterrorism would be a constant in its interaction with Islamabad.
In fact, a double attack in North and South Waziristan that killed over 50 people happened the day the ISI chief left for Washington. This was also the day when news reports on the corps commanders’ meeting quoted unnamed officials saying that the Pakistani military could counter terrorism on its own steam, without foreign assistance.
This statement was in the context of President Barack Obama’s senior representatives saying that US military aid worth some $800m had been put on hold to manoeuvre greater compliance with Washington’s demands, the most important of which is to deliver Ayman Al Zawahiri, the new Al Qaeda chief, and other leaders of the outfit.
Preceding the meetings in Islamabad, besides publicly arm-twisting Pakistan, Washington ran an aggressive image-assassination campaign against the Pakistan’s security establishment. Adm Mike Mullen accused the Pakistan government of sanctioning the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad. Stories, that appeared to be leaked, in the New York Times and The Washington Post gave context to this remark. These reports said that the CIA had evidence of the involvement of high-ranking ISI officials in the murder. News plants also played up accusations that military heads had been bribed by North Korea years ago to give it nuclear enrichment technology.
All in all, the run-up to last week’s meetings in Islamabad and Washington between the military and intelligence heads did not look promising. In fact, the bilateral environment appeared so hostile that the fact that the meetings were held at all looked quite an event.
But then, there have always been two sides to Pakistan’s policy towards the US — private and public. These two realms have completely different tracks, with different moods, different tones and different attitudes. Far from the bravado that forms the centre of the military’s public diplomacy on matters pertaining to Washington, lies the privately acknowledged reality that the army’s doors, though slightly narrower than before, are still open to the US.
This in itself is not a bad thing. Even the most powerful countries that are completely self-reliant avoid diplomatic rows.
Pakistan should do the same — particularly in the realm of military matters — where its compulsions at this point are pressing.
If engagement can defuse mounting tensions with Washington and puncture anti-Pakistan propaganda, then why not?
However, the problem is that there is no indication that Washington is willing to give Pakistan any space in which to breathe easy. What transpired in these meetings is hidden in the usual miasma of secrecy that has been the hallmark of the Pakistan military’s previous engagements with the US. We do not know whether these meetings were terse or cordial, whether the US complained to Pakistan of non-cooperation or if Pakistan was on the demanding side of the table.
Put differently, we do not know what terms of engagement are being negotiated, and how different these are from the ones on which the two sides agreed to build a strategic dialogue which collapsed after the Osama bin Laden episode. What, then, is the agenda of discussion between the two militaries?
Nobody other than the generals knows. The civilian side, sloppy and self-absorbed in seedy politics, has no time to pay attention to the spectrum of national defence and foreign policy. No one is even asking questions about the context of these meetings and the direction in which they going to take the Pakistan-US dialogue.
All that is visible is that Washington’s drubbing has not disturbed Pakistan’s security establishment enough to change its US-centric policy. They still stand toe-to-toe with America on matters of mutual interest.
The writer is a senior journalist at DawnNews.

Source: Dawn News