Pak-US ties

Speaking to Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz on the sidelines of the Asean Regional Forum in Laos, US Secretary of State John Kerry made all the right statements about the future of Pakistan’s relationship with the US. He expressed a desire to visit Pakistan soon and work towards building a partnership that is multi-faceted and not concentrated just on defence. Heartening though Kerry’s words may be, there are several reasons to be sceptical. First of all, the administration he serves is in its lame-duck period and only has about six months left to go. The US presidential election is a virtual dead heat and if Donald Trump comes into power then all bets are off and any promises made by Kerry will be moot. Even if Hillary Clinton is the victor, she will likely be more hawkish than even Obama and less inclined to work with Pakistan. Kerry, to be fair, has himself always argued for greater engagement with Pakistan.

Even Kerry may find that expanding the scope of relations is beyond him. Right now, Pakistan-US relations are stuck in a rut because of the issues of drones and Afghanistan. The killing of Mullah Mansour in a drone attack in Quetta is still a sore point with Pakistan because of its knock-on effect on the stalled peace process in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban are far less likely to come to the negotiating table when their leader has just been killed by the country sitting opposite them. Afghanistan, echoing something the US has also said for years, says Pakistan cannot be trusted and is patronising the Taliban. All of this has led to the utter failure of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group. Perhaps a visit from Kerry might help in one or both of these matters, but then there is the question of Obama signing a bill passed by the US Congress cutting off our funding for F-16 fighter jets. All of this reeks of something the US has done before: disengaging from Pakistan once its interests in Afghanistan have been served. The low ebb in the relations coupled with uncertainty over the outcome of the US presidential election mean even a Kerry visit to Islamabad will have only a limited effect.