America Is Fast Running Out
of Patience for Pakistan, by SADANAND DHUME
Trump’s counterterrorism agenda means Islamabad
won’t get away so easily anymore with harboring and helping terrorists.
By SADANAND DHUME Feb. 16, 2017
Pakistan is running out of friends in Washington. Recent publications by
influential U.S. experts, Congressional testimony by officials and signs out of
the Trump administration all point in the same direction: The U.S. will step up
pressure on Islamabad to crack down on terrorist groups that target U.S. troops
in Afghanistan and destabilize Afghanistan and India.
In the decade and a half since 9/11, a generation of U.S. military and
intelligence professionals has witnessed the Pakistani army’s support for
terrorist groups such as the Haqqani network, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The 2011 discovery of Osama bin Laden a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s top
military academy cemented the narrative of Islamabad’s “double game.”
Pakistan ought to take this darkening mood seriously. If it acts against
the terrorist groups that operate from its soil, it will begin to earn back
trust in Washington. But if it persists with business as usual—distinguishing
between “bad terrorists” who attack Pakistanis and “good terrorists” who attack
Americans, Afghans and Indians—it should expect frostier ties with its largest
export market and one of its biggest defense suppliers.
A report this month, co-authored by the Heritage Foundation’s Lisa
Curtis and the Hudson Institute’s Husain Haqqani, urged the
Trump administration to “make it more and more costly” for Pakistan to support
terrorist proxies. Georgetown University’s C. Christine Fair, the
author of a highly regarded book on the Pakistani army, argues that Pakistan
“continues to behave as an enemy by taking U.S. money while supporting the
Taliban who kill U.S. troops and civilians as well as those of our Afghan and
international allies.”
Testifying before Congress last week, Gen. John. W. Nicholson, the
commander of U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan, spoke of Pakistan’s
less-than-helpful role in Afghanistan. “It’s very difficult to succeed on the
battlefield when your enemy enjoys external support and safe haven,” he said.
Most experts do not believe the U.S. should immediately take the radical
step of classifying Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism alongside Iran,
Sudan and Syria. This would end U.S. military aid to Pakistan and trigger an
array of other punitive measures.
But Ms. Curtis and Mr. Haqqani, among others, believe that “it should be
kept as an option for the long term.” They rightly surmise that after many
years of failing to change Pakistan’s behavior with carrots, the U.S. needs to
wield a bigger stick.
For starters, Washington should review Pakistan’s status as a major
non-NATO ally, which was granted by the George W. Bush administration
in 2004. At the time this was a sweetener to get military strongman Gen. Pervez
Musharraf to cooperate more closely against al Qaeda. But it has become
increasingly hard to argue that Pakistan belongs on a list that includes, among
others, such steadfast U.S. allies as Australia, Israel and Japan.
Attaching stricter conditions to aid may also help. Since 9/11 the U.S.
has given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid and military reimbursements. In
the first few years of this assistance, the Pakistani army helped nab several
high- and mid-level members of al Qaeda, though not bin Laden or his deputy Ayman
al-Zawahiri, who is widely believed to still be in Pakistan.
But the deadliest terrorist groups active in Afghanistan, the Haqqani
network and the Afghan Taliban, have long enjoyed safe haven in Pakistan. As do
India-centric groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.
U.S. calls for a comprehensive crackdown on terrorist groups are often
met with resentment in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis argue that their country also
suffers from the scourge. This week, for instance, suicide bombers killed at
least 70 people in Lahore, Peshawar, a Sufi shrine in Sindh and the tribal
areas bordering Afghanistan.
Asking for greater global sympathy may be understandable, but it won’t
solve the problem. Had its army not fostered a witches’ brew of terrorist
groups and jihadist madrassas in its crazed pursuit of parity with a much-bigger
India, Pakistan would be a calmer place.
For the Trump administration, countering terrorism, and the ideology of
radical Islam more broadly, is near the top of its agenda. Mr. Haqqani, a
former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., says this makes it even more important
for the generals in Rawalpindi to pay attention to the changing mood in
Washington.
Several terrorist incidents in the U.S., including the 2015 San
Bernardino attack, have been traced to Pakistanis or Pakistani-Americans. “We
are just one truck bomb away from the Trump administration saying ‘Okay, we
need to act against Pakistan,’ ” warns Mr. Haqqani.
Mr. Dhume is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and
a columnist for WSJ.com.
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