Trump gets tough with Pakistan
US concern over border bases for Afghanistan attacks
NEW YORK // The United States is considering an increase in drone strikes in Pakistan and cuts in aid to Islamabad to protect Afghanistan from cross-border attacks.
Militant havens in Pakistan have long exercised US policy makers desperate to end America’s longest running war. They accuse Islamabad of destabilising Afghanistan by allowing groups such as the Taliban-allied Haqqani network to operate bases in its tribal areas along the mountainous border. The Trump administration is now considering expanding drone strikes, redirecting or withholding American aid to Pakistan and even downgrading its status as a major non-Nato ally.
“We’ve never really fully articulated what our strategy towards Pakistan is. The strategy will more clearly say what we want from Pakistan specifically,” a US official said. As the US prepares to send 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the problem of Pakistan is once again in sharp focus.
Pakistan has worried since the 1970s that any growth in Indian influence in Kabul could leave it vulnerable to attack from two flanks. As a result, successive Pakistani governments and its mil- itary have been sympathetic to militant Islamist groups which they see as protecting their interests. Critics accuse Islamabad of allowing such groups to use Pakistani soil to plot attacks against American and Afghan forces across the border.
Suspicions linger about how much Pakistani leaders knew about the presence of Osama bin Laden in the military town of Abbottabad.
The Pakistani military points to Operation Zarb- e- Azb, launched in 2014 to flush out groups in North Waziristan, and to its cooperation in rounding up Al Qaeda leaders after 9/11 as evidence that it is doing its best in difficult circumstances.
That has not satisfied American commanders who believe Pakistan is undermining hopes of a stable Afghanistan.
Lt Gen Vincent Stewart, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told US senators: “They hold in reserve terrorist organisations so that if Afghanistan leans towards India, they will no longer be supportive of the idea of a stable and secure Afghanistan that could undermine Pakistan interests.”
The scale of the problem was highlighted at the end of last month when a tanker bomb exploded in the centre of Kabul, killing more than 80 people close to international embassies. Afghanistan accused the Haqqani network of carrying out the attack with assistance from Pakistani security services, which Pakistan denies.
Such accusations strengthen the hand of those who want Pakistan to do more to rein in the Haqqani network and even argue that Islamabad should be declared a state sponsor of terrorism.
They say treating Pakistan as an ally and sending military aid has not worked.
Before becoming senior director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, Lisa Curtis co- authored a report with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington.
Its recommendations now appear to provide a blueprint for current White House thinking.
“Accordingly, the objective of the Trump administration’s policy toward Pakistan must be to make it more and more costly for Pakistani leaders to employ a strategy of supporting terrorist proxies to achieve regional strategic goals,” they wrote.
“There should be no ambiguity that the US considers Pakistan’s strategy of supporting terrorist proxies to achieve regional strategic advantage as a threat to US interests.” They said Pakistan should be stripped of its position as a major non-Nato ally within six months, a status that allows priority access to US surplus equipment, unless it shows it is committed to American counter-terrorism objectives. They also recommended increasing drone strikes, helping to strengthen the civilian government against the country’s powerful generals, setting out a timeline of steps to be taken against militant groups and enforcing counter-terrorism conditions on military aid.
Last year, the Pentagon decided not to pay Pakistan $300 mil- lion (Dh1.1 billion) in Coalition Support Funds after Ash Carter, then defence secretary, declined to sign authorisation that Pakistan was taking adequate action against the Haqqani network. Afghan leaders have long pushed Washington to adopt a tougher stance on Pakistan.
“I believe there will be a much harder US line on Pakistan going forward than there has been in the past,” said Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States.