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| Pak response to the Obama visit | | 
By Farooq Ganderbali
Pakistan is like a jilted lover, who feels let down. It feels that the US betrayed a trust by not getting President Barack Obama to visit Islamabad. For Pakistan, the recent de-hyphenation of India and Pakistan by Washington has given them a jolt. The message that US President sent through his India Today interview was that it was “unacceptable” for America that safe havens for terrorists existed in Pakistan.
To top that, the UN Monitoring Team on Al Qaeda sanctions has got after the Pak establishment. This has forced them to at least follow the UN lead and freeze the assets of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. News that Pakistan was contemplating a ban on terror outfits like JuD and LeT is a big thing in Pakistan! The Pak establishment has long taken as gospel that it should use non-state actors/terrorists as proxies to fight asymetric wars. Whether this will change in the mid-term remains moot.
The challenge for Pakistan is going to be to take on the terrorists who till recently were partners in crime. This gets complicated not only due to the civil-military divide, but also because of the internal divisions within the military on how to tackle this issue. While the ISI would not want to completely give up on jihadi’s as a force multiplier, there are others like the Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif himself who keeps speaking of “zero tolerance” towards terrorism. More likely, though that his public utterances in this regard are part of the double-speak that the military often indulges in.
Coming back to the Obama India visit, one finds extensive coverage in the Pak English language press not only of the Republic day pageantry in New Delhi, but also on the substantive issues discussed, particularly the Civil Nuclear deal. The Urdu press took upon itself to focus attention on America’s betrayal of Islamabad. After all, the narrative is that it is Pakistan which is a victim of terrorism and has fought /supported the US on the war on terror.
The US-Pakistan relationship is one of benefits, which both have seen through a singular lens for many decades. This has made America turn a blind eye to the State-sponsored jihadi elements, who operate from Pakistani soil against India, while leaning on Islamabad to do them a favour in Afghanistan. Pakistan in turn, seeks to use this so-called leverage to get more funds out of Washington for its survival. India has always opined that bilateral relations should not be hyphenated. This is precisely because it understands the risks of state-sponsored terror and the threat this can pose to the very existence of the Pakistan state.
One can therefore see the existential dilemma for Pakistan in the context of President Obama’s visit to New Delhi. Reading between the lines, it is clear that their sense of hurt and jealousy is on display in the run-up and aftermath of the visit. Sartaj Aziz, the Pak Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs, spoke tongue in cheek on 29 January in Islamabad (at the Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad) where he stated that Obama’s visit took place “when Pakistan’s bilateral relations with the US are witnessing a significant improvement.” One may well ask how this is happening.
Recall that Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif spent a fortnight in the US last year end trying to convince the Americans that India was involved in terrorist acts in Pakistan. Gosh! Such imaginative gibberish! No wonder, US Secretary of State John Kerry flew in for the Vibrant Gujarat summit to tell Prime Minister Modi of the stories Islamabad was making up.
Aziz like a good diplomat, and known for his occasional bloomers on “good” and “bad” Taliban, sought to claim that the Obama visit was “marked by a well-orchestrated media hype”. He forgot that the Indian media has a panache for hyping things, but the visit itself was significant for both symbolism and substantive talks and therefore merited attention.
Pakistan media did provide good coverage of the Obama visit, but the ISI got nervous and therefore put out press releases on the Army Chief Gen. Sharif’s meetings with his Chinese friends in Beijing. There was, in fact, a flood of information, when in fact it was only a stream. Sharif’s Beijing visit received attention only because Pakistan is an “all-weather friend”, not because President Xi has any fondness for Gen. Sharif. Indulging in propaganda is perhaps the only thing ISPR is capable of!
Looking back at the US Presidential visit and Pakistan’s reactions, one gets the sense that Islamabad has got pangs of anxiety. Otherwise, there was no reason for Islamabad to have been so desperate for a Presidential visit. For Pakistan, the US remains the sole arbiter of their fortunes with India at the bilateral level and one constant refrain has been to ask Washington to get New Delhi to the dialogue table.
Given the overall tenor of Obama’s conversations with PM Modi, how much should one read into the Express Tribune report that he “privately encouraged and pushed” Modi to review his position towards Pakistan? The US President reportedly told the Indian Prime Minister that Pakistan had taken serious steps in recent months to eradicate terrorism. Taken with a pinch of salt, Obama may have mentioned talks with Pakistan in their private conversation, but it is unlikely that Modi would have accepted any demarche from Obama in this regard. The message to Islamabad from the US is “Your sincerity is on the line”. Let us await to the results of Pak’s latest classroom examination.
(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)
Editor, Scoop News
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