A radical reset of US-Pakistani relations required | Michael Boyle | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

• • Monday 9 May 2011 21.29 BST

  • Article history

 

Barack Obama said there 'might have been some people inside of government, outside of government' in Pakistan helping Osama bin Laden. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/Corbis

In his interview with CBS News's "60 Minutes" show on Sunday, President Obama struck a hopeful note about the prospects for cooperation with Pakistan in the aftermath of the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden. He notes that Bin Laden must have "some sort of support network", but hedged on whether the Pakistani government was involved in protecting bin Laden. He concluded that this is an "important moment in which Pakistan and the United States get together and say, 'All right, we've gotten Bin Laden, but we've got more work to do.' And are there ways for us to work more effectively together than we have in the past? And that's going to be important for our national security."

The president is attempting to be diplomatic, but this is no time for soft-pedalling what should be a crisis in US-Pakistani relations. The United States can no longer afford the dangerous delusion that Pakistan is a partner in our counter-terrorism efforts. President Obama needs to admit an uncomfortable fact: Pakistan is less an unwitting victim of terrorism than an accomplice to those that wish to do the United States harm.

The facts here are plain and damning. Osama bin Laden spent five years in a town which is home to one of Pakistan's elite military academies. In effect, he was surrounded by those officials who were allegedly on his trail for the last ten years. His behaviour was conspicuous enough to have attracted some attention in a town crawling with retired military and intelligence officials. The compound was built with layers of security walls and marked by a number of security cameras. It had no telephone or internet access, and its mysterious owners were known for burning their trash rather than leaving it out to be collected. The owners of the residence did everything possible not to leave a trail of their activities, a fact that could not have escaped the notice of officials trained in surveillance and counter-intelligence.

The official defence of the Pakistani government is that they never knew that bin Laden was present in their country, and they categorically deny protecting him. In effect, they are pleading incompetence rather than malfeasance, a defence that hardly inspires confidence as they lobby Washington for another $1.5bn in annual aid next year. But even more galling are claims that any intelligence failure was "shared" with the United States. The Pakistani government has done everything it can to obfuscate the issue and spread the blame around. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani has even gone on the offensive, blasting the US for bypassing Pakistan in conducting the raid when he knows full well that prior warning would have almost certainly allowed the target to escape.

The US can no longer indulge these dishonest evasions and pretend that there is some partnership worth salvaging. There is incontrovertible evidence that Pakistan has sponsored Taliban militants to cross the border into Afghanistan to attack US and allied forces; there is also some evidence (pdf) that members of the powerful Intelligence Services (ISI) are sheltering Mullah Omar and much of the existing Taliban leadership in the Quetta Shura Council.

For the last 15 years, ISI officials have manipulated the Taliban to turn Afghanistan into a basket case to keep India off-balance. To them, whether this policy contributes to the misery of the population of Afghanistan or leads to the death of US soldiers is beside the point.

Defenders of Pakistan often point out that the US shares a problem of militancy with Pakistan. But the "problem" that Pakistan faces with militant groups is one of its own making. The Pakistani military has devoted much of the last 20 years to nurturing an array of militant groups in the hopes of using them against its enemies, or at least diverting them from attacking the government. The ISI has proven willing to sponsor groups such as Lashkar e Taiba to conduct terrorist spectaculars such as the Mumbai attacks, even when such attacks raise the risk of standoff between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

By any reasonable standard, this policy has grievously backfired on the Pakistani government, which was evident when the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) pushed towards Islamabad in 2009. In 2009 alone, Pakistan suffered from over 1,900 separate terror attacks, according to data from the National Counter-terrorism Centre (NCTC). The spread of terror attacks within Pakistan has made clear that the stability of Pakistan itself is at the mercy of these groups, and that its own civilians suffer the most from these terrorist attacks. Yet, the Pakistani military cannot draw itself away from backing these Islamist groups, even if the cost is to bring further misery to their own country.

Faced with a country with a rogue military and intelligence apparatus, the US has settled on a strategy towards Pakistan that is incoherent and morally indefensible. While nominally partnered with the Pakistani military, the US launches drone strikes to kill militants supported by that military. As Pakistani civilians die as a result, the government stokes public anger against the US, while privately telling Washington that some attacks are acceptable and asking for more aid. The US rewards Pakistan with more military equipment and aid, which it promptly diverts into the coffers of militant groups and towards high-end military purchases for its arms race with India. Whenever the US talks tough over incidents like this, Pakistan threatens to cut off Nato's supply lines in Afghanistan. The US backs down and sends more equipment and aid. And the cycle continues.

The death of bin Laden presents an opportunity for the US to demand accountability from the Pakistani government for playing this dangerous game. In its hearings this week, Congress should freeze all of the annual security assistance to Pakistan until there is a purge within the Pakistani military and intelligence services, and until full evidence of who knew what about bin Laden's presence is delivered to the United States. The US should continue offering support for civilian and humanitarian purposes, but it's time that the Pakistani military and ISI are made to see the consequences of their decisions. The US needs to admit that throwing money at this problem – $18bn since 2001 – has yielded the kind of "partner" determined to keep the crisis brewing so that US dollars continue to flow into its account.

Both Democrats and Republicans have argued that this relationship is too important to fail, and that the US needs to understand Pakistan's delicate situation. But this is kind of muddled thinking that has sustained this dysfunctional and manipulative relationship for too long. It is well past time for the US to realise that a costly break with Pakistan's military establishment may be the only way to bring this duplicity out in the open and force the Pakistani military and intelligence services to decide which side they are really on.