Atlantic Council South Asia Center director Shuja Nawaz appeared on the radio show Background Briefing with Ian Masters out of KPFK-FM Los Angeles
to discuss whether there will be a change in the dismal state of deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, following the announcement by Pentagon that mistakes were made by NATO that resulted in the recent deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, authored a report for the United States Institute of Peace titled “
Who Controls Pakistan’s Security Forces?” This report reflects the views expressed during a conference hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Security Sector Governance Center on April 19, 2011. Speakers at the event included the author, Professor Hassan Abbas of Columbia University, and Moeed Yusuf of the U.S. Institute of Peace. The report discusses the complex political landscape in which Pakistan’s civilian and military authorities operate, often vying for power and supremacy; identifies the challenges facing Pakistan’s civilian government in the face of the military’s expanding role; and suggests a realignment of roles, increased expertise for civilian officials in security matters, and better civilian-military coordination.
Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, was featured on the first panel at the Brookings Institution event “Looking to the Future of Pakistan,” which launched a new report evaluating several possible outcomes of Pakistan’s future role in global affairs.
The panel, entitled “Paradoxical Pakistan,” also featured Teresita C. Schaffer, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings; C. Christine Fair, assistant professor at Georgetown University; William Milam, senior scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace.
After a week of delay, as anger against the United States mounted inside Pakistan over the November 26 attack by U.S. forces that killed two officers and 22 soldiers of the Pakistani army at border posts Volcano and Boulder in Mohmand agency, the President of the United States finally entered the picture directly.
He called Pakistan on Sunday to express his sorrow at this incident that is threatening to take the teetering Pakistan-U.S. alliance off the precipice. According to the White House:
Earlier today the President placed a phone call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to personally express his condolences on the tragic loss of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers this past week along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The President made clear that this regrettable incident was not a deliberate attack on Pakistan and reiterated the United States’ strong commitment to a full investigation. The two Presidents reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship, which is critical to the security of both nations, and they agreed to stay in close touch.
About time, many would say, that the President got involved in saving this relationship. The signaling effect of his personal intervention is huge, especially since it follows a “business as usual” approach to the promised investigation up until now. The U.S. Central Command had said it would take three weeks to produce a report on this incendiary incident that has led to the formal closing of the ground line of communication into Afghanistan and the removal of U.S. personnel from Shamsi air base in Balochistan — a delay that allowed the wounds to fester inside Pakistan.
But why did President Obama call President Asif Ali Zardari and not Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani? Pakistan has had a parliamentary system of government since April 8, 2010, when President Zardari was reduced to a mere constitutional figurehead. Prime Minister Gilani now heads the government, and indeed has been the point-man in denouncing the United States in the days following the Mohmand attack. He should have been the one that President Obama called. By calling President Zardari, President Obama may have been led to the source of political power in the Pakistan Peoples Party to which both Zardari and Gilani belong. A pragmatic move perhaps in light of Zardari’s tight hold over the party he took over from his murdered wife Benazir Bhutto, but also one that downgrades the prime minister. This call will likely be seen in the eyes of many Pakistanis as a snub of their constitutional system. By this logic, they might ask, would President Obama call President Pratibha Patil or Mrs. Sonia Gandhi in India rather than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?
The United States has been trying to forge a long-term and consistent relationship with Pakistan during the Obama administration. But 2011 has been the annus horribilis between these two estranged allies. The Pakistani government has used the recent attack to stoke public anger and garner support for its tough stance against the United States, partly to counter the power and prestige of the military in the public’s eyes. The feedback loop created by government and the army’s own tough language against the United States will make it difficult for either to resile from its position. The signaling effect of President Obama’s call to the President of Pakistan and not to the Prime Minister may well magnify that divide and be felt in Pakistani politics and on the street, where every nuance of words coming out of the White House is parsed and debated.
Recall that President Zardari’s personal popularity has been sinking, and with it his ability to affect public opinion in Pakistan. The Pew Global Survey of June 2011 had his popularity at 11 percent. A later Gallup Pakistan poll of July 2011 had his negative rating 39 percent. Gilani came out better, with 29 percent negativity rating overall, but also in the red. In the same Gallup survey, the Pakistan army got an approval rating of 15 percent in fighting terrorism. But the people of Pakistan also gave it a negative rating of 12 percent in running the country and a 3 percent negative rating in its political activities. Yet the military seems to be calling the shots on foreign policy, especially after its recent losses at the hands of U.S. forces.
If the United States is to mend its relations with Pakistan, it must recognize the need to heed the wishes of the people of Pakistan and to connect with them more than the political leaders who appear to have lost the confidence of their citizens. Turning back the clock to the Musharraf regime, when the President of Pakistan was the be-all end-all of decision making, is not the best move. President Obama can retrieve the situation by accelerating the investigation into the November 26 attack and sharing credible evidence with Pakistan of what happened and why. And, if it turns out that it was a mistake on the part of the coalition and U.S. forces that caused the tragedy at Volcano and Boulder, an apology would be in order. Better that than having to put together a new policy for the troubled South Asian region without Pakistan.
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC. This piece was also published on Foreign Policy.
On November 30, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD), hosted a discussion which highlighted major findings in a new study sponsored by the USCIRF and conducted by the ICRD.
Entitled “Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan,” the study examines social studies, Islamic studies, and Urdu textbooks, and explores linkages between the portrayal of religious minorities and subsequent acts of discrimination. Knox Thames and Azhar Hussain discussed how Pakistan’s public schools and madrassas negatively portray the country’s religious minorities and reinforce biases which fuel acts of discrimination, and possibly violence, against these communities. Panelists also discussed pedagogical methods in Pakistan’s public school system and its madrassa system, and the perception of religious minorities by students and teachers, as well as offering recommendations on education reform and the incorporation of religious tolerance in the classroom.
Knox Thames
Director of Policy and Research
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Azhar Hussain
Vice President
International Center for Religion and Diplomacy
Shuja Nawaz
Director
South Asia Center, Atlantic Council
Before coming to the Commission in 2009, Mr. Thames worked in the Office of International Religious Freedom at the US Department of State, and was the lead State Department officer on religious freedom issues in multilateral fora, such as the UN and OSCE. Mr. Thames also served as Counsel for six years at the US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission), where he was the point-person on religious freedom matters, on issues involving refugees and internally displaced persons, and focused on democracy and human rights in Central Asia. In 2004, Mr. Thames was appointed by the State Department to serve as one of the two U.S. experts on the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Mr. Thames earned a J.D. with honors from the American University Washington College of Law. He also holds a Master’s in International Affairs from the American University School of International Service. An author of numerous articles on a range of human rights issues, his book International Religious Freedom Advocacy was released in August 2009 by Baylor University Press.
Azhar Hussain
Mr. Azhar Hussain is the vice president for Preventive Diplomacy and Director of the Pakistan Madrassa Project at the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy. The Madrassa Project has trained over 2700 madrassa leaders throughout Pakistan to date. Mr. Hussain previously served as senior consultant to the Mexican Ministry of Education and adjunct professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. He has worked in cooperation with the US Institute of Peace, and provided educational and intercultural consulting services for numerous multi-national organizations. Mr. Hussain delivered presentations to the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom among others. Furthermore, Mr. Hussain conducted training and development initiatives around the world. He was also the winner of the 2006 Peacemakers in Action Award from the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. Mr. Hussain holds a MA in International and Intercultural Management from the World Learning SIT Graduate Institute.
South Asia Center director Shuja Nawaz appeared on PBS NewsHour and NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show to provide commentary on the latest setback in US-Pakistan relations following a raid by NATO helicopters and fighter jets that attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing 24 Pakistani troops.
On November 14, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University hosted a discussion with Bharat Karnad, senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and author of India’s Rise: Why it is not a Great Power (Yet)
Security concerns between India and Pakistan have persisted since their independence and issues such as Kashmir, nuclear weapons and water security have restrained relations between the two neighbors. Mr. Karnad will discuss how the Indian government can ease tensions and normalize relations by taking unilateral, symbolic, and substantive actions. These actions include removing the nuclearized short-range ballistic missiles from forward deployment and restructuring the armor/mechanized Indian forces near Pakistan’s border to reduce suspicion from the Pakistani army without hurting Indian security. He will discuss these ideas in depth and explain what actions India, in particular, can take to reduce the Pakistani army’s suspicions and to reorient its threat perceptions.
Mr. Karnad is an expert on Indian security policy and earned his BA and MA from the University of California Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, respectively. He has been a visiting scholar at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and was a foreign fellow at both the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, and the Henry L. Stimson Center. He was a member of the First National Security Advisory Board of India, and has served on the National Security Council for the Government of India.
Bharat Karnad
Senior Fellow, National Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
Thomas Lynch, III
Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies
National Defense University
Shuja Nawaz
Director, South Asia Center
Atlantic Council
About bloody time, some would say. The news that Pakistan’s cabinet has approved Most Favored Nation trade status for long-time adversary India will also be greeted by the usual wry comments by skeptics and cynics on both sides of this volatile border. But though Pakistan may not have broken any barriers it may have cracked a few.
Consider that India had already given Pakistan MFN status, putting it on the back foot in trade negotiations. But Pakistani analysts and officials maintained that India’s non-tariff barriers made a mockery of the MFN. Pakistan’s military and civilian governments lacked the will to open trade with India, in the process missing out on huge income gains from trading with a neighbor and allowing its industries and consumers to benefit from less expensive products and inputs in numerous categories of tradable goods and services. Until now.
Give credit to the civilian government for finally giving birth to an obvious and necessary condition for Pakistan’s future growth. As India speeds away at 9 plus percent annual growth, Pakistan is heading in the opposite direction—3 percent or less. Trade alone will not solve its problems but even after the elephantine gestation of the MFN decision the government seems to be listening to its economic team and reason. And, if India starts lowering its NTBs, it may stop Pakistan from resorting to them.
Why is this such a big deal? Because the most cited obstacle to better relations with India was the powerful Pakistan military. The civilians did not wish to buck the military’s views, it was said. Now it seems the impossible has happened, either with the military’s approval or without. An objective devoutly to be wished has emerged from Islamabad.
What adds to the import of this first step is another statement by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani that Pakistan wishes to tie into India’s power grid to facilitate sharing of electricity.
A natural corollary will be greater collaboration on water issues. Both India and Pakistan have serious problems in how they manage water, both internally and with each other, sharing water from rivers that rise in the Himalayas and come into India and then Pakistan. Joint investments in water and power projects, especially if undertaken by private investors under a joint water commission that takes forward the idea behind the Indus Water Treaty, may provide the ultimate market solution. But standing in the way of such powerful dreams are two powerful and suspicious bureaucracies that have stymied free travel and cross border investments till now. They may yet nullify the MFN decision by a war of non-tariff barriers and red tape.
Yet, amidst the plethora of Track 2 efforts between Pakistan and India there is a growing momentum among concerned citizens, and even among the militaries that the status quo of “no war, no peace” is not favoring either country. At the Atlantic Council, we are doing our bit to “wage peace” in the region. But in the end it is the people and governments there that have the power to effect change for the better.
Against that background, cracking open the locked gates at the Wagah border between these fractious neighbors and keeping them open day and night seems the best option. Two cheers then for Pakistan and India free trade. Confound your critics and militants. Don’t botch this opportunity… for the sake of future generations.
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, and is the author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within.
The perhaps incorrectly-named Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States appears to be gaining momentum, and even gaining traction overseas. I say “incorrectly-named” since conversations with the protesters indicate that they wish to take back power from the current representatives of government and not just take over Wall Street. The movement contains a congeries of different interest groups. But it is clear that it includes all age groups and not just the bearded young men and freedom-loving young women who evoke the hippie culture of the 1960s.
On my way to work every morning I pass McPherson Square in the heart of the K Street corridor from where fat-cat lawyers and lobbyists rule the roost in Washington, D.C. I have a conversation with a 50-year-old woman protester carrying a sign that reads: “Honk if you want to take back America.” Wearing a party mask, she talks about her anger. She lost her job and her home because of the mortgage crisis. The mask that covers her eyes signifies the “masquerade” that is the current system of government in her view. I asked if the movement would be able to galvanize youth to come to the polls and effect change. She said “No, we don’t need to go to the polls! We need to take back government. The polls are a sham.”
Clearly, the movement or parts of it want a revolution.
That seems to be the sentiment in other parts of the world. In Egypt, the youth are back in Tahrir Square and being beaten up by the military. On 60 Minutes, the most popular newsmagazine show on American television, the singer who led the Arab Spring protesters in song is shown back at Tahrir singing against the military. He spoke calmly but resolutely about the military men who tortured him with electric prods and tasers. Surprisingly, the venerable Economist in its leader lets the Egyptian military off lightly for the political engineering they are attempting and for their treatment of protesters. Experience throughout the developing world, including Pakistan, shows clearly that political engineering by the entrenched establishment does not work, even if the political systems in place are rotten to the core.
Unless the leaders, both civilian and military, recognize the need for a nationwide discussion of what the people want, the chances of disruptive change are magnified. In Pakistan, clearly, the model of politics as family business has not delivered. Simply having a game of political musical chairs may not be enough. The growing attraction of Imran Khan may be a symptom of the general unhappiness with the status quo. Making and breaking coalitions is not going to solve Pakistan’s problems. Meanwhile the large and growing cohort of Pakistani youth is increasingly going to be jobless and angry. They are also increasingly susceptible to the charms of religious extremism as a vehicle for revolutionary change.
Against the backdrop of a nationwide militancy and a messy situation on its Western border, especially after the coalition exits Afghanistan, Pakistan can ill afford to ignore these trends. What if a facsimile of the Occupy Wall Street movement takes root in Pakistan and peaceful protests start occupying parts of its mega cities and cantonments? Who will be able to take them on? Who knows what forces will end up owning and leading these protests and reaping the gains from the chaos that will ensue? Given the record of its leaders to date, a domestic and peaceful movement to take back Pakistan may have more force than currently imagined by the power brokers in Islamabad.
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, and is the author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within. This essay first appeared in Newsweek Pakistan.
Complicated and fraught, U.S.-Pakistan relations took a turn for the worse with Adm. Mike Mullen’s Sept. 22 testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in which he all but declared Pakistan as sponsoring terrorism in Afghanistan.
Admiral Mullen referred to evidence linking Inter-Services Intelligence to the attacks: “Extremist organizations serving as proxies of the government of Pakistan are attacking Afghan troops and civilians as well as U.S. soldiers. For example, we believe the Haqqani network—which has long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government and is, in many ways, a strategic arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency—is responsible for the Sept. 13 attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.”
Pakistan protested this accusation, and the Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, reportedly was surprised by it since he said he had had a good exchange with Mullen in Spain the week before. Kayani termed Mullen’s testimony as “unfortunate and not based on facts.” Harsh words for his once best friend in the U.S. government. Clearly, the two “partners” against terrorism are talking past each other, yet again. And suspicion continues to dog this benighted “friendship.” If the people of Pakistan are angry and confused, they have good reason.
No one has yet spelled out to the Pakistani people the strategy of the Pakistani state’s efforts against insurgents and homegrown as well as foreign-supported terrorists. Who speaks for the state? Who acts on its behalf? At least two if not more centers of gravity exist as far as decision making is concerned. The most powerful voice being that of the Army chief; the quiet whispers of the ISI may be next, followed by the empty rhetoric of the civilian leadership that has failed to exercise effective control over domestic, defense, and foreign policies.
This most recent contretemps with the United States has been fueled by the speeding-up endgame in Afghanistan, as local and regional players vie for influence. Pakistan still appears to be caught in the Pakhtun puzzle: trying to win some influence over the militant Pakhtun groups whose territory abuts Pakistan’s western border and who use its territory as a base for attacking Afghanistan. In doing so, it has failed to recognize and work with all Afghanistan, a mosaic of different ethnic entities and interest groups. Pakistan’s archrival India has meanwhile consolidated its economic and political ties throughout Afghanistan by its infrastructure investments and other forms of economic aid, adding to Pakistan’s concerns about being sandwiched between the two.
This is a time for bold and creative thinking by Pakistan’s civilian government and military and not for the age-old “staff solutions” that inhibit daring action. Neutralizing the hostility on its eastern flank with India is one good option. Reaching out to the Shia and to the Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara ethnic groups inside Afghanistan may be another, while maintaining links to all Pakhtuns in Afghanistan.
Favoring the Afghan Taliban groups, be they Haqqani’s or Mullah Omar’s people, may well create a new threat to Pakistan as the likely conflict inside Afghanistan after the allies withdraw may reverse the sanctuary available to Pakistan’s own Taliban terrorists. The Kunar sanctuary that prompts attacks in the northern reaches of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas and Dir may be a precursor of a wider phenomenon. Recall also that Pakistan has never been able to exercise full control over foreign or domestic militants. If it did, its domestic and external relationships would be in far better shape than they are today.
Back to the “frenemy” odd couple: today Pakistan and the United States remain heavily codependent. The U.S. needs both air and land lines of communication via Pakistan for its final years of active fighting in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama will be under increasing pressure from his electorate to bring the boys and girls home sooner rather than later.
Pakistan’s military could benefit from U.S. equipment and technical expertise and its teetering economy badly needs U.S. support not only directly but also through the international financial institutions. Even Pakistan’s friends in the region are concerned about its state of affairs and the rise of terrorism inside the country. At a recent conference that I attended in Beijing on potential U.S.-China cooperation in Central Asia and the Middle East, our Chinese hosts and other well-informed contacts were anxious about the current growth, and support, of Islamist militancy in the region. They have good reason for that concern. So should Pakistan.
The genie of militancy that the Pakistani state once fostered is running rampant. Pakistan does not need the U.S. or other countries to warn it of the consequences of inaction against terrorism at home and abroad. It must recognize the danger of its wars within and come up with a combined civil-military plan under civilian control. As the head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha told Der Spiegel on Jan. 6, 2009: “We may be crazy in Pakistan but not completely out of our minds. We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India.” Those ground realities have not changed since.
Let the prime minister speak to the nation and outline this new strategy that abjures support for any militancy inside its borders or in neighboring countries. President Pervez Musharraf once made such a bold pledge in public to open the doors to India but failed to garner support for it or to implement it fully. That opportunity still remains open for Pakistan’s leaders. (President Richard Nixon ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to cease all operations in mainland China before his historic 1972 visit to Beijing and “leaked” the order to the Chinese.) Pakistan is at yet another critical fork in the road. Will it dither or boldly take the right path?
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, and is the author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within. This essay first appeared in Newsweek Pakistan.