Cutting Off Pakistan, U.S.
Takes Gamble in Complex Afghan War
By Mujib Mashal and Salman Masood
New York Times | 5 January 2018
www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/world/asia/pakistan-aid-afghan-war.html
Afghan officials have pleaded with three American
presidents to reconsider their support for Pakistan,
which was both receiving billions of dollars in Ameri-
can aid and harboring the leaders of a Taliban insur-
gency that the United States has struggled to defeat.
But when President Trump suspended nearly all
American security aid to Pakistan on Thursday for
what he called the country’s “lies and deceit,” any
jubilation in the halls of power in Afghanistan — and
there was some — was leavened with worry over
how the move might affect a complex war that has
pushed the Afghan government to the brink.
If there is one consensus among Afghan leaders
and their American counterparts, it is that dealing
with Pakistan is both vital and difficult.
American and Afghan officials accuse Pakistan’s
powerful military intelligence service of maintaining
influence with the Taliban and the group’s most
ascendant faction, the Haqqani network, which is
behind many of the large-scale attacks on Afghan
cities. Through those links, Pakistan has the ability to
control at least some of the tempo of the fighting in
Afghanistan — and it has done little to constrain it
over the past two years, the officials say.
At the same time, Pakistan enjoys leverage over
the American military response to that militant vio-
lence: The United States mission has always relied
on Pakistani air and ground routes for supplies to
the troops in Afghanistan.
The question on the table after the cutoff of
military aid to Pakistan is who will come under the
most pressure: the Pakistanis, or the coalition fight-
ing the Taliban.
Muhammed Umer Daudzai, a former Afghan
interior minister and ambassador to Pakistan, said
the pressure on Pakistan had come too late, with the
country having developed regional allies who would
help it weather the financial toll.
“The financial sanctions may not bite Pakistan
because they have developed alternatives,” Mr.
Daudzai said. “The only area the impact could be
huge, but it’s a bit too early to judge, is the field of
air force. The Pakistani system is still hugely depen-
dent on the U.S. It can take a long time to switch
from that.”
Pakistani officials expressed both anger and
caution over the American move. Several indicated
that cutting off ground supply routes to Afghanistan
was actively being considered, but that a formal
decision was not likely to be announced on Friday.
The commander of the Pakistani Air Force also
seemed to suggest that Pakistan’s airspace might be
blocked to the Americans. In Islamabad on Thursday,
Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman said his force was
“fully prepared to defend all the aerial frontiers of
the country.”
On Friday, the Foreign Ministry released a state-
ment saying, “We are engaged with the U.S. admini-
stration on the issue of security cooperation and
await further details.”
“We believe that Pakistan-U.S. cooperation in
fighting terrorism has directly served U.S. national
security interests as well as the larger interests of
international community,” the statement said. And in
a measured criticism of Mr. Trump’s move, it said
that working for peace requires “mutual respect and
trust,” adding that “arbitrary deadlines, unilateral
pronouncements and shifting goal posts are counter-
productive in addressing common threats.”
Across the Pakistani political spectrum, officials
accused the United States of making Pakistan a
scapegoat for the failures in Afghanistan.
Imran Khan, a prominent opposition politician
whose positions on foreign and defense policy are
often closely aligned with Pakistan’s security esta-
blishment, called for steps to disengage diplomatically
from the United States.
“We must immediately remove excessive U.S.
diplomatic, nondiplomatic and intelligence personnel
from Pakistan so that diplomatic parity is established
according to international legal norms governing
diplomatic relations between states,” he said in a
statement, adding that the ground and air routes for
American military supplies should also be shut down.
In past cases when relations frayed and Pakistan
blocked American access to its supply routes, the
United States military relied on a more expensive
alternative that connects Baltic and Caspian ports
through Russia and Central Asian countries. But that
route is vulnerable to Washington’s chilly relations
with Russia, which has used its influence over Cen-
tral Asian states to limit access.
At its peak, when the United States had about
100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the alternative route
helped with the transportation of about one third of
nonlethal material with Russia’s consent. The Amer-
ican-led coalition also used Manas, a major air base
in Kyrgyzstan, as the transit point for almost all of
the coalition troops and a refueling center for tens
of thousand aircraft.
Kyrgyzstan, apparently in response to Russian
pressure and incentives, first increased the annual
rent to $60 million from $17 million, and then the
United States left the base in 2014.
From the American and Afghan standpoints,
trying to change Pakistan’s outlook has only grown
more difficult in recent years as the relative consen-
sus has broken down among major players in the
region — like Russia and Iran — over the American
mission to eradicate international terrorist groups in
Afghanistan.
In private, senior Afghan officials said they were
watching just how focused the United States would
be in maintaining the pressure on Pakistan, a nuclear
state that has long managed to shrug off previous
American and international pressure.
More publicly, however, President Ashraf Ghani
and his government were measured in their reaction,
staying away from directly addressing Mr. Trump’s
move to freeze what could amount to more than a
billion dollars in American aid.
“We welcome any decision that contributes to
bringing stability in the region and Afghanistan,” said
Haroon Chakhansuri, a deputy chief of staff to Mr.
Ghani. “We want honest partnership in the region
to fight against a common enemy, terrorism.”
Some Afghan officials and analysts feared that
Mr. Trump’s pressure on Pakistan might escalate the
violence across Afghanistan before it brings any
change in Pakistani cooperation. Already, officials are
bracing for more urban bombing attacks in the
winter months, when the regular fighting slows
down a bit.
Also vulnerable are about two million Afghan
refugees in Pakistan, who feel an increase in harass-
ment in such periods of high political tension.
An important factor in whether the American
pressure could result in a change of Pakistani atti-
tude is whether American diplomacy can appeal to
China and Russia’s shared concerns of militant
extremism in the region, and persuade them not to
give Pakistan a release valve. Russia is concerned
about the rise of an Islamic State affiliate in Afghan-
istan, most of whose fighters are from the tribal
areas of Pakistan, while China fears that an unstable
Afghanistan provides sanctuary to its Uighur insur-
gency.
“You have an anti-American sentiment in the
region on the one hand, but on the other hand you
have the fear of terrorism and extremism in the
region,” said Davood Moradian, the director of the
Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul. “If the
U.S. uses active diplomacy, it can convince the
regional players to align with efforts to stabilize
Afghanistan, because they will not compromise on
their own national security for the sake of Pakistan.”
Mr. Moradian said factors that make Pakistan a
military power, such as hardware and training, are
oriented toward the United States, with China less
able to easily fulfill them. And he described the Paki-
stani elite as more integrated in the West — with
houses, business, and bank accounts there — and
thus more likely to feel the pressure of targeted
sanctions.
“I don’t think Pakistan will be able to absorb
sustained U.S. pressures,” Mr. Moradian said. “In the
Pakistan-American dynamics, Pakistan is far more
vulnerable.”
He continued: “Pakistan’s success has been in
absorbing pain for a short period, and then getting
away. Washington has not been able to bear pain for
a limited period of time in the hopes of longer
success.”
Before the Trump announcement on freezing
aid to Pakistan, senior Pakistani officials had shrugged
off the threats. One official said every threat from
Washington was pushing Pakistan closer to China.
The two countries have a partnership to develop up
to $60 billion in infrastructure in Pakistan under the
“One Belt, One Road” program, and have tightened
their military ties.
Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan’s foreign min-
ister, recently urged a revisiting of ties with the
United States, which he called neither a friend nor an
ally.
“The world is vast enough,” he said, “and the
U.S. is not feeding us.”
Maria Abi Habib, Fahim Abed, and Ismail Khan contributed
reporting.