Partnership is essential

US President Barack Obama's December 1 address to his nation correctly listed a partnership with Pakistan as a crucial foundation of policy towards Afghanistan.

Sustaining that partnership may be his most formidable challenge.

The Achilles' heel of America's past alliances with Pakistan has been both countries' unwillingness to confront the discrepancies in their goals. This time, the US needs to be clear on where the two nations' goals do and don't coincide, and what it is prepared to do about them.

When Pakistan signed up for the US-led campaign against terrorism in the anxious days following 9/11, the two partners, as in the past, had objectives that overlapped — but only in part. Pakistan, like the United States, saw Al Qaida as a danger to the world. But its other objectives were not shared by the US.

As it had when it worked with the US during the Cold War, Islamabad hoped to bolster its rivalry with India through US power. Pakistan wanted to enhance its influence, and eliminate India's, in Afghanistan. These goals were more important for Pakistan than the US objective of ending the Taliban regime.

The collapse of Afghanistan's Taliban government late in 2001 highlighted the difference. For the US, it was the first big success of the war against terrorism; for Pakistan, it looked like a strategic disaster. Pakistan was losing an embarrassing but pliant ally, and Kabul would now be under a government billed as friendly to India.

By early 2007, the disconnect between the two countries' objectives was obvious. The regrouped Taliban threatened both the Nato military forces and the Karzai government, and US officials publicly expressed concern about the alleged support they enjoyed from Pakistan's intelligence services.

Pakistan's official policy favoured strengthening and stabilising the Afghan government. However, Pakistani decision makers, with uniformly low expectations of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's attitude toward Pakistan and his government's capacity, had strong motives for keeping their ties with the group.

First things first

Countries defend their own interests first, before worrying about those of their friends, so it is unrealistic to expect that Pakistan's goals will be fully in sync with those of the US. But Islamabad's record this past year is heartening.

It has deployed the Army against domestic Taliban insurgents both in the "settled areas" of Pakistan like the Swat Valley, and in the ungoverned tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border like South Waziristan.

Its recognition that these will be long-term campaigns vital to the state indicates that there is a greater degree of congruence between US and Pakistani perceptions of the threat of terrorism than many Pakistanis had previously accepted.

This represents the "window of opportunity" that Obama administration officials refer to. But it does not mean that US and Pakistani priorities are fully aligned.

If the US wants to build a long-term partnership, it needs to recognise both the potential of this relationship and its limitations. The Obama administration needs to be clear on the "price of admission" for a long-term partnership.

Obama's speech suggested two "must haves": action against the Afghan Taliban's sanctuaries in Balochistan Province, and putting the extremists that operate in other parts of Pakistan, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, out of business. Neither can be accomplished in one go, but unless clear-eyed analysis indicates that Pakistan is truly moving ahead on both, the US will not have enough of a partnership to carry it through the Afghan mine fields. Americans have deluded themselves before; they must not do so again.

What does the US need to contribute to the partnership? The key is staying power. The US should find an opportunity to have the US-Pakistan relationship "countersigned" by the Congress.

This is the basis for a serious long-term partnership.

— Christian Science Monitor

Teresita C. Schaffer, director of the South Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, is a retired US diplomat who served in Pakistan.