Seeing a vital opportunity to forge broad-based US-Pakistan relations following victory of President-elect Barack Obama and emergence of a democratic government in Islamabad, a panel of top American experts on Monday urged wider international economic support for the South Asian country as well as focused efforts to address its regional security concerns, including Kashmir.
“The United States needs to make a shift in its approach to Pakistan, recognising both the importance of Pakistan to regional and international security, as well as the limitations of the US power,” a new report released on Monday by the Centre for American Progress said, asking the incoming Barack Obama Administration to work with regional and other major powers to help Pakistan overcome its economic and security challenges.
Entitled “Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and the Region,” the report has been drafted after a year-long study by about three dozen experts. It particularly underlines the need to foster long-term relations with Pakistan that benefit its people and address disputes on its borders with India and Afghanistan. “The new US administration, with Congress and the international community, should strive to help Pakistan weaken al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and affiliated militant groups so that they no longer threaten stability in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the broader region, the United States or the world and secure borders between Pakistan and its neighbours, with all border disputes, including Kashmir and the Durand Line (the disputed boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan), either resolved or in a credible process for resolution.”
At the same time, the panel of security, trade and economic relations experts and foreign policy analysts – including Bruce Riedel, who is now an Obama adviser on South Asia – remind that the “US policy must recognise that the military component alone is insufficient to build stability and security in Pakistan.” They stress pursuance of “a diverse approach, including strengthening governance and the rule of law, creating economic opportunities, and exploring political negotiations” to curb militancy.
“The US government should engage with leaders of Pakistan’s civilian institutions and civil society in addition to its military establishment. Integrating the full range of US and other countries’ powers diplomatic, economic, and political” the United States should quietly and carefully expand US-Pakistan partnerships on a broad set of issues, including intelligence cooperation, economic development, energy, education assistance, and more.
“The Obama administration should embark on a strategic dialogue with Pakistan that sets common goals for the two countries, building on the major non-Nato ally status it has already achieved. These goals should include both tactical counterterrorism and longer- term counterinsurgency objectives and should specifically engage Pakistan’s security concerns.”
Advocating the need to build trust between the two countries under the new US Administration, experts point out that the “current distrust that the government of Pakistan and its people hold toward the Bush administration has undermined a cooperative Pakistan-US relationship.”
“Furthermore, the strains between the Bush administration and numerous other countries, including our European allies, have hurt our nation’s efforts to cooperate and coordinate on Pakistan”.
“The Obama administration has the potential to mend the strained US-Pakistan relationship and offers a fresh opportunity to reach out anew to other strategic players in the region and the world to coordinate international efforts on Pakistan.” “For the first time in almost a decade, the United States and the world have partners in a democratically-elected government of Pakistan.”