American Af-Pak policy in disarray

It could well have been a scene from a Sylvester Stallone Rambo thriller. The “good guy” is “Rambo” Raymond Davis, a Special Forces sharpshooter turned CIA agent, sent to eliminate “bad guy” terrorists in a “Major non-NATO Ally”, Pakistan.

Rambo Raymond is followed by two “bad guys” through the shady areas of Lahore, on January 27. The “bad guys” are actually ISI Agents assigned to trail Rambo Raymond, who has been eliminating the ISI's Jihadi and Taliban assets in Pakistani terrorist badlands, including in the tribal areas, straddling the Afpak borders.

The ISI stalkers draw their pistols and move towards Rambo Raymond's car. Rambo Raymond draws his six-shooter and brings down the two bad guys. He radios for help and an American Consulate car rushes towards the scene, with the rescuers running over a pedestrian while driving the wrong way, on a one-way street. Rambo is overpowered and jailed. All hell breaks loose between the two “major non-NATO Allies”.

The American version of the status of Rambo Raymond is that he holds a Diplomatic Passport and was issued a visa, being designated a “regional affairs officer”— a euphemism for his being a CIA operative, with his background known to the hosts. He was also listed as “administrative and technical staff” which entitles him to diplomatic immunity. According to the Pakistanis, Davis is actually an employee of Private Security Agency, Hyperion Protective Consultants.

Oddly, while the Americans claimed Rambo is an embassy employee, the State Department spokesman described him as a “(Lahore) Consulate Employee.” Amidst these flip-flops by the Obama Administration, former Foreign Minister, Mr Shah Mehmood Qureshi, joined issue immediately after he lost his job. Qureshi claimed that his Ministry had carried out a detailed study and concluded that Rambo Raymond was not entitled to diplomatic immunity.

PAKISTAN'S INTERNAL POLITICS

These developments came at a time when Pakistan's politics had reached new levels of volatility. The Zardari government in Islamabad does not want hassles in relations with the Americans. The issue would have been settled and Davis quietly repatriated to the US if the incident had taken place in the Federal Capital Area, where President Zardari controls the Police. But, Lahore is not the Federal Capital. The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Shahbaz Sharif, has shown no inclination of making life easy for President Zardari.

After easing President Zardari's PPP out of the ruling coalition in Punjab, he will move to get his brother Mr Nawaz Sharif back as Pakistan's Prime Minister. Mr Nawaz knows that his PML (N) will sweep the polls in any national election. The Sharif brothers also have no inhibitions in being seen to be supportive of the growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Mr Shahbaz has funded Mr Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa after it was declared an international terrorist organisation.

The Punjab Police swiftly arrested and charged Davis for murder, knowing that the judiciary headed by Chief Justice, Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhury, is virulently anti-Zardari. The Lahore High Court has deferred the case till March 14. In the meantime, Rambo Raymond sleeps in a Lahore jail, despite assertions by President Obama himself that he enjoys diplomatic immunity and should be released.

Stirring this boiling cauldron is the all-powerful General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and his ever-loyal ISI Chief, Lt. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, now under extension. There has been no love lost between the CIA and the ISI in recent days. Rambo Raymond was undermining the ISI by establishing his own links to eliminate the jihadis in the Pashtun tribal areas along the Afpak border.

The army quietly joined the chorus seeking to push the Americans to a corner and force them to offer concessions, even though General Kayani does not exactly love fellow Punjabi, Mr Nawaz Sharif. What the Americans, like some in South Block have failed to acknowledge, is that Gen. Kayani believes that the Americans need Pakistan just now more than Pakistan needs the Americans. He evidently feels that the Americans will blink first, which they show every inclination of doing, in this standoff.

US REALISATION

The Rambo Raymond affair is a manifestation of the larger malaise affecting the transactional American Pakistan relationship. Thanks to some adept diplomacy by India, the Obama Administration soon gave up the thoughtless proposal mooted by Pakistani author, Ahmed Rashid, that it should actively involve itself in meddling on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir by appointing Bill Clinton as a Special Envoy.

Moreover, its initial honeymoon with China soon led to estrangement, accentuated by the global economic downturn. The realisation dawned in Washington that India would be a useful partner in fashioning an inclusive Asian architecture for security and co-operation.

Terrorist safe havens in Pakistan cannot be eliminated unless the US reduces its dependence on Pakistani logistical support and fashions alternative arrangements with Russia and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbours. Only then can the international community evolve viable policies for governance within Afghanistan and ensure that Afpak borders are no longer what Admiral Mullen called “the epicentre of global terrorism”.

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