Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will visit the United States of America on state tour, in the month of October .It is the right occasion that by utilizing this opportunity both the US and Pakistan should redraw the lines of  durable engagement with each other. The purpose of this article is to reveal the growing imperatives of a long term-strategic partnership between Washington and Islamabad beyond the present status of cosmetic relationship.

Bracketing Pakistan within the fixture of ‘US’s Af-Pak policy narrative’ but not keeping it within the ‘broad based strategic spectrum of America’s South Asia policy’, the US policy thinkers or managers seem to have been committing a big mistake. This US’s policy notion to keep exclusively India in its South Asian policy reference, gives the impression that Washington is just rhetorically interested in keeping its ties with Islamabad without genuinely seeking a  ‘Pak-US strategic partnership’.

Many in Pakistan do share the opinion that It has been a US policy of ‘using Pakistan at many occasions and subsequently giving it a nonchalance gesture or disassociating it’. This version of argument can be verified by seeing the dejavu through the Cold War period, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Afghan War, the US’s training of the then called Mujhaideen (now the Taliban) under the CIA banner and sponsorship, and most significantly the US-Pak scenario since the very inception of the 9/11 era, ushered in the war on terrorism.

A majority of the Pakistani community also registers a feeling that it has been because of the ‘policy paradox’ of the United states that Pakistan is facing the worst crises in its history while fighting against the US-waged war on terrorism as they think that the US administration, by waging the war on terrorism on the pretext of securing America, has made the security of Pakistan more vulnerable via ‘ blowing the winds or sowing the seeds of Jehadi extremism/elements in Pakistan’. They hold the argument: had the US authorities not trained the Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, there would have been no genesis of the ‘cult of Talibanization’ in Pakistan.Yes,truly the ongoing phenomenon of Talibanzation must be seen as a logical backlash of the ‘Mujahideen ideological legacy’.

Since Obama’s visit to India,the US Congress has been arguing against treating Pakistan as a strategic partner until the country agrees to sever its alleged ties with ‘terrorist outfits’.

In a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel said the US should pursue a different approach with the Pakistani government, the BBC reported.

The letter said the government of Pakistan has taken some steps to dismantle the infrastructure of al Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), but has not done enough to combat other ‘designated foreign terrorist groups’ such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Muhammad. This selective approach appears to stem from a misguided Indian belief that some terrorist groups serve Pakistan’s foreign policy goals in India and Afghanistan. Therefore, this partial and jaundiced approach needs to be changed by not believing the Indian version of the story,India is itself engaged in expanding the ‘octopus of terrorism’ in Pakistan via Indian-sponsored proxies evidence of which has been positively submitted by the Government of Pakistan to the United Nations.

This US framed strategy– at the time when Pakistan is hemmed in by manifold challenges from within and from outside; Washington’s policy of lobbying with New Delhi–by no means seems ‘pragmatic and  justifiable’ towards Pakistan. It is in this backdrop, US must reorient its policy from Af-Pak to South Asian perspectives, in order to meet its brewing South Asian challenges.

The strategy of ‘containment’ against China has been coupled with a distinct diplomatic “tilt” toward India. With New Delhi serving as Washington’s main strategic and counterterror partner in the region, US seeks a long term economic involvement with India. President Obama and Prime Minister Modi have announced (in Jan-2015) their intention to increase U.S-India trade five-fold, to $500 billion. For their part, India’s recently-released foreign trade policy lays out a vision to double exports of goods and services to $900 billion by 2020.

But the U.S. government has consistently failed to see South Asia for what it is: a region with a shared environment, a shared cultural system, and its own strategic logic. Ignoring it or parceling it out conceptually and organizationally might have been an adequate response in the Cold War era, but its rise in importance demands a rethink of both American strategy and how the U.S. government is organized to deal with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

This region, including the Indian Ocean, is too important now to be left to segmented and uncoordinated policy-making. To correct this, and to take advantage of new opportunities in South Asia, the U.S. must revise the obsolete civilian and military framework with which it approaches the region.

It took forty-five years to create a freestanding South Asia bureau—and even then only at Congressional prompting, and it was subsequently relegated to further insignificance by the addition of Central Asia to its portfolio.

Currently:

– In the NSC: The South Asia director does not handle Afghanistan-Pakistan, which is in the hands of Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, and whatever cooperation there is between the operational directors for India and Pakistan is informal and not via common reporting channels.

– In the State Department: “SRAP” commands all things Af-Pak, leaving India and the rest of South Asia to an assistant secretary, who, while an expert, does not make policy for his entire region.

– In the Department of Defense: There are different Deputy Assistant Secretaries for India (DASD South and Southeast Asia) and Pakistan (DASD Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia)

– In the Combat Commands: CENTCOM deals with Pakistan, and PACOM with India the Indian Ocean is divided between them and Africa command, and perhaps other entities. There is haphazard coordination between these giant commands. They are rivals for resources and policy turf, and the cooperation between them “at a higher level” that was envisioned by the team that drew the “cut line” along the India-Pakistan border never materialized.

The result is that the South Asia policy is characterized by a lack of strategic thinking, coordination, and integration: No one wants to fail, but embassies and commands tend to adopt the view of the people with whom they work, which leads to a persistent bias that can only be corrected at the secondary/analytical levels in Washington D.C. There is remarkably little coordination or long-range regional strategizing.

– On the Civilian Side: The State Department and other agencies can no longer afford to see South Asia as a stepchild of their interests in the Near East and other regions. Pakistan, India and Afghanistan should be part of one executive bureau across the U.S. government. There should not be a special Afghanistan-Pakistan section at State or the NSC. In this case reducing bureaucracy is a good idea.

– Military and Defense Reorganization: There is an urgent need to correct a framework that was not even viable during the Cold War. It makes no sense to look at India from Hawaii (PACOM) and at Pakistan from Florida (CENTCOM). Pakistan and India need to be put under the same commander in chief of a South Asia Command (SACOM), this would help improve strategic thinking about South Asia enormously.

Keeping in view the exigencies and imperatives of the above mentioned scenario and giving the impetus to the changing South Asian picturesque, Washington needs to adopt its new policy- orientations towards Islamabad based on the following recommendations:

-The US diplomacy should keep a rebalancing strategy towards Pakistan vis-a-vis India

-US must try to extend its defence -cum-security cooperation with Pakistan -US must seek new venues of economic investment in Pakistan

-US must extend its cooperation for providing Pakistan the ‘nuclear civil energy deal– with no caveats or preconditions that can compromise Pakistan security doctrine’– in the manner the US has dealt with India in 2005

-US must also share the energy crisis in Pakistan by building new energy projects -US must try to establish good public diplomacy with the Pakistani community at home and abroad

-US must try to doctor the sick confidence of the people of Pakistan regarding the US policies by adopting a bipartisan approach towards Pakistan

These recommendations must be synchronized with Washington ‘s initiative of  taking some important steps.

First, the United States should reconsider its plans for a full troop ‘withdrawal’ from neighbouring Afghanistan. A smaller US military footprint that can be supplied without dependence on Pakistan’s overland routes offers the only way to maintain serious US counterterror operations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, especially if relations with Pakistan begin to falter. Moreover, although a continued US commitment to Afghanistan’s security cannot guarantee success, a hasty departure – more than any other factor under US control – undoubtedly encourages the region’s adversaries and spoilers, especially within Pakistan.

Second, in the spirit of cooperating in areas where US and Pakistani interests overlap while avoiding unnecessary provocation, the Obama administration should revise one of its signature strategic initiatives: the so-called ‘rebalance’ to Asia. Pakistanis, currently excluded from all US statements about the rebalance, view the strategy with suspicion. They tend to interpret it as Washington’s plan to ’tilt toward India, contain China, and abandon Pakistan’.

To address these concerns, the Obama administration should include Pakistan in the rebalance, at least in the context of US efforts to promote Asia’s regional economic integration. Not only would this reduce some anxiety in Islamabad, but linking Pakistan with the fast-growing economies to its east offers the only realistic means to grow Pakistan’s own economy, create opportunities for its enormous youth population, and encourage peaceful relations with its neighbours.

Third, even as US diplomats seek ways to keep relations with Pakistan on an even keel, US military planners will need to invest in technologies, platforms, and basing arrangements that enable counterterror and other missions in Pakistan over the long run. Washington needs an answer, for instance, to the question of how it plans to strike Pakistan-based terrorists if drones are denied airspace, or if an increasingly weak or hostile Pakistani government cedes greater territory to groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS in its vast urban centres,as has been rightly pointed out by Gen Raheel Sharif that Pakistan and region’s greater challenge is to counter the Daesh terrorists .

Addressing a meeting at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and House of Commons in London, General Raheel Sharif said the operation Zarb-e-Azb s success had discernible effect and it will continue pursuing sleeper cells of terrorists across the country.

He stressed that our environment and context needs to be understood that we want to finish terrorists and their nurseries.
The Army Chief said we expect from the international community to play its part for the regional peace.

He said, while we are fighting various terrorist groups, no new entities can be allowed to emerge. He said terrorism is a global issue and warrants global response.

These sorts of US policies would help both sides avoid a near-term crisis. At the same time, they would prop the door open for greater and more consequential cooperation with Pakistan in the  event that leaders in Islamabad begin governing in ways that ‘warrant expanded US attention and support’.

Not applying or fostering the ‘doctrine of isolation’ but a policy of multilateral cooperation and ‘integration’, should be the US new strategy towards Pakistan. For the last 68 years, Pakistan has been the US regional partner. And what Pakistan has rendered a ‘remarkable service’ for the US during the last six decades remains no secret story. At the critical junctures,Islamabad has not left the US unattended.Therefore, time of test is now for Washington  to rebound back with true spirit of bilateralism towards Pakistan. And yet this test or that ‘success’ would still leave an extraordinarily difficult set of challenges in the lap of the next American president, and the laps of all who follow, until the distant day that the United States and Pakistan come to share a broader set of overlapping interests and a common perspective on how to pursue them.