Pakistan

Before John Kerry could wind down from his whirlwind tour of South Asia this week, the U.S. Senate moved to pass new restrictions on aid to Pakistan, the thorny issue that required the senator to go to Islamabad in the first place.

Kerry was there to reassure Pakistanis that the U.S. was not infringing on their sovereignty after the botched rollout of the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package angered many in Islamabad. Conditions on the relatively small proportion of military aid in that bill were not well received, and sparked a harsh reaction from both the Pakistani military and anti-American political elements there.

With that situation largely ameliorated, the Senate may have given Kerry a new headache today. There are several conditions on billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Pakistan found in the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill that has just now gone to President Obama's desk for signing.

The conditions include monitoring of goods and services the U.S. is giving to Pakistan and reports by the U.S. administration certifying that the money is being spent in ways that contribute to U.S. interests.

Congressional Quarterly's John Donnelly dug out all the details (subscription only):

One provision affects the $1.6 billion the bill would authorize for a Coalition Support Fund to reimburse other countries, mostly Pakistan, for logistical and military support for counterinsurgency operations. The funds, like those for all the aid programs, are appropriated separately, in this case by the Defense spending measure (HR 3326), which a House-Senate conference is writing.

The Coalition Support Fund has accounted for 70 percent of the $12.3 billion in American military and non-military aid to Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001 - money the U.S. government had little insight into or oversight of, according to a February report from the Government Accountability Office.

The defense authorization measure would require that, before any more such money is spent, the secretaries of Defense and State must certify that doing so is in the U.S. national interest and will not adversely affect the region's balance of power - a polite way of saying the money should not be spent on weapons aimed at India.

And in a provision that an aide said reflects congressional discontent with a lack of controls over the reimbursement program, the measure would require the administration to look for a new approach to garnering Pakistan's support for military operations.

Another certification is required before the Pentagon can begin spending any of the $700 million it might receive from requested State Department appropriations in the coming fiscal year for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund. That program, begun in fiscal 2009, is meant to train and equip the Pakistani military to fight insurgents and terrorists on its territory.

The defense authorization bill would require that, before those funds start to flow, the Defense secretary must certify to Congress that Pakistan is making "concerted efforts" to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban on the basis that Pakistan sees such initiatives as in its own interest...

Finally, after the bill becomes law, the president would have to report to Congress every 180 days on "progress toward long-term security and stability in Pakistan," including the effectiveness of security assistance to Pakistan in contributing to the goal of defeating al Qaeda. The report would have to include goals, timelines and measures of progress.

If I were Kerry, I wouldn't put away my travel toothbrush just yet...

A Pakistani delegation representing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is in Washington this week to deliver its report to D.C. academics, think tankers, and officials. The mission is to inform American policymakers on the Pakistani perspective on a range of issues prominent in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, including the impact of the Kerry-Lugar aid bill, nuclear stability, and the ongoing problems of terrorism and insurgency.

The delegation is composed of several senior Pakistani policymakers and former officials, including retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a former secretary for defense production, retired Maj. Gen. Mahmud Durrani, former national security advisor and the previous ambassador to the U.S. (shown at left in 2008 with Sen. John Kerry and Pakistani Foreign Minster Shah Mehmood Qureshi), Ambassador Aziz Ahmed Khan, a former envoy to India and former ambassador to Afghanistan, Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a lawyer representing clients before the Supreme Court of Pakistan who appeared in the A.Q. Khan case, and Ejaz Haider, op-ed editor for Pakistan's Daily Times.

Pugwash, which won the Nobel Prize in 1995, has a mission to foster dialogue in the hopes of "reducing the danger of armed conflict and seeking cooperative solutions for global problems." Toward that end, here are some excerpts of the report on Pakistani views and attitudes they are presenting around town:

On the U.S.-Pakistan relationship:

There is widespread resentment in Pakistan toward the U.S.; Pakistanis are cognizant that the lack of trust is mutual. At the root of this resentment is the U.S. role in the Afghan Jihad... There is skepticism about the way in which [the] U.S. is conducting its campaign in Afghanistan... The perception is that U.S. heavy handedness has dictated Pakistan's policy and it has often not been in Pakistan's own interests. The problems of the insurgency in Pakistan are deemed to be distinct from the corresponding problems in Afghanistan. Pakistan wants to decide itself how to deal with the insurgency in its own territory and what its priorities should be.

The U.S.' view of itself as a domestic player in [Pakistan's] internal politics, especially its perceived influence on successive Pakistani governments is not welcomed. Excessive visibility to U.S. official presence in Pakistan is received equally negatively... There is a general perception that Pakistan's portrayal in the U.S. media and popular discourse is exceptionally negative... It is believed that U.S. officials understand Pakistan's concerns but often turn a blind eye to the negative publicity Islamabad receives as a means to maintain pressure on Pakistan.

On President Obama's Af-Pak strategy:

The Af-Pak terminology is disliked and has received strong criticism across Pakistan. The Pakistani intelligentsia is not pleased with a de-hyphenation of the Indo-Pak equation and the hyphenation of the Pak-Afghan calculus. The issue is not only one of national pride; there is a genuine concern among the strategic enclave that the permanence of the threat from India has not eroded.,, There is objectively no interest for Pakistan to be fully involved in what is happening outside its borders, namely in Afghanistan.

On the Pakistani government's relationship with extremists:

Compromises with the Taliban and the militants in general are possible, provided that the end result is improvement of living conditions for the civilians. A generalized military confrontation is not the solution according to most Pakistan experts... This points to the need for effective military operations, for a distinction to be drawn between different militant outfits, and to deal with different policy measures depending on the group in question. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not the same entity and Pakistani policy makers insist on a distinction here.

On the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons:

The reality of the matter is that all nuclear weapons (irrespective of the country possessing them) are intrinsically insecure. In comparative terms, why should Pakistani nuclear weapons be more insecure than others?... Pakistani nuclear weapons are India-specific, namely they are an answer to India's nuclear arsenal. Anything like the deployment of Indian Ballistic Missile Defense systems or expansion of the Indian nuclear weapons program will destabilize the situation... The nuclear issue has to be dealt with regionally, with India taking the lead.

A perception has developed that the U.S. may prepare contingency plans to take out the Pakistani nuclear weapons. The reluctance on the part of the U.S. to deny such plans is problematic.

 FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/Getty Images

As part of their triage effort to make up for the botched rollout of the Pakistani aid bill, House and Senate foreign affairs chiefs Howard Berman, D-CA, and John Kerry, D-MA, held a press availability today and released a "Joint Explanatory Statement" aimed at alleviating concerns of some in Islamabad about the aid conditions in the bill.

It reads, in part:

The core intent of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act is to demonstrate the American people's long-term commitment to the people of Pakistan. The United States values its friendship with the Pakistani people and honors the great sacrifices made by Pakistani security forces in the fight against extremism, and the legislation reflects the goals shared by our two governments.

The legislation does not seek in any way to compromise Pakistan's sovereignty, impinge on Pakistan's national security interests, or micromanage any aspect of Pakistani military or civilian operations. There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to the authorization of $7.5 billion in non-military aid. The only requirements on this funding are financial accountability measures that Congress is imposing on the U.S. executive branch, to ensure that this assistance supports programs that most benefit the Pakistani people.

That should help pave the way for President Obama to sign the bill, which is sitting on his desk (but he won't sign it today, the White House confirms).

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, has not been fired from his job and doesn't expect to be, he tells The Cable in an exclusive interview.

After the fallout over the cool reception in Islamabad for the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan aid bill, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported Monday that Haqqani would be replaced in Washington amid criticisms that he was responsible for the public relations snafu. But that is not (yet) the case, he said.

"I serve at the pleasure of the president and prime minister of Pakistan and will follow any instructions I've been given," Haqqani said,calling in from a trip to Fort Worth, Texas, where he was attending a ceremony to mark the rollout of the first of 18 F-16 fighter planes being sold to his country.

"So far I've not been asked to alter my responsibilities nor have any questions been raised about my conduct," Haqqani said, adding that he does plan to meet with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi during the latter's trip to Washington tomorrow.

The scene of Haqqani celebrating the F-16 deal, a long-awaited accomplishment of the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, amid the backdrop of the rumors of his sacking, show the complicated dynamic surrounding him. A consummate Beltway insider, his close relationships throughout the Washington establishment are both the root of his success and the reason he is a target of elements in Pakistan who disapprove of close ties with the United States.

U.S. officials in Washington and Islamabad have been conducting triage to stem the bleeding from the negative press coverage surrounding the controversial rollout of the bill. Sources tell The Cable that top American officials dealing with Pakistan are on the case, including special representative Richard Holbrooke, who has made personal calls to Pakistani opposition leaders meant to allay concerns about the aid conditions in the bill and encourage their begrudging support.

The emerging narrative from Pakistani sources close to the issue is that the furor over the bill was largely a tempest in a teapot, a perfect opportunity for anti-American forces in Islamabad to accuse the government of President Asif Ali Zardari of being too close to the Americans, serving their domestic political agenda, as well as exhibiting their general dislike for Haqqani's long-held stance against military rule.

The crux of this argument can be found in a Washington Post column penned by David Ignatius, which includes:

Some of the popular anger in Islamabad is being manipulated by the Pakistani military, which should know better than to toss a match in the dry tinder of the U.S.-Pakistani relationship. And some of it, frankly, is a sign of Pakistani political immaturity. But the larger point is that this hiccup in the relationship is unnecessary. It's a product of gratuitous language that was written into the legislation despite warnings that it would trigger just this sort of reaction.

Insiders point out that that the aid conditions, which require the U.S. government to report on the Pakistani military's efforts to combat terrorist groups in their midst, were available for all to see well in advance. Moreover, they say, similar conditions were included in U.S. aid packages dating back to 2001, when President George W. Bush and President Pervez Musharraf were the respective leaders.

Ironically, it is Musharraf's allies, now in the opposition, who are now harping on such conditions.

Regardless, Haqqani has become the poster child for the criticisms surrounding the rollout of the bill, largely because he is seen by some as too close to the United States. His allies point out that his U.S. ties are exactly what makes him an effective representative for Islamabad.

They also say that if the Pakistani government ends up removing Haqqani, that will only do more harm to U.S.-Pakistani relations and fuel the anti-American forces in Islamabad.

"Most people don't have the courage to tell the Pakistani people we need the United States, so most of the discourse in Pakistan is anti-American," one Pakistani source said, adding, "Do they want a spectacle where they will say, ‘We removed an ambassador for having good relations with the U.S.?'"

These sources also say that Haqqani has reams of documents that could embarrass the forces aligned against him and sacking him could open up a Pandora's box of controversy that the government would not appreciate, which he might do if forced to defend himself after being fired.

In the end, the Kerry-Lugar aid controversy is likely to play out as follows: American officials and lawmakers will make symbolic apologies for failing to explain the aid conditions in the bill, the Pakistani parliament will reluctantly approve the deal, and the money will get spent.

Meanwhile, each side will hopefully have learned a lesson about dealing with the other.

"Washington made a mistake in not understanding Pakistani sensitivities," one Pakistani source said. "But in reaction, Pakistanis are making a big mistake in not understanding American realities."

Photo via Pakistani Embassy

As the champions of the Pakistan aid bill scramble to put out fires and stem the bleeding caused by the negative media-fueled reactions to the package in Islamabad, behind the scenes, the blame game is underway, and all sides are trying to assess who was responsible for the public-relations failure surrounding the rollout of the bill.

One school of thought points the finger at the bill's sponsors, Senate Foreign Relations Committee heads John Kerry, D-MA, (who may travel to Pakistan shortly), Richard Lugar, R-IN, and former sponsor Vice President Joseph Biden. These critics, many of them on Capitol Hill, lament that the lawmakers may have failed to do the spade work necessary to ensure the package received smooth reception in Islamabad. They also point to the White House, which rushed the Senate into passing the measure in order to announce it at a donor's conference in September.

Another leading line of thinking among Pakistan watchers places the blame more on the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, and particularly Amb. Hussain Haqqani (shown rubbing his face above during State Department talks in February) and the Washington lobbyists on his payroll, who were involved in crafting the legislation but are seen to have dropped the ball in preparing their own countrymen -- and particularly the Pakistani military -- for its release, and explaining the conditions on the aid.

Haqqani has also come under fire in the Pakistani press, with anonymous and perhaps maliciously minded sources blaming "individuals and organizations representing Pakistan's national interest in Washington" for "an attempt to cripple the Pakistan Army and the ISI," the country's powerful intelligence service.

In the end, most observers feel that some Pakistani complaining over any increased U.S. role in their country is unavoidable and that the aid package's rough debut will eventually give way to a positive end result. But the optics of the botched rollout have many in Washington angry and a little bewildered.

"This bill or some version of it has been floating around for at least two years and Biden/Kerry/Lugar didn't think to call over to Pakistan to see how it would be received?" one GOP source said.

One high-level source confirmed to Foreign Policy that the Pakistani Embassy saw the text of the aid bill in near-complete form. The implication is that the Pakistanis were or should have been aware of the aid conditions, which require the U.S. government to report on the counterterrorism efforts of the Pakistani military and the civilian government's effective control of those efforts.

The Pakistani military issued a statement Wednesday saying that senior commanders, including the Army chief, "expressed serious concern regarding clauses (of the bill) impacting on national security."

The conditions in question actually represented a compromise between House and Senate negotiators. The House version had conditioned the release of military assistance on the president's certification that the Pakistani government "demonstrated a sustained commitment to and made progress towards combating terrorist groups."

The compromise version states that the president has to certify that Pakistan is "making significant efforts towards combating terrorist groups ... including taking into account the extent to which the Government of Pakistan has made progress on matters" related to counterterrorism.

Congressional insiders saw the compromise as a way to preserve the accountability measures that many lawmakers felt were needed (considering what happened to billions already given) while granting the administration and the Pakistanis enough flexibility to set their own policies and still justify continued disbursement of the funds in future years.

Regardless, some on Capitol Hill are now suffering from a large dose of buyer's remorse after supporting the bill.

One GOP Senate aide said that the White House called on Sept. 24 to press key senators who were holding up the legislation, namely Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-AZ, and Tom Coburn, R-OK, to let the bill move forward. They acquiesced but may now regret it.

"The White House pushed on the Senate to pass it by unanimous consent so they would have leveraging power at the donor's conference and increase our standing with Pakistan," said the aide, referring to the meeting of the 26-member Friends of Democratic Pakistan. "Looks like neither of those are true."

Now, the bill is sitting on Obama's desk waiting to be signed and insiders say he won't do so until the hubbub in Islamabad calms down. The Pakistani legislature has begun debating the aid package and its endorsement would be helpful, but not absolutely necessary. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also rumored to be planning a trip to Pakistan, but that also won't happen until Obama signs the aid package into law.

There is also the issue of actually appropriating the money. The $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar bill is only an authorization, meaning that there are no actually funds in it. Yes, $1.57 billion of real money, the first year's batch, is included in the fiscal 2010 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill, but that legislation is not expected to move anytime soon because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, is said not to be enthusiastic about having a floor debate about the issue ahead of the several other upcoming battles he will have to fight on Obama's domestic agenda, including healthcare, energy, and Guantánamo Bay.

Experts warn that although U.S. engagement overall is positive, in the end the Pakistanis will have to sort out their own military policies based on their own perceived interests and their own domestic politics.

"The U.S. role is important but largely incidental," former National Security Council official Bruce Riedel said at the rollout of the Brookings Institution's new Pakistan index Monday.

"U.S. encouragement, U.S. pressure, U.S. handling, U.S. jawboning probably encouraged the Pakistani establishment and Pakistani Army to do what it's done in Swat," Riedel continued, referring to recent Pakistani efforts to retake control of the Swat Valley from the local branch of the Taliban.

"But at the end of the day the government of Pakistan did these things because it's in Pakistan's national interest, and in particular in the survival instincts of the Zardari government and its current relationship with the Pakistani Army," Riedel said.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of today and yesterday's briefings by spokesman Ian Kelly:

• The Afghanistan Electoral Complain Commission has begun sorting through the complaints of election fraud, which will go on for an undetermined time, after which the Independent Elections Commission will weigh in and, well, you get the picture (Don't hold your breath). "It's important that we allow the ECC and IEC the time they need to eliminate the fraud that they have discovered," said Kelly, "The publication of those final and certified results will tell us whether there's a need for a second round."
• The Taliban are not a domestic indigenous group that can be tolerated, somehow less dangerous than al-Qaeda, Kelly said, adding they do pose a treat to the United States and its allies. "I think what we're fighting there is this whole idea of destruction and mass murder in the name of religious extremism. And I would put them all in the same category. They're using the same tactics."
• Kelly rejected the idea that the State Department failed to do the spade work to make sure the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan aid package would be well received in Pakistan, after severe criticism emerged from Islamabad. "I think what we're seeing is a debate and a diversity of opinion in the Pakistani parliament. We welcome this kind of debate," he said.
• Middle East Envoy George Mitchell was in Israel today and met with President Shimon Peres and with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Tomorrow he will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
• The U.N. Goldstone Report is "not on the agenda" of the now moved-up October 14 Security Council meeting, but "we have to assume" that Libya is going to bring it up, Kelly said. "it would be impossible to prevent it from being raised, impossible, because any member can raise whatever subject they want," he added..
• Undersecretary of State William Burns met today in Washington with Prince Nayef, Saudi undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, who's in charge of combating terrorism.
• The second Russian city that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit next week is... Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan!

The Senate approved a newly negotiated version of the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan aid bill today, a compromise version that is now likely to move through Congress quickly.

President Obama announced that the Kerry-Lugar bill had been approved "unanimously" when addressing today's Friends of a Democratic Pakistan summit. Of course, the bill still has to go through the House (congressional staffers say that could be in the coming days), but the new version seems greased to move after wording on several issues was worked out between the version sponsored by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders and the House version of the bill put forth by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman, D-CA.

The Senate approved the bill through a process known as "Unanimous Consent." This is where the Senate doesn't actually vote on the bill, but nobody raised any objections, so it goes through. Also, the bill simply authorizes the money ($1.5 billion for each of the next 5 years) and appropriators still have to weigh in to actually spend the funds. But anyway, back to the compromise.

Most significantly, the compromise bill tweaks the language governing oversight of funds that would assist Pakistan's military. The House version conditioned the release of military assistance on the president's certification that the Pakistani government "demonstrated a sustained commitment to and made progress towards combating terrorist groups."

The new version states that the president has to certify that Pakistan is "making significant efforts towards combating terrorist groups ... including taking into account the extent to which the Government of Pakistan has made progress on matters" related to counterterrorism.

Also, the compromise version doesn't actually say how much Pakistan military assistance is to be given, using the language "such sums as are necessary."

Regardless, House staffers seem satisfied that the new version still has strong accountability measures and they also say the legislation maintains the call for U.S. access to notorious Pakistani proliferator A.Q. Kahn, although that language was also tweaked and Kahn is not actually mentioned by name in any version of the bill.

"The clear, tough-minded accountability standards and metrics contained in the original bill are carried through in this version," Kerry said in a press release, "The legislation passed today incorporates House language compatible with the intent of the original  bill, and is the product of two months of bicameral, bipartisan, and inter-branch consultation."

Senior Republican senators were wholly unimpressed by the Afghanistan-Pakistan metrics that top Obama officials gave them this morning (and were obtained by The Cable). The defense-minded and influential lawmakers are calling for more details about the White House's thinking while they press their case for a sustained U.S. commitment there.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview with The Cable that the draft document of objectives and "metrics" was vague, contained several immeasurable aspirations, and left important questions unanswered.

"It's just not the level of detail that we had hoped for," said McCain. "We need more substance ... we're going to have to pressure them to give us some more."

For example, the document lists as one Afghanistan metric "support from allies." "It's like that old joke ‘How's your wife?" McCain quipped. "Compared to what?"

McCain is also concerned that there's daylight in the thinking between President Obama and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, because Obama is undecided on troops numbers and Mullen seems to be advocating for an increase.

"Nothing new," Senate Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said about this morning's closed briefing in the Capitol with several senior administration officials, adding that he was more informed by yesterday's testimony by Mullen.

Graham said he has several outstanding questions for the Obama team about how they plan to deal with specific issues in Afghanistan, including the plan to balance formal justice and tribal justice, the game plan to provide security for judges, and the level of troops needed.

"They have objectives, but they don't have the concrete goals and measurements that I think politicians [in the U.S.] are going to want," said Graham. "I want to focus on corruption," he added, noting that details of how to deal with that are not in the document.

Fellow committee member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that metrics aren't really useful anyway and are more for congressmen to say they've gotten something and then they're largely ignored. Such was the case with the 2007 benchmarks for Iraq that were followed for a while but eventually set aside.

"As soon as metrics are passed you forget them, nobody ever goes back and counts them all up," he said, adding that the only real measures of progress are the effectiveness of the Taliban and al Qaeda, the strength of the Afghan central government, and whether there's peace in the wider South Asia region.

Sessions, like many senior GOP members, generally supports increased troops, if that's what the commanders on the ground want, but "it's a bitter pill to swallow," he said.

He called on the administration to provide Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, to testify directly to lawmakers in open session.

Photo by JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images