The United States must shift its counterterrorism policy towards Pakistan away from a reciprocal approach—requiring Islamabad to perform desirable actions to receive support—towards one encouraging Pakistan to enact effective counterterrorism policies, not for an immediate payoff, but to strengthen institutionalized trust with the U.S. over time, according to a new report from the Carnegie Endowment.

In Pakistan and the War on Terror: Conflicted Goals, Compromised Performance, Carnegie Senior Associate Ashley J. Tellis points to growing dissatisfaction in the United States with the Musharraf regime’s commitment to counterterrorism operations, given the influx of U.S. aid. But while Pakistan’s performance in the “war on terror” has fallen short of expectations, Islamabad’s inability to defeat terrorist groups cannot simply be explained by neglect or lack of motivation. U.S. policy makers must take into account the specific and complex counterterrorism challenges facing Pakistan and move away from their current unsustainable policies.

“The Bush administration ought to persist with its current emphasis on the noncoercive engagement of Pakistan at least so long as there is a reasonable hope that the transformation of Pakistan into a moderate Muslim state is not a lost cause, that the Musharraf regime can be persuaded to expand its counterterrorism operations to those groups that have thus far remained beyond reach, and that the United States will have sufficient opportunity to switch to an alternative strategy before the present attempt at engagement is judged to have failed irremediably.”

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By Ashley J. Tellis
© 2008 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The author thanks Alyssa Ayres, Chris Fair, Jack Gill, Frédéric Grare, Neil Joeck, Dan Markey, Jessica Mathews, and George Perkovich for their most helpful comments on the manuscript. Thanks are also owed to Sam McCormally for research assistance and to Riccardo Redaelli, Maria Sultan, the Indian, Pakistani, and European participants at the Landau Network-Centro Volta workshops on South Asian security, the Afghan and Pakistani military officers at the annual confidence-building meetings in Garmisch- Partenkirchen, Germany, and to several Indian, Pakistani, and NATO diplomats and military officers for their insights into the challenges associated with counterterrorism operations in Operation Enduring Freedom.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. Founded in 1910, Carnegie is nonpartisan and dedicated to achieving practical results. Through research, publishing, convening and, on occasion, creating new institutions and international networks, Endowment associates shape fresh policy approaches. Their interests span geographic regions and the relations between governments, business, international organizations, and civil society, focusing on the economic, political, and technological forces driving global change.

Building on the successful establishment of the Carnegie Moscow Center, the Endowment has added operations in Beijing, Beirut, and Brussels to its existing offices in Washington and Moscow, pioneering the idea that a think tank whose mission is to contribute to global security, stability, and prosperity requires a permanent international presence and a multinational outlook at the core of its operations.

The Endowment publishes Foreign Policy, one of the world’s leading journals of international politics and economics, which reaches readers in more than 120 countries and in several languages.

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Introduction:

On June 24, 2003, at a Camp David meeting with his Pakistani guest, President George W. Bush declared that key al- Qaeda terrorists had been successfully neutralized thanks “to the effective border security measures and law enforcement cooperation throughout [Pakistan], and ... to the leadership of President Pervez Musharraf.” Although Osama bin Laden was still at large, Bush nevertheless concluded that “the people reporting to him, the chief operators [of al- Qaeda], ... people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are no longer a threat to the United States or [to] Pakistan, for that matter.”

Barely four years later, the Bush administration has been compelled to revise the president’s earlier, more optimistic, assessment. Faced with a dramatic resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and a steady reconstitution of the al- Qaeda network in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” asserted forthrightly that al- Qaeda “has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.”

That the rejuvenation of al- Qaeda and the Taliban is due in large part to their ability to secure a sanctuary in Pakistan has incensed many Americans across the political spectrum. Because Washington has provided Islamabad with almost $10 billion in overt security and economic assistance since 2002 and continues to compensate the Pakistani military for its counterterrorism efforts with roughly $1 billion in annual reimbursements, many U.S. leaders are beginning to wonder whether Pakistan is in fact doing its part in the war on terror.

The U.S. Congress, signaling its disenchantment with Islamabad’s counterterrorism effectiveness (and with Musharraf’s recent backsliding on democracy), has sought to condition U.S. aid to Pakistan and has withheld some military assistance funding in an effort to prod more aggressive Pakistani military operations against al- Qaeda and the Taliban. Two Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John Edwards, have gone even further, declaring that U.S. military forces operating in Afghanistan and elsewhere ought to be employed unilaterally against terrorist targets in Pakistani territory if Islamabad fails to interdict them despite possessing actionable intelligence.

The growing dissatisfaction in the United States about Pakistani performance in counter - terrorism operations is premised largely on the assumption of Islamabad’s mendacity: that Musharraf’s regime, despite being well compensated and despite its habitual claims to be performing at par, is willfully neglectful of its commitment to root out al- Qaeda and Taliban cadres operating from its territory for a combination of strategic and ideological reasons.

The reality, however, is more complex. Although Pakistani performance in the war on terror has undoubtedly fallen short of what is expected in the United States, Islamabad’s inability to defeat the terrorist groups operating from its soil is rooted in many factors going beyond its admittedly serious motivational deficiencies in regard to combating terrorism.

This monograph seeks to provide an analytical understanding of the problems associated with Pakistani performance in the combined counterterrorism operations currently under way in the FATA and in Afghanistan. Such an understanding is essential if the United States is to avoid becoming locked into the paralyzing choices of either coercing Pakistan— with varying degrees of discrimination— as urged by many voices in the current political debate or standing steadfast through publicly uncritical support for Musharraf as the Bush administration has done so far. The discussion that follows underscores the fact that, although Pakistan is a conflicted ally in the war on terror, it faces difficult counterterrorism challenges that cannot be overcome quickly for good reasons.

The campaign against al- Qaeda and the Taliban, accordingly, will be a long one requiring considerable patience on the part of the United States. Further, the analysis suggests that there are no easy choices for Washington, but it also emphasizes that Islamabad’s approach to defeating terrorism is sufficiently risky and could end up transforming Pakistan into an object of U.S. wrath should a major attack on the United States in the future reveal Pakistani origins, neglect, or, in the worst case, connivance.

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