A New Decade: What will be the role of Pakistan?

The United States has recently been making friends with Pakistani leadership. The White House has been calling the cozy talks “strategic dialogue” – unfortunately, it is these kind of talks that make the U.S. look opportunistic and capricious. On the otherside of Pakistan is India and there are number of conflicts between those two countries: Kashmir, the Siachen Glacier and Pakistan’s involvement in the attacks on Mumbai. It would seem that the U.S. can not be best friends with both of these countries, they will inevitably have to choose.

The war on terror has forced the Obama Administration to use the Pakistani government as their punishing hand. Recently, capturing Taliban Commander Mullah Abdul Ghanu Baradar plus a number of other Taliban fighters. In return for these arrests and its continued help, Pakistan will want to see the U.S. cede to a few demands. Those demands will attempt to make Pakistan the Middle East’s new rising star: new energy resources, better infrastructure, trade and eventually going nuclear. But Pakistan is suspicious of the U.S. and its leaders know that they are being used; the White House will help Pakistan until its interests in the region are through. The Pakistani people are not so keen on U.S. involvement and regard our country as a costly ally.

But the main issue is that helping Pakistan loosens our ties with India, one of the world’s largest growing economies. Washington diplomats have said repeatedly that deals with one country are not made at the expense of a neighboring country. However, the reception of a prominent Pakistani General in Washington led Hindu newspapers to claim that the Obama Administration was favoring Pakistan.

Washington has repeatedly told India and Pakistan to talk but it seems that there is a new internal dialogue in Pakistan that needs to be hashed out. It seems to be thinking about what kind of country it wants exactly - a country with powerful militant groups that defend the religious rules of Islam or a country that is based in Islamabad with infrastructure and democracy.