SINCE Osama bin Laden’s killing, US lawmakers have been engaged in a feisty debate over whether to cut aid to Pakistan. They ask why American taxpayers should give over $3bn annually to a country that would harbour the world’s most-wanted terrorist.

Since the Obama administration spent much of last week reiterating the importance of Washington’s strategic partnership with Islamabad, a significant shift in assistance policy is unlikely. But there is nonetheless great value in the debate about aid — ideally, it will help Congress clarify both for itself and Pakistan why continued foreign assistance is a good idea.

Those who support aid for Pakistan offer two rationales — one that suits US interests, and another that serves Pakistani interests. The first is that Pakistan is integral to the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and to America’s more general fight against terrorism. Pakistan launches military operations against militants, provides supply routes for Nato trucks and gathers intelligence on (some) terrorists. It is also a key player in any negotiated political settlement in Afghanistan. Moreover, it has reportedly the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world, which could end up in the wrong hands if the army were to be compromised. Cut aid, the logic goes, and Pakistan will cut all military cooperation and logistical support.

The other rationale focuses on aid as a factor that may help bring about a stable Pakistan. Nancy Birdsall, president of the Centre for Global Development, a think tank evaluating US foreign assistance, says: “Aid is not a tool to reward or to punish a recipient government…. Similarly, aid is not charity. The reason the United States invests in a country like Pakistan is because instability there threatens long-term security and prosperity here and around the globe.” In this construction, aid is an investment in the Pakistani people and their prosperous future, which is ultimately the best antidote to radicalisation.

The first rationale is counterproductive because it feeds right into the Pakistani establishment’s conviction that the country is ‘too big to fail’. The belief that the international community will not isolate or abandon Pakistan, no matter how grave the transgression, guides strategic thinking. It is this perception that informed the Pakistan Army’s belligerent reaction to the US raid. Rather than answer difficult questions, the army can warn the world against further unilateral strikes because it thinks that the US has no choice but to let it get away with the most egregious ‘intelligence failure’ that allowed Bin Laden to live in our country, possibly since 2005.

This conviction is fuelled by the fact that the US has consistently failed to hold Islamabad to the same strict standards that Congress sets for other aid recipients. For example, days before Adm Mike Mullen lambasted the ISI for maintaining ties with the Haqqani network last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton certified before Congress that Pakistan showed a “sustained commitment to and is making significant efforts towards combating terrorist groups”. Such laxity has historical precedent — throughout the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’ of the 1980s, the US approved aid to Islamabad despite evidence that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons.

The continuation of aid in this context is counterproductive, perpetuating the false assumption that the US is too dependent on Pakistan, and that others will passively endure repeated provocations. In fact, there are limits to what the world will tolerate from Pakistan. The unilateral strike in Abbottabad, executed without advance warning, and followed by threats of similar actions from New Delhi, are reminders that the world will one day lose patience with us. It happened in the 1990s, when the US cut aid under congressionally mandated sanctions. And it will happen more readily now that the US has to contend with a daunting fiscal deficit and the economic ascendancy of the BRIC nations.

It is to everyone’s advantage, then, if Congress emphasises that aid to Pakistan is an investment in its people and society. This second rationale can help prioritise Pakistani people, not only for the US, but also for Pakistan’s security-obsessed establishment. By emphasising that aid is in the public interest, the US can spur a culture of accountability to the Pakistani public, within and beyond Pakistan itself.

More importantly, an emphasis on the Pakistani public will prevent knee-jerk debates about the US aid programme from reaching the wrong conclusions during crises. Last week, many senators and congressmen proposed cutting military aid, but maintaining civilian aid. Anyone who knows Pakistan is aware that such a decision would significantly alter the civil-military power dynamic in Pakistan.

If committed to Pakistanis and the ongoing democratic transition, the US will have to tread more carefully. Innovative thinking will be necessary. For example, the US could require that aid transferred to the army for counterterrorism costs under the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund be used to train civilian law-enforcers.

Similarly, calls for US aid to be made conditional on tax reform or investigations into the Bin Laden fiasco will yield few positives. These are internal issues, and must be addressed via consensus building through the Pakistani political process. If imposed from the outside, such conditions will be seen as an expression of coercive diplomacy, rejected by the public, and abandoned as soon as the opportunity arises. In other words, the US should support aid for Pakistan, but only if it serves the public, and not for increased leverage.

The writer is the Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com