US SECRETARY of State, Hillary Clinton, was in Islamabad recently. It is yet unclear if her mission was conciliation or further coercion.

The recent public allegations of the just retired US military chief, Adm Mullen, accusing the Pakistan Army and the ISI of encouraging the Haqqani ‘network’ to attack US targets in Kabul, allowing Taliban ‘safe havens’, and much else, have added insult to the injury of the US incursion in Abbottabad, continuing US drone strikes, the Raymond Davis incident and withheld military repayments. Further unilateral military intervention within Pakistan was also threatened but has since been retracted. The Democratic administration’s unofficial mouthpiece, the New York Times, went so far as to call for sanctions against the ISI and its personnel.

The sense of outrage in Pakistan is understandable. The Americans know full well that that their military and political difficulties in Afghanistan are mainly internal, not external; that Pakistan has never supported insurgent attacks against the US; that Pakistan has paid a terribly heavy price for its support to the US and cannot be expected to pay more; that the only solution is a negotiated peace and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Thus, to those in Islamabad who were prepared to persist in cooperating with Washington even after the US violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty, the ratcheted-up anti-Pakistan rhetoric has come as a rude surprise. Until earlier this year, Pakistan-US objectives in Afghanistan, if not tactics, seemed to be converging.

When former US defence secretary Gates visited the region last year, he noted that the Taliban were part of the political fabric of Afghanistan and would have to be accommodated in any settlement. Last October, Pakistan’s army chief conveyed some concrete suggestions to Washington. He advocated that the military strategy in Afghanistan should be subservient to the political strategy and that the peace process should start with a mutual de-escalation and halt in hostilities, enabling the dialogue with the insurgency to commence.

On Feb 18 this year, in a policy statement at the Asia Society, Secretary Clinton announced “an intensified diplomatic push to bring the Afghan conflict to an end”. She expressed US readiness to “reconcile with an adversary” and to support “an Afghan-led peace process supported by intense regional diplomacy”.

Most significantly, Clinton clarified that the US demands for the Taliban to “renounce violence, abandon the alliance with the Al Qaeda, and abide by the [Afghan] constitution” were no longer preconditions but the “necessary outcomes of any negotiation”. She added that “for reconciliation to succeed, Pakistan will have to be part of the process”.

On June 22, President Obama announced a new strategy for Afghanistan, which 1) envisaged an end to the US military role in Afghanistan by 2014 and 2) focused on counterterrorism against “Al Qaeda, its affiliates and adherents”. Pakistan conveyed its readiness to support both the US and President Karzai to achieve the objectives of a negotiated peace in Afghanistan. It deliberately (and perhaps wrongly) refrained from launching its own peace initiative.

Initial opposition to negotiations from the Taliban was anticipated. But the obstacles that have been raised in the way of the peace process by the US are surprising. First, although the Afghan peace council was available, and Pakistan’s offer of assistance on the table, the US attempted to use other channels for talks with the Taliban, both direct and through the ‘good offices’ of Germany and Qatar. These attempts failed; one of them, involving a Taliban impostor, quite embarrassingly. Thus, the prospects of dialogue have been complicated, if not impeded, by the US, not Pakistan, as American officials have asserted.

Second, despite President Obama and Secretary Clinton’s policy statements, US generals in Afghanistan have continued to adhere to what Gen Petraeus described as a strategy, of ‘swatting’ the Taliban ‘to the negotiating table’. From the outset, Pakistan made no secret of its reservations about this ‘fight and talk’ tactic.

It did not work for the Soviets; it is unlikely to work for the US (and Nato). It is incomprehensible that the US should want to attack and kill the very insurgent leaders with whom it wishes to negotiate peace. Attacking the Afghan insurgents will also push them closer to Al Qaeda, making it more difficult to isolate and ‘defeat’ the latter, supposedly the principal aim of the new Obama strategy.

Third, US officials added a codicil to the Obama strategy which was absent from his June 22 statement, that, even after 2014, the US would want to maintain a ‘limited’ military presence in Afghanistan.

In the famous words of the American baseball player, Yogi Berra: “This is déjà-vu all over again”! The Soviets too at one time wanted to leave behind a support force in Afghanistan. As it was for the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s, this desire for a permanent foreign military presence in Afghanistan will be a deal-breaker for the Taliban. Even if Karzai agrees to a new ‘strategic cooperation agreement’, allowing the stationing of US troops, Kabul will be obliged to retract this if and when a genuine Afghan peace is negotiated with the Afghan insurgency. But it is quite possible that the objective of those pressing for this permanent US military presence is precisely to scuttle the option of talking peace with the Taliban.

This prospect of a permanent military presence in Afghanistan also raises serious strategic concerns for Pakistan and other regional states. Such presence will provide the US with the capability not only for counter-insurgency operations within Afghanistan (and to prop up whoever it wants to hold power in Kabul) but also for intimidation and intervention against all of Afghanistan’s neighbours, including Pakistan.

In the aftermath of the Osama operation, and given Pakistan’s legitimate concerns about US intentions to ‘grab and snatch’ or destroy its nuclear capabilities, such a permanent US military presence in Afghanistan will no doubt evoke strong opposition from Islamabad (and, for similar reasons, from Tehran).

The recent Karzai lurch to New Delhi fits into the strategic mosaic that Islamabad fears is being put in place for this region.

Yet, it may be best for Pakistan to ignore this latest petulance. Afghanistan’s symbiotic links with Pakistan are dictated by geography, history, ethnicity, faith and economics. These cannot be changed. India’s potential for ‘encircling’ Pakistan through a western ‘pincer’ will be extremely limited without a US military ‘godfather’ in Afghanistan. If the US fears Pakistani ‘capabilities’ in Afghanistan, one can imagine how exposed Indian security forces would feel if their government committed the folly of deploying them in any capacity in Afghanistan.

Resetting Pakistan-US relations will require a mutual retreat from the rhetoric and recriminations of recent months. However, the major precondition for putting the Pakistan-US relationship back on track is a clear reconfirmation of the strategy announced by President Obama on June 22, 2011. It is up to the White House to bring all the elements of the administration — civilian and military — into line with the president’s declared policy.

However, if this policy has changed, or if it contains undeclared caveats that significantly change its content and portent, Pakistan must prepare itself for a period of tough tensions with its oldest, largest and most difficult ‘ally’. Islamabad should not itself escalate tensions but be prepared to defend its ‘red lines’ and respond to further provocations.

Although the correlation of forces, as the Soviets used to say, may be weighted against Pakistan, it has legitimacy and history on its side. Sooner rather than later, the US, like other foreign ‘visitors’, will realise that the cost of staying on in Afghanistan outweighs any present or future advantage.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.