As Pakistan faces challenges: Will its voice be respected?

Nawaz Sharif takes over at a time when Pakistan is living through an increasing militancy within, which most Pakistanis believe is a consequence of an unpopular partnership with the US in the “war on terrorism”. Solutions to these problems are urgently needed and will have a wider regional impact.

Domestically, his immediate challenge is to fix Pakistan’s tanking economy, which is a cause of so much religious extremism, social unrest and criminal activity. During the just concluded elections, the militants, branded as Tehreek-e-Taleban-e Pakistan (TTP), effectively thwarted the campaign of the three coalition partners in the previous government. While over 100 people were killed during the bloody election campaign, polling went off smoothly enough except for one bombing incident which killed 11 people. 

A relatively high voter turnout at 55 per cent compared to 44 per cent in the 2008 elections overwhelmingly voted for the PML-N and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Both condemn the US’s drone attacks, are against Pakistan’s participation in the US-led war, and seek new terms of engagement with Washington. 

On the external front, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and how the Afghanistan situation evolves, pose a major challenge that affects Pakistan’s own peace and stability.

The main contentious point between Washington and Islamabad is the US’s secret drone attacks over Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have killed 4,700 Pakistanis over the last six years. While they traumatise civilians, these attacks have killed only 2 per cent of high-value targets, and they breed radicalism, according to a recent study by the law schools of New York and Stanford universities.

Documents presented in the Pakistan Supreme Court in March reveal that Pakistan has lost over 49,000 civilians, with its military suffering 15,681 casualties, fighting this “war against terror”. This is many times more than the combined losses of others. Damages in destroyed infrastructure are staggering, causing much of the social unrest in the country. The Pakistani public has firmly demonstrated that it has no appetite for a US-sponsored military campaign by voting for the two major parties opposed to this war.

Nawaz Sharif believes that the drone strikes over Pakistan’s tribal areas are a direct infringement of Pakistan’s sovereignty and must stop immediately. His political rival Imran Khan, vowing to shoot down drones, blames US actions for rising extremism in Pakistan. Both state publicly that fighting the militants is not the way to resolve terrorism. For Nawaz Sharif, “talks with the Taleban is the only option”. Similarly PTI, which emerged as the leading party in the sensitive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province bordering Afghanistan, is seeking a consensus to begin talking to the militants.  

The US will be worried at such an approach, especially if it leads to the Pakistan army’s withdrawal from tribal areas, creating a power vacuum that the militants could easily exploit to launch attacks against the coalition forces. The army cannot keep sacrificing its men in a war without end, with little public backing.  

Washington would be wary of a repeat situation when overland Nato supplies were torched along the way, some allege with the implicit consent of Pakistani security forces. In a process of withdrawal, this would be a nightmare for the US. Appeasing Washington by publicly condemning and privately condoning drone attacks, like the previous regime did, will not work and will dent the new prime minister’s credibility with the people.  

There are layers of interest, both local and foreign, in this militancy in Pakistan. Its current phase corresponds to the troubles in Afghanistan. Nawaz Sharif should be mindful of examples of earlier botched agreements with the militants; they fail to understand that for any agreement to succeed, Islamabad must also be seen to dissociate itself from the US war. If that does not happen, no bargain can hold.

Relations with Washington depend also on the Afghanistan situation leading to the American withdrawal. After contemptuously refusing to talk to the Taleban insurgents for years, the US is belatedly seeking to talk to them, leaving little time for a negotiated settlement. The US departure from Afghanistan will create an enabling environment for peace within Pakistan that everyone needs to support.      

Despite campaigning on opposing “America’s war”, a visibly chastened Sharif hinted as much when, on May 13, he said he would support “our friends”, the Americans, as they prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan.   

With this commitment to “our friends” Pakistan too expects that its voice, expressed through an overwhelming vote, will be heard loud and clear and, more importantly, be respected, in Washington.

Nawaz Sharif will need all the wisdom and understanding from the US, and good luck, to steer Pakistan out of its complex challenges.

  

Sajjad Ashraf, adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, was Pakistan’s high commissioner to Singapore, 2004-2008.

 

RSIS Commentaries.