WASHINGTON: After years of crisis, Pakistan’s election offers a window for the US to try to reset the relationship but Washington could face hard choices if the next leader allies with Islamists.
Experts believe the fundamental calculus of the US will remain unchanged whatever the poll outcome — that it needs Islamabad’s cooperation to fight militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The US has been careful not to take sides in the election, knowing that its blessing could be the kiss of death in a country where a recent poll put US popularity at 11 percent. Washington has confined its public remarks to praise of the election. Despite violence, the vote marks the first democratic transition in Pakistan’s nearly 66-year history.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called the election “a historic development of which the people of Pakistan can be very proud”.
He said: “We look forward to engaging with the next democratically elected government.”
Nawaz Sharif, seen as the front-runner, has criticised the US-friendly policies of President Asif Ali Zardari and demanded an end to unpopular US drone strikes inside Pakistan and called for negotiations with the Taliban. But the US knows Sharif well from his two stints as prime minister in the 1990s and most US experts see him as a pragmatist rather than ideologue. Sharif has campaigned not against the US but the troubled economy — an issue on which it makes little sense to alienate Washington, which would be critical to securing another IMF package and has provided $20bn since both countries entered a troubled partnership in 2001. Seth Jones, an expert at the Rand Corp and former US military adviser, said tensions had eased considerably since the crisis following the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. “There is an opportunity for engaging a new civilian leadership that will ideally have at least a short honeymoon period. I think there is an opportunity to reset the US relationship with Pakistan on some key issues — the security threats in Pakistan, some key economic issues.”
President Barack Obama’s administration put an early priority on strengthening democratic rule in Pakistan, although it quickly learned that the long-dominant military remained a vital power-centre. Secretary of State John Kerry has met army chief General Ashfaq Kayani three times since taking office, although the administration recently named a special envoy, James Dobbins, to step up interaction with Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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