Afghan success hinges on touchy Pakistan relations

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- The United States' Afghan strategy hinges on effective cooperation with Pakistan but, despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid, the relationship remains uncomfortable.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Pakistan during the past week meeting Pakistani civilian and military leaders to improve cooperation and build trust. The Pakistani army, after strong American urging, has been fighting Pakistani Taliban militants is South Waziristan, part of the tribal areas, since last October with some success.

Gates wants the Pakistanis to extend their operations into North Waziristan. The goal is to deprive Taliban militants in Afghanistan of safe havens in Pakistan's tribal areas. But a Pakistani military spokesman said that such an operation would not happen in the next year as the army was focused on consolidating the gains it has made in South Waziristan.

Part of the Pakistani consolidation strategy is to hand off security responsibilities to local tribal leaders. The Pakistani government agreed Wednesday to sign a security deal with Mehsud tribal leaders in South Waziristan. The deal calls for several hundred militants, including Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, to be handed over to Pakistani authorities.

Such deals are viewed with great skepticism by U.S. officials as they have rarely held in the past.

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command that is responsible for Afghan operations, said Thursday that the Pakistanis have "a limit to their capacity to push short sticks into hornet nests. To hold ground that they have cleared they need some agreements with tribal leaders."

He added that this did not include those with Taliban connections.

There are positive changes in Pakistani perceptions of the United States.

"Ten months ago, a dramatic change took place in Pakistan," Petraeus said, as Citizens, politicians, and even some clerics began to recognize that some extremists were a threat to Pakistan and not just to the United States.

Still, Gates recognizes that a "trust deficit" remains to be bridged.

"We are in this for the long haul and intend to continue to be a partner of theirs far into the future," he told journalists in Islamabad.

Speaking Friday to army officers at the National Defense University in Islamabad, Gates said that U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal and cutting of defense ties with Pakistan was "a grave strategic mistake."

"Perhaps the greatest consequence of those choices was the severing of military-to-military relations. That is largely the reason for a very real, and very understandable, trust deficit, one that has made it more difficult for us to work together to confront the common threat of extremism." he said.

Petraeus, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that although Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, had gone through Ranger school in the United States a generation of Pakistani army officers over 12 years had no experience of U.S. military training. The result was a deficit in both understanding of U.S. military methods and in personal relations.

Petraeus has worked to bridge that gap. He has met with Kayani every 45 days over the past 15 months. U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also meets regularly with Kayani and similar meetings occur between U.S. and Pakistani commanders down the chain of command.

A Joint Coordination Cell has been set up at the Khyber Pass to build cooperation between U.S. and Pakistani units operating on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Still, questions remain about how far U.S. and Pakistani strategic objectives coincide. India is still the primary threat for Pakistan's military, Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at CSIS, said.

Also they view relations with the United States as "three marriages and two divorces," Schaffer said. They think a third divorce is likely at some point and direct their strategy to maximizing their position in Afghanistan and in relation to India for the day after U.S. troops leave.