Whatever good this week’s visit by Senator John Kerry had done to soothe U.S.-Pakistan tensions was complicated by Tuesday’s firefight between Pakistani troops and a NATO helicopter that had crossed into the country from Afghanistan.
During his meeting with Pakistan’s top civilian leaders, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and White House confidante Kerry was critical about the anti-American environment cultivated in Pakistan in the wake of the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. After a couple days of embarrassing reflection, most of Pakistan’s politicians, journalists and commentators have closed ranks behind the military’s anger at the U.S. for violating Pakistani sovereignty. Kerry pushed back, admonishing leading politicians including Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
“You can’t keep telling us you want good relations but your people don’t like us,” Kerry had said, according to a senior Pakistani official present. “You must explain the benefits of the relationship to the people.” The Massachusetts Democrat had a similar experience earlier this year, when he visited the country to meet with top leaders in an effort to secure the release of CIA contractor Raymond Davis. In both cases, U.S. officials believe that Pakistan’s leadership, particularly the security establishment, has discreetly stoked anti-American sentiment to create leverage in talks with the U.S.
Kerry this week also warned Pakistani leaders of the danger of their U.S. aid being cut off. The Senator, who co-authored a major aid package that triples non-military assistance to Pakistan, has been fighting off efforts by many in Congress to withdraw that aid in the wake of the bin Laden debacle. Kerry made clear that Pakistan would have to take a series of steps to ensure that the aid does not stop flowing. But Pakistan’s leaders have been surprisingly sanguine about the threat to withhold aid. The opposition has urged that Pakistan reject foreign aid, in an attempt to cast itself as more nationalistic than he government.
One senior Pakistani official conceded that it could now be “difficult” for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to certify that Pakistan has met the conditions laid out in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid bill. But the attitude of the generals is influenced by feedback from within the ranks. In the days following the bin Laden operation, Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has been touring bases, and has found a high degree of discontent. Junior officers are upset at the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate for its failures to find bin Laden earlier, but they are chiefly angered by the U.S. decision to mount a unilateral raid on their territory, military and government officials say. Weekly “pulse reports” from various garrisons have registered a similar mood across the country, officials say. The generals’ public response appears to have been partly an effort to placate anger within the military.
