Why engage with Pakistan?

Once again, anger is threatening the already volatile US-Pakistani relationship after the deadly cross-border attack – the worst friendly fire incident since the start of the 10-year war in Afghanistan – by NATO on Pakistani forces late last month.

"No more business as usual," said Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. It was a deliberate act of aggression, a senior Pakistani Army official told reporters.

Adding bite to the rhetoric, Islam­abad boycotted the Bonn Con­ference in Germany, Dec. 5 on the future of Afghanistan, which is part of a US search for a graceful exit. Also this week Pakistan pulled some troops from posts along the border with Afghanistan. 

Yet behind the headlines, the two have such strong mutual interests that a severance in US-Pakistani ties is unlikely. Pakistan relies heavily on the aid and connections it has won through its relationship with the US, which keep it from international isolation, and America still needs Pakistan, a nuclear power and the country with the second-largest Muslim population in the world, for strategic reasons long after troops draw down in Afghanistan.

To be sure, the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers have inflamed public opinion against the US, in a year when a CIA contractor killed two civilians on the streets of Lahore and America conducted a unilateral raid to kill Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Polls put Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the US at around 12 percent of the population, and there's little love lost on the other side.

Making matters worse, public distrust has reached such levels that right now overt moves toward reconciliation aren't possible for either side.

"Neither the United States nor Pakistan can be seen to their public as giving space where it's not deserved," says Mosharraf Zaidi, a political analyst.

In Pakistan, anger has manifested in a cut to the NATO supply line, street protests, and the yanking of foreign news channels off the air.

Such fury has been compounded by President Obama's refusal to make a videotaped apology for the airstrike incident, having already expressed regret through the White House press secretary.

On Dec. 1, the US hit back with its own version of events, as officials told The Wall Street Journal that Pakistan had given the green light on the attack, unaware that their own troops were in the area.

US aid fatigue

On the US side, pressure is mounting – particularly on Capitol Hill – to make deeper cuts to the $1.5 billion in aid the "unreliable ally" receives each year. A Western diplomat in Islamabad said that the US embassy fears Pakistan may soon be willing to force the issue itself by refusing to accept American aid – a fresh diplomatic blow.

1 | 2

Next