Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff
“In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy the government of Pakistan and most especially the Pakistani army and the ISI jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership but Pakistan’s opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence.”
“They may believe that by using these proxies they are hedging their bets, or redressing what they feel is an imbalance of regional power. But in reality they have already lost that bet.”
With some minor tweaks these words could have been spoken by an Indian policy wonk complaining about Pakistan’s refusal to disengage from the shadowy and violent groups that inhabit the undefined space at the edge of its state apparatus. The fact that these were spoken by America’s outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen comes as a stark reminder about what India has been saying for close to two decades.
In directly saying that the Haqqani network, led by Jallaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, is being run by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Admiral Mullen has used the rare freedom provided by his impending retirement to articulate what has been on the minds of the top US military leadership for quite sometime.
"The Haqqani Network [...] acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.
With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy. We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the 28 June attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations,” Mullen told a US Senate Panel last week.
Conscious that he is about to end his tenure Admiral Mullen may have felt particularly motivated to be direct. He realizes that his candor would not hamstring his dealings with the Pakistani military because he would not be around too long in the job. However, he ought to be equally aware that the repercussions of his comments are bound to be felt well beyond his own tenure and could compel the Obama administration to take much more hardline approach towards Islamabad.
It is hard to see too many alternatives other than Washington telling Islamabad in explicit terms what it expects of it in order to maintain bilateral relations at a level which is even barely constructive.
So far Pakistan has chosen to counter the allegations with surprising vehemence, including assertions by its Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, that there was a real risk of Washington losing Islamabad as an ally if it continued with this approach. While publicly that may sound impressive, privately the Pakistanis know that they cannot afford to walk out of the relationship without forever ruining its strategic equations.
Swagger is a poor substitute for policy and the Pakistani leadership has to know that. So while the ebullient Ms. Khar may manage to use it to get out of a television ambush, behind the closed doors of intense diplomacy it is best left outside.
