Indians seem to have viewed the Af-Pak policy in two ways. One it will yield results and should be endorsed even if there are some components that do not look good. Two, the Af-Pak policy is a clear sign of the new US administration undoing the efforts of the Bush regime to cultivate India as an important ‘strategic’ partner.

There is a third view that should be pondered: the impact of the failure of Af-Pak policy in the region and Indo-US relations in particular. Will the failure, which is quite likely, of this policy finally make the US realise that it must actively consider the Indian view on Pakistan before formulating its policy for South Asia. And the Indian view is very simple: Pakistan cannot define itself as an antithesis of India.

Obama’s Af-Pak policy rests on the premise that Pakistan is now showing signs of being a ‘responsible’ state, a nation that honours the words it gives. It is impossible to judge in a matter of months that a habitual liar has changed.

Barack Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush, refuses to see that there can be no ‘democracy’ or the end of militants in Pakistan as long as the real levers of power rest with the military. The militants nursed by the Pakistani establishment, particularly the military, will thrive as long as the military decides, as it has, that it needs ‘good’ terrorists—call them ‘Taliban’ or whatever—for the sake of the country’s security. The Obama administration has openly declared that it considers the Pakistani military superior to its civilian rulers.

For years the Americans allowed Pakistan to cheat them in regard to the end use of all the military and financial aid. Yet, Pakistan is now suddenly seen as being ‘serious’ in fighting the ‘Taliban’! That will look possible only when there is a total metamorphosis of the Pakistani society and the mental make-up of its entire populace long programmed for hatred and intolerance. The Americans may have started to realise this truism since they have talked about the need for a change in the Pakistani ‘mindset’—obsession with India.

Frankly, it is the US that has to first change its ‘mindset’—the irresistible habit of viewing the sub-continent from the Pakistani prism. All that talk of the US ‘de-hyphenating’ its relations with India with that of Pakistan has proved to be bunkum. Had it not been so, the Americans would not have been asking India to ‘ease’ pressure on Pakistan’s eastern border by withdrawing its troops.

The American ‘mindset’ continues to believe that a combination of money and guns is the best and the easiest way to end the menace of terrorism once and for all. Apparently, Pakistan also subscribes to this theory. Yet, what the world hears from the US day- in and day- out is that guns are no solution to any problem.

The guns-and-money American theory will not work in Pakistan because the overwhelming number of people there have sympathies for whatever the terrorist groups stand for, minus the rigours they want to introduce in the shape of the Shariat laws within Pakistan. The extreme hatred and intolerance for the ‘infidels’ that the terrorist groups preach is not very different from what is heard in seminaries and other venerated places inside Pakistan, including official platforms and the state propaganda machinery.

It was not very long ago that the US was applauding efforts by Islamabad, then under the grip of a military dictator, to ‘eliminate’ the militant outfit identified as ‘Al Qaeda’, who were seen as specifically anti-American terror group. ‘Taliban’ was not much in consideration then because its reach was confined to Pakistan’s neighbourhood. If it troubles the US today it is because the Taliban warriors, sheltered in Pakistan, have been killing US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.

The offensive launched by the Pak army against Taliban in some of the areas close to Islamabad, is ascribed to US ‘pressure’. Actually, more than the US ‘pressure’ it is the greed that has driven the Pakistanis to pretend that this time around they are ‘serious’ in going after terrorists.

At stake is a yearly flow of at least $2 billion in cash from the US in addition to huge ‘incidental’ aid that will range from better military equipment to indirect monetary help, not to speak of millions that have been pledged by other rich nations. It is interesting to see that the money is being pumped in despite the knowledge that the successive governments in Islamabad failed to provide for most ‘basic services’.

Those who have been taken in by the ‘conditions’ in the latest American help to Pakistan tend to forget that in the past too the US had put ‘conditions’ on the Pakistanis but never enforced them strictly.

It is hard to believe that the US, ever willing to mollycoddle the Pakistanis, will really stop the massive aid midway through if President Obama testifies that the aid has been ‘misused’.

This business of certificates from the White House is itself a dubious one. The US case for ‘misuse’ will be built largely on reports sent by US officials, a tribe that is dexterous in inventing most bizarre of facts. Just recall the history of WMD in Iraq before US invasion.

The US aid will be halted midway through only if it really decides to get tough with Pakistan, ready to punish it for its repeated and outrageous acts of defiance and treachery. That will not happen as long as the US continues to turn a blind eye to Pakistani charades. Where will it take the Af-Pak policy?

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