TranscriptU.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Speakers: Richard L. Armitage, Task Force Co-Chair, Former DeputySecretary of State, and President of Armitage International, L.C.; Daniel Markey, Task Force Director and Senior Fellow For India, Pakistan And South Asia, Council an Foreign Relations (CFR) Presider: David Ignatius, Columnist for The Washington Post November 12, 2010 Council on Foreign Relations Video AudioDAVID R. IGNATIUS: Good morning. Let me ask you to take your seats and we will begin. David Ignatius. I'm a columnist for The Washington Post, and I'm here to moderate a discussion about a new Council on Foreign Relations task force report -- (audio break). Here with me to give you a sense of what's in that report -- you have copies and can read it enough, but for a catalogue raisonne, we have Richard Armitage, on my -- on my far left, was you know, is a former deputy secretary of State, i s now president of Armitage Internatio and Daniel Markey, who is the council's senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia studies, and who was the project d irector for this report. We had hoped to have Sandy Berger with us as well, but unfortunately, for personal reaso was not able to be with us this morning. So my hope is that in the -- this first half-hour, we can give you an idea of the report and t ask you to put your own questions to Mr. Armitage and to Dan Markey. Home > By Publication Type > Transcripts > U.S. Strategy For Pakistan And Afghanistan Page 1 of 26 U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations 11/12/2010 http://www.cfr.org/publication/23400/us_strategy_for_pakistan_and_afghanistan.html
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8/8/2019 Afghanistan - Interview of experts on the CFR report on Us Strategy for Pakistan Afghanistan
For instance, the very excellent Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, which votes $750 billion over fiv
years, is good if we follow through on it and develop big infrastructure projects to really he
lot of the people. But what we're suggesting is a shift in our approach to Pakistan. First of
rather than focusing on appropriated monies in the U.S. government, we think the most --
single most efficient thing we can do for Pakistan is to give them greater access in the textiindustry, which is their largest single industry. It can be done at very limited expense to us
frankly, no harm to our own textile producers.
Second, I don't believe it's possible to get -- and I'll use the phrase "Pakistan on side" -- un
they have a pretty good understanding of what our end state is. And without understandin
that end state, I think it's going to be very difficult to get them to come the distance that w
want them to come.
IGNATIUS: Go ahead, Dan.
DANIEL S. MARKEY: Yeah, I would just -- just to add on this, I think Mr. Armitage has it
exactly right. We want to accentuate the positive of partnership with the United States, an
that includes this opening of greater trade opportunities. But at the same time, the report
makes it clear that we need to take a pretty hard line on the negative side, and make some
comments about the use of our intelligence apparatus and sending a very clear message ab
Pakistan's continued relations with some groups in particular that don't get, we believed,
enough attention. And that would be Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Haqqani Network, which w
believe are both extremely dangerous, increasingly dangerous. And unless Pakistan
understands that they are out of bounds for the United States, we're unlikely to see shifts t
So it's not so much just negative leverage in terms of sticks or carrots. I think the report
suggests that we can do better on both ends of that spectrum.
IGNATIUS: And let me ask you, in this regard, what would be the evidence that Pakistan o
these security issues was on side? Secretary Armitage, you say they're now off side. Whatit -- what would it take for them to be, well, on the right side by your calculus? What woul
be doing differently with the Haqqani Network, with the LeT? What --
ARMITAGE: Well, I would hope that they would see the Haqqani Network in the same wa
they see Pakistani Taliban, that this is ultimately a threat to them as well.
Page 3 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
On Lashkar-e-Taiba, they have to see this as something that is -- it could be, in a single str
something that causes war between India and Pakistan, something that I think would deli
Qaeda no end.
And if we can't be successful in the jawboning, pressuring or sticks-and-carroting them int
this, then in the long run, we're dealing with very dangerous situation.
IGNATIUS: So if that effort to encourage, prod Pakistan along the way toward a different
strategic approach should fail, you say in the report that we should move away from long-t
bilateral cooperation and undertake increasingly aggressive unilateral U.S. military strikes
against precisely that list of adversaries. That sounds almost like going to war against Paki
and I want you to explain to us what it would be and what the risk would be.
ARMITAGE: Well, first of all, we don't want to go to war with Pakistan, but it's very difficu
me to see much difference between the drone attacks that we're having with some success
now and what we're suggesting.
The real difference in what we're suggesting is that we include LeT in this target list, becau
the Pakistanis aren't willing to see this as a threat and indeed an existential threat to them,
then we see it that way, and we're going to prosecute it.
MARKEY: I would simply add that the report does not advocate a shift in this direction. I t what it does is, it recognizes the fundamental potential for instability in the U.S.-Pakistan
relationship; that there is a question of how sustainable such a relationship can be if the U
States either sees, over a period of time and effort, that it's not getting progress with Pakis
or if in one fell swoop if we were to suffer an attack from Pakistan, we would be forced to, I
think, take a very different line.
And so it's a recognition of that reality, that political reality, that leads us to look at what t
alternatives would have to be. It's not a desire to go there, and it's not an inherent threat o
anything that we're trying to level against the Pakistanis. It's a recognition of the strategic
reality that we both face and how uncomfortable that is for both sides.
IGNATIUS: Let me ask about one subsidiary issue that's been just outside the discussion a
Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last two years. And that is Kashmir and whether, in so
kind of ambitious regional diplomacy, the U.S. could more actively encourage the kind of
Page 4 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
The key thing if you want a breakthrough on Kashmir is that you have to have strong
governments in both India and Pakistan that are in a position to take a deal public. That is
principal ingredient that was missing during the otherwise quite successful back-channel t
during the latter part of Musharraf's time in power, which narrowed the gap but did not
eliminate it. So let's not assume that the job was essentially all done.
The other issue which Mr. Armitage alluded to a bit delicately -- and I'll be less delicate -- i
the U.S. is going to have a diplomatic role encouraging India and Pakistan to talk, they bot
have to be prepared to play along, which effectively means that it has to be an invisible
diplomatic role; otherwise, you lose India. And India has to be part of this game.
Since then, of course, the situation has gotten much more complicated, with a whole sum
riots in Kashmir, but that, you know, opens up a different issue.
IGNATIUS: Just -- Ambassador Schaffer, as you read Indian behavior, they've had a rough
time dealing with Kashmir and a kind of intifada within Kashmir, less externally generate
than sometimes in the past. Do you think that worries them enough that they would be mo
amenable to broader diplomatic options and perhaps U.S. assistance?
SCHAFFER: India has had periods of talks with Kashmiri separatists and periods of talks
Pakistan, and they've never happened at the same time. That's what's going on now. Insof
the summer of trouble in Kashmir has galvanized Indian decision makers, it has been tow reopening channels to the separatists. That is, frankly, not going terribly well. But there's
inclination to bring these two processes together.
IGNATIUS: Let me now turn our discussion to the Afghanistan recommendations of this
report, which are really, if anything, even starker -- and the ones on Pakistan are pretty m
that way. You focus properly on the December review of policy, and you go into some detai
And I'm just going to read briefly from what the report says are the issues that the preside
going to need to resolve in this review process. You say if he can't finish it December, he shkeep going with it; this shouldn't be an artificial end point. But you say it should mark the
of a clear-eyed assessment of whether there is sufficient overall progress to conclude that t
strategy is working. It should address some fundamental questions, including has there be
significant improvement in the capabilities of the ANSF, the Afghan national security forc
Page 6 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
Is momentum shifting against the insurgency in contested areas? Once NATO operations
taken place, is normal life starting to return? Is progress being made in building local secu
and civilian capabilities? Has the government in Kabul taken serious steps to combat
corruption?
Those are the issues, obviously, the review will focus on. And I think we'd all be interested
your sense of -- based on what you know, of initial judgments and thoughts about those iss
ARMITAGE: Well, first of all, on the training of the ANSF, I think Lieutenant General Bill
Caldwell and his colleagues have done a magnificent job. And they've certainly encouraged
greater recruitment, and they've got people trained at higher levels. So you have more peo
trained. The question is, what are they going to do with that training? Will they stand and
their job, or will they walk away when things get tough? That's a udgment I'll leave to peo
the field.
The question of our erratic partnership with the Karzai government is a -- is a real one. Do
the president and do his colleagues feel that we can actually get a commitment from the K
government to be more helpful in this endeavor?
The development of human capital: This is the biggest single lack, I think, that we face in
Afghanistan. It's fine to have an operation in Marja, for instance, and our troops can clear
hold and do all of that. But the question is, can anyone govern? To make an assessment th would simply be based on something like: We can turn "X" province over to the Afghan se
forces is insufficient, in my view. And it's insufficient because it begs the question of wheth
after we've turned it over, the Taliban can be kept out and governance can step in. Or will
people again start to prefer the swift justice of the Taliban?
And there's one thing that we always seem to overlook. We mention it in our report. And t
what I'd call, in shorthand, sustainability. We estimate that, and I think it was estimated b
administration, that it's $320 million annually that was contributed by the government of Karzai to the training of the ANSF. We estimate that the annual money needed for that an
sustain it is about 6 (billion dollars) or $7 billion. Where is it going to come from? It's not
to come from international pockets forever, so we have to really develop the internal econ
And this is something that I think ought to be part of a judgment that the president and hi
colleagues make as they look towards the July 2011 date.
Page 7 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
This obviously is one of the toughest nuts to crack in this whole story. We have a very diffi
partner in President Karzai. Could you address this question of how we go about seizing th
political initiative in a -- in a country where the government appears to be so unpopular?
ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. Well, clearly there are several routes, none of them very attractive b
doable.
One is to work to a much higher degree with minority politicians. We, of course, met with
minority politicians when we made our trip to Afghanistan.
One is to continue to work at a much higher level with local tribal elders. I don't mean to t
forget the role of the central government, but to at least lessen it.
And finally, I think to seize the initiative, we ought to be more involved in a discussion of reconciliation. We found reconciliation to be a very loaded word when we went to Kabul a
Kandahar, because it depends what you mean by "reconciliation." If, on the one hand, the
Taliban were going to reconcile to a functioning central government, that's something that
would give at least some confidence to women's groups and NGOs and minority politician
But on the other hand, by reconciliation, the central government is going to reconcile with
Taliban, that's quite a different issue, and it's one that scares the pants off most people, th
minority, NGOs et cetera. I think we need to be more definitive about what we mean by reconciliation and more involved in that process.
MARKEY: Just on the specific point of reconciliation, I mean, what we found and what we
heard repeatedly and what we've heard since is that the process of reconciliation, as it curr
stands, is a very Karzai-centric process whereby he has selected those who will be involved
the Afghan side, and those who have been left out -- many of whom would be natural part
to what the United States is trying to do in Afghanistan. They feel very concerned about w
the prospects for that process may be. And so you see reconciliation without a firmer U.S.
hand, as it stands right now, potentially veering toward something that will be more divisi
the broader Afghan context than more inclusive. And that's something that the reports sug
that's very disconcerting.
IGNATIUS: And finally, on this question of broad recommendations -- the most importan
some ways -- what if we judge -- the president judges for the nation that the strategy is not
Page 9 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
working effectively enough by the metrics that we've discussed? You recommend an altern
approach that could be chosen in Afghanistan, if that judgment is made. And perhaps you
could -- you could lay that out for us in a little bit of detail.
ARMITAGE: As we offer up a strategy -- an alternative strategy, which is with risks, and w
acknowledge this. The president's strategy has risks and our proposed strategy of more
concentrating on counterterror and continued training has risks associated with it.
It also has a few benefits. For instance, we'll -- one way or the other, we're going to have a
somewhat smaller footprint with the president. If the president judges the strategy is work
then he can begin in July to withdraw on a conditions-based situation as some of his
lieutenants have suggested.
If on the other hand it's -- he judges it's not working, I would hope that he'd make a moresignificant drawdown and change our presence to one of counterterror and use the drones
use our more limited force to be effective in these counterterror operations. And one of the
benefits of this is we would actually be less dependent on Pakistan, because our logistics n
would be smaller. And I think this is not a bad thing if we, as I say, can't get Pakistan on si
And be clear. We cannot be successful in Afghanistan if we can't get a changed attitude fro
Pakistan. At least that's my view. I won't attribute that to everybody. I think Bob Grenier is
certainly there.
IGNATIUS: Dan, do you want to --
MARKEY: Yeah, I would just say this was an issue upon which we had a number of dissent
And as Mr. Armitage has said, that was, by our estimate, a strength of the process. And if I
could take the liberty of opening it to one of our other members in the front row, is that --
IGNATIUS: I'd like to do that. I thought as a -- as a preface perhaps Rich Armitage would l
to just speak a bit more about the dissent process and then perhaps Bob Grenier could voiown dissent, which is quite an interesting one.
ARMITAGE: Well, let me start with Ambassador Schaffer. She generally concurred with th
report but made an excellent point about the need to have the private sector much more
Page 10 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
involved. And this is something that we have overlooked certainly in Pakistan, and we nee
be better on that.
Bob Grenier has said, which he can speak to himself, was one, I think, probably based on h
own experience. He thinks that -- if I can paraphrase -- we're not -- this strategy is not goi
succeed, and we're not succeeding right now, and we need to go to counterterror. And we'l
to you in just a minute, Bob.
ou know, Mike Krepon (ph) didn't agree with almost anything in the report, but it was
because of something that you alluded to: He thought that Pakistan -- if they didn't come t
understanding of the situation and their need to be on side from their own self-interest, th
we couldn't coerce them into it or push them into it or carrot them into it.
And finally, the first and leading dissent was one on prejudging what the president shouldJuly. Several of our members thought that if things were not more positive in July, that wa
very negative indicator, but that we shouldn't be in the business of prejudging what the
president does or doesn't do. And that's fair up to a point, but the fact is we are all citizens,
we're all watching this, and it's -- there is a real question how sustainable this is, absent, af
10 years, being able to show some signs of progress.
IGNATIUS: Bob Grenier, former senior CIA officer with a lot of experience in that part of t
world, I gather that you have fundamental questions about the viability of what we're doin
Afghanistan. Perhaps you could lay those out and then your thought about an alternative.
ROBERT GRENIER (former CIA officer): Yes, and I do have very serious reservations abo
the -- particularly about the sustainability of what we're doing. I think it really comes dow
point that Mr. Armitage made very eloquently, and that really has to do with sustainability
both on the U.S. and the Afghan side.
I think that the U.S. effort has focused primarily on a top-down approach, building up --
focusing on the Karzai government, building up the institutions of a strong central govern
particularly the Afghan National Army. For the reasons that Mr. Armitage just pointed out
don't think that that's sustainable. The Afghan government does not have, will not have th
resources to maintain this effort or to sustain such progress as we make in building up a h
national army.
Page 11 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
Similarly, the U.S. effort, which I think needs to continue on, cannot continue on at this le
material and human resources. It's very clear that the current approach is not going to be
to succeed on the timeline that we've given it. I think we've seen enough and we need to sh
essence, to plan B.
IGNATIUS: And do you want to say a bit more about what plan B should be, in your judg
or what's doable?
GRENIER: Well, in our recommendation we really haven't dotted Is and crossed Ts in ter
what that alternative strategy would actually look like. And again, as Mr. Armitage has poi
out, many of these judgments really need to be made by people in the field. It's very difficu
us to come to those sorts of detailed conclusions from this remove.
That said, I think that we need to be focused, yes, on continuing to train an Afghan Nation
Army, but a much smaller, hopefully more capable but still much smaller Afghan army, on
which can actually be sustained by an Afghan economy that we could conceivably see in th
years.
I think that our effort therefore needs to be shifted much more to a bottom-up approach.
need to be focusing on tribal leaders who have real weight in their -- in their districts and t
provinces. That is primarily a special-forces mission, not a conventional-forces mission. A
therefore I think that we can make slow, incremental process (sic) over time with a muchsmaller U.S. footprint, much lower investment in U.S. human and material resources.
It's going to take many, many years, and therefore the U.S. effort needs to be resourced at
level that we can actually maintain for many years. If we're not willing to do that, it's bette
us to fold our tent and leave now.
IGNATIUS: So thanks to all four of you for that introduction to the report. It is a very
thoughtful, careful and, I must say, painful report to read, because these are really tough
choices.
I want to turn now to the audience for your questions. Please wait for the microphone; ide
yourself and any affiliation. And we'll look for hands. Yes, that gentleman there.
Page 12 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, and what would you like to see to the north in te
of counternarcotics cooperation facilitated by the EU, NATO, OSE and others?
ARMITAGE: Thank you. Ambassador Courtney, the -- is asking a question the answer to
he fully knows, having served in Central Asia and having some, I'm sure, strong views. I do
know what the balance is in terms of how much of our effort, but we have to have an effort
directed against narcotics, in my view. We did see a bit of a blowback when we had the Ru
participation because the narcotic flow that I think you're referring to, Bill, what comes up
through Tajikistan and right into Moscow at the end of the day. So they've got a -- they've
skin in the game.
Now, how much effort we ought to put on it, I would defer to General Petraeus and his
colleagues right now, see how much that detracts from other areas of endeavor.
MARKEY: Yeah, I would say the report may be interesting on the counternarcotics angle t
extent that it really folds that into the question of counterinsurgency. The fundamental thr
of the report is that narcotics is a flow of corruption, a flow of money, and something that
to be treated within the larger question of how do you address this raging insurgency in
Afghanistan, not something that could be addressed apart from that. But there are, as I thi
you've identified, great opportunities for cooperation in the region -- to the north, but also
potentially, I think members of the group mentioned Iran -- this is an area of convergence
our interests -- and certainly with respect to Pakistan.
So there are things that we can do in the region, but we should not lose sight of how narco
needs to be -- or counternarcotics needs to be fitted into our broader counterinsurgency ef
IGNATIUS: I want to call on this gentleman here, and then the lady after -- (inaudible).
QUESTIONER: Hi, Dennis Kux from the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Turning to your comments on what if things -- put it this way. What if Pakistan doesn't getonside? And I take it your response is that we ought to unilaterally start drone attacks agai
the LeT. You didn't mention the Afghan Taliban. Should that be included also? There's a
question mark. And then, what do we do if we cross a Pak red line and they shut down the
transport link, the transit route across Pakistan?
Page 14 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
We're not and should not be in the business of winning domestic support. We acknowledg
importance of it, and we acknowledge the unsustainability, as Bob has just said, of the pre
course, absent being able to show some progress. And I think that's just common sense. W
have a lot of problems.
And there's also a backdrop to all of this, and that is thank God we've been successful and
international community has been somewhat successful in stopping about a dozen attemp
terrorist attacks. And we've done it with law enforcement, and we've done it with intelligen
and we certainly have disrupted with our military. We think that in that there is the ability
fashion something that will meet the approval of the Congress and the people. But we didn
specifically enumerate all the different elements.
MARKEY: Yeah, I would only add that it -- to draw your attention to the conclusion of the
report where I think it addresses the question of the need for public support, the
acknowledgement that this has been a long war and a long struggle. And it -- instead of cu
into it as we would need to reshape public opinion, it is working in a democratic society we
need to be responsive to public opinion. We need to recognize what the constraints are on
foreign policy and defense policy and respond to those.
But it also calls for a certain amount of leadership and a -- and a demonstration that if we
succeed, we need to keep at this. I think the report -- we shouldn't short-change the fact th
the report suggests that it supports an approach, if it shows signs of progress.
IGNATIUS: Let me intervene with a question of my own, and then I'll turn back to you in t
audience. In recent days, senior U.S. officials, military and civilian, have been speaking ab
2014 time frame for the deployment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in part, one assumes, to
with this perception of shortness of breath in the region and the corresponding actions tha
people have taken.
Do you think that's wise and appropriate; 2014 obviously is the time frame that Karzai hihas established for transition to Afghan control and the departure of foreign forces. Is it --
you think it's appropriate for us to be endorsing that and saying, "Yeah, we'll be on the gro
until 2014?"
ARMITAGE: Well, I think we're a bit pregnant on this issue because our NATO allies are
involved. We've had discussions with them, and I think this is more of a consensus -- as I
Page 16 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
understand it, a consensus date. And it does key off the president of Afghanistan's own
comments that the security situation should be in such state that Afghan forces can take th
over. So I think it's a better part of wisdom to just embrace it. And it does get to that short
of breath question, Mr. Ignatius.
QUESTIONER: So should we understand the Council on Foreign Relation to be recomme
in its report that U.S. forces, in whatever configuration, should remain until 2014?
ARMITAGE: We didn't address that. There's certainly a -- we've discussed in the counterte
the need to continue training ANSF, and that would necessitate a certain amount of both f
protection and trainers. So I guess implicitly we do, but I don't remember explicitly puttin
in.
IGNATIUS: Let me turn back to the audience. Yes, please.
QUESTIONER: Phil Auerswald -- Phil Auerswald, George Mason University and the Kenn
School's Belfer Center.
When you're holding a tiger by the tail, one thing you might try to do rather than strengthe
the tiger is give it something else to do. So in the case of Pakistan in particular, we have a
situation where yesterday in Karachi, as we know, 18 people were killed in the latest bomb
attack. Eighteen million people weren't. And there's really a -- never -- there's no country i
world that's developed with aid and military assistance as a pathway to democracy. What
worked is entrepreneurship and private-sector development.
So I'm wondering why a U.S. strategy for development in Pakistan doesn't reflect what's
worked in the United States and what's worked elsewhere in the world, which is the sort of
thing we're doing with OPIC in seeding an entrepreneurial support fund, and why that isn'
points one, two and three in our strategy in Pakistan.
ARMITAGE: I think it's not one, two or three because people, as I've suggested, are tryingkill us from Pakistan, but it certainly is a point well worth including. In fact, Ambassador
Schaffer's excellent observation was that we need to develop this more and more and more
Let's look at what we've got in Pakistan. You have a nation of 177 million or so people who
extraordinarily young, 20, 21 years of age, the average age or median age, who, whether u
martial law or under democracy, have not gotten the governance they need. And the
Page 17 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
notwithstanding how much experience we might have had in South Asia, that we didn't
understand entirely what was going on.
So to some extent, we've been playing catch-up ball in understanding the tribal dynamics,
understand the motivations of the Taliban. Now, for me -- I was involved in the beginning
this, and we did approach the Taliban, and we did talk to them about perhaps just getting
of the way, and we were totally rebuffed.
And that's when they came into our target set. And to my knowledge, no significant Taliba
wanted to remove themselves yet from the target set. So I think it's pretty hard to try to fig
out who -- which is a good Talib and a bad Talib these days.
MARKEY: Let me add that the report notes -- sounds a significant alarm -- and I think this
point was somewhat already made -- but with respect to the increasing coming together of various groups -- including LeT, including Haqqani Network -- in ways that are more
internationally threatening than they might have been five years ago or 10 years ago. And
a shift that I think should be emphasized in the context of this report.
ARMITAGE: It's -- and I won't belabor this, but it's taken us, I think, quite a while to finall
realize that we are fighting a flat enemy, not a hierarchical enemy. And flat enemies take a
different approach. And I think General Petraeus and General McMaster and others have
now, and that we get it. But it took us a long time to get to that point.
IGNATIUS: Sir.
QUESTIONER: Thank you. Peter Rosenblatt, Heller and Rosenblatt.
It seems that General Musharraf is back again. Any comments? (Laughter.)
ARMITAGE: Well, I would like to answer you at 1:30, because I'm having lunch with him t
at 12:00. (Laughs, laughter.)
es, he's back. He's been speaking out on "Larry King" and other things. He -- I guess, in
endeavors there are second lives, and perhaps in political life there's a second act. But I'll l
forward to seeing what he has to say.
IGNATIUS: Yes, Ambassador Schaffer.
Page 19 of 26U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan - Council on Foreign Relations
QUESTIONER: Thank you. I was struck by a couple of things that Rich Armitage said, and
wonder if I could persuade him to delve a little bit more deeply. The comment he made wa
that we can't get Pakistan on-side unless they're comfortable with the end state we're looki
at. And yet, there is a clear difference in at least priorities, and perhaps objectives, betwee
ourselves and Pakistan on that score. Their objective is to have what they refer to as a frienstate -- which looks suspiciously like a client state. Is -- and they have shown the will to go
that, among other things, by picking up one of the relatively few senior Taliban figures wh
looked like he was freelancing in discussions with President Karzai.
So how do we mesh our concept of a happy ending in Afghanistan, of a successful end stat
with Pakistan's? Is there -- is there a version that's going to be acceptable to both? It seem
me that both potentially face fairly severe discrepancies from what they'd like to see, and t
this is probably the most fundamental problem, political problem, that we face.
ARMITAGE: Well, I certainly can be corrected by those who are smarter on these matters
I, but I felt that we were in a pretty good place -- relatively good place -- with Pakistan fro
2001 to 2005. I see Ambassador Nancy Powell there; she was front and center, in charge o
these matters at the time. And one of the reasons we did is I think we had a pretty clear
dialogue with Pakistan about exactly what we were doing and exactly why we were doing it
Around, in my view, the 2005 time frame, ISI and others started to think: Well, maybe the
coalition isn't going to prevail, or maybe they'll be short of breath, and all this other stuff.
they went back to a more traditional approach: defense in depth, et cetera, et cetera, again
India.
Lately, we've been -- as I understand, the United States has been pressuring Pakistan to tr
do something about the Haqqani Network. I raised this with visitors from Pakistan during
Strategic Dialogue, when they stopped by to see me. They were very clear that: We're not g
to be pressurizing the Haqqani Network until we know exactly what your end state is.
And if your end state is one that's going to leave the place open to civil war at some point i
future -- not tomorrow, but three, four, five years from now -- you're right, Pakistan isn't g
to play, because they know that others are going to involve themselves in that civil war. It
ust be Tajik and Pashtun and Hazara and Uzbeks; it'll be others, using them as surrogates
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So I think it starts with making sure they know how far we're going to go in our pressuring
the Haqqani Network. And what we can reasonably expect from them, given if we can get
and into our end state, I don't think we've got that yet. And I think we talk past each other
good bit. That's just my view.
IGNATIUS: Yes. Yes, please.
QUESTIONER: Hi. Tom Lynch from the National Defense University.
First, let me commend the report. As several others in the audience will know, it's a year a
that many of us kind of were coming to the end of a process where we were inside a review
our own, looking at these things. And some of that is reported and some of it's not in Mr.
Woodward's book. But I commend the panel here for getting to the majority of the issues t
are involved there.
That leads me to a follow-on that was very pregnant last year when this was all being revie
and that is highlighted in the last couple of questions, and I think still isn't really resolved
the report in a manner that's clear. So I'd ask for some clarification. When you talk about,
think, correctly, the Pakistanis (needing ?) to understand the U.S. end-state -- but we talk
about in the report a process that may lead us to July of '11, and having to go to a
counterterrorist, less-heavy footprint, less engaged, positive approach to the two countries
How does that give the Pakistanis any comfort that we are not going to again leave them,abandon them to an Afghanistan that's going to have civil war? And, more importantly, th
report says we would have less exposure to the Pakistanis in that type of environment
potentially.
Can you justify or rationalize that against the potential that the ISI would have to say, "He
we're going to make it darn difficult for anybody associated with U.S. light footprint in
Afghanistan to continue on in that vein if they are going to put us in a position of if not bei
the enemy, at least being not one that we're calling onside?"
ARMITAGE: Well, we don't call for a cessation of our assistance to Pakistan, or staying aw
from the entrepreneurship that was brought up by our friend from George Mason. On the
contrary, that continues. We do suggest that if we go to a somewhat yet-to-be-defined sma
footprint and we'd concentrate on counterterror, in my view, that's counterterror everywh
including Haqqani network and LeT.
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Now what the U.S. government then does, I don't know. I don't know. But I think there's n
fooling around on this matter of terrorism, at least in the minds of Mr. Gates and Ms. Clin
and certainly the president.
MARKEY: Yeah, the report is clear, that it's not simply a question of whether the attack co
from Pakistan, but what does Pakistan do in response. That's the critical question. So it's n
ust because there's an attack, it's when we -- if we have confidence that they're not doing
they need to do, then, as Mr. Armitage said, there's no fooling around. That's (exactly righ
ARMITAGE: And I think what the secretary of State said, there will be consequences. And
took her at her word. I thought she was serious.
IGNATIUS: We have time for just a couple of more questions. I would recognize this gentl
and this gentleman. Let's get both questions and then let our speakers conclude.
QUESTIONER: I'm Rob Cortel (sp) from Antelecs (ph). I have three of my company on th
ground in Karachi, and yesterday they were three blocks from the explosion the gentleman
referenced, and we're moving them around to get them to some vision of safety, which we
know what it is.
But I want to identify with his remarks and Ambassador Schaffer's. Throughout the Middl
East, where I've been, in Palestine or Jordan or now Pakistan and Iraq and other places, t business sector is really completely left out of the dialogue. They -- yet they have -- and
therefore they have to operate on a totally different track. They work around the governme
and the governments ignore them in return. I just would like to urge you to contemplate a
actual strategy about business, which, by the way, is not just entrepreneurial; it's also big
business, medium-sized business, existing business, American business. So I don't know
the shape of that would be, but you really need a full strategy.
ARMITAGE: I think we fully agree with you, and you've articulated it very well.
MARKEY: Yeah. There -- one point the report makes in the Pakistan context, it identifies -
there's a section on working with Pakistani partners, and it includes Pakistani businessme
a central component there, recognizing that our U.S. government outreach to those groups
particular is far less than what it ought to be. So that's -- complements this, but we don't
disagree.
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IGNATIUS: I would just note as a point of information that to my mind, it is a scandal tha
simple piece of legislation aimed at encouraging investment in the tribal areas, the
reconstruction opportunity zone bill, has been hung up now for more than two years in wh
my mind, are the pettiest of political differences. You could -- you could -- you could argue
something broader that goes to textiles as a whole is a better idea. But it's just -- it'sastonishing, given our national security risks, that this simple piece of legislation is being
caught in the gridlock.
Final question from this gentleman.
QUESTIONER: First, thank you for that last comment. I'm told by people who know this fi
that the exports from Pakistan to the U.S. are things that we don't even make anymore. So
not as though we're disrupting obs here if we were to let ROZ go through. Although it's be
criticized as being in the -- in the FATA, that's not going to probably work. It probably has
(someone ?) else.
But that's -- my point -- actually my -- reason I raised my hand was to speak to the other
gentleman. And thank you.
What did you mean? Could you please clarify: We will hold Pakistan accountable if there's
New York City Times Square type of thing happening? First of all, how do you draw the lin
between that and the government? And if you don't mean the government, what do you mHow do we hold Pakistan accountable? What is the way we do that?
ARMITAGE: I had a poor formulation. Of course it's the government to hold accountable.
I'm simply repeating the words of our -- senior members of our administration, trying to
the point to the government of Pakistan that they, as I said earlier, have skin in this game,
if we get hit from Pakistan, it's their problem. I certainly didn't mean to hold individual cit
of Pakistan to account.
What that accounting is and how deep it goes and what it consists of would be something I
would imagine, and in fact know, that the administration would determine at the time. I h
poor formulation.
IGNATIUS: That brings us to the end of our hour. I think you've gotten a good preview of t
report. Now you can all go home and read it.
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