The U.S. wants Pakistan to use its influence with the Taliban to hunt Osama bin Laden and his allies, but regional geopolitics will make that tricky.
Sept. 13, 2001 - As the public cry for a military response to Tuesday's terrorist bombings grew louder Thursday, it was clear that a full blown diplomatic effort is already underway to enlist other nations to help smoke out those responsible for the attacks and turn them over to the U.S. American diplomats, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, have focused on pressuring Pakistan to find terrorists that may be hiding in Afghanistan. Topping that list, of course, is Osama bin Laden.
Pakistan is the linchpin of the current diplomatic push because of its influence with the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. According to many experts, the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, played a key role in the training of Taliban rebels during the early 1990s, and has maintained continuous intelligence contacts with the Taliban since the Islamic fundamentalist group took control of the country in 1996.
Thursday, Powell sent a strong message to Pakistani leaders in public as well as through private diplomatic channels. "We thought as we gathered information and as we look at possible sources of the attack it would be useful to point out to the Pakistani leadership at every level that we are looking for (and) expecting their fullest cooperation," Powell said. Pakistan should be considered a U.S. ally, the secretary of state said, but he noted that the relationship between the two nations had been through "its ups and downs."
The United States urged Pakistan to close its border with neighboring Afghanistan, where bin Laden operates, and to cut off funding for terrorist groups. And the Associated Press reported that the U.S. also asked Pakistan for permission to fly over its territory in the event of military action.
In his speech Tuesday, President Bush made clear that governments suspected of harboring and assisting terrorists -- such as Afghanistan and Pakistan -- would be punished for failing to cooperate with efforts to bring those responsible for the U.S. attacks to justice. "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," Bush said.
For now, though, the administration is trying to work with Pakistan rather than punish it. Pakistan's military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf spoke to Powell Thursday, and also met with U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin. Powell deputy Richard Armitage has also been sent to Pakistan to meet with Musharraf.
Despite more than a decade of bumpy diplomatic relations -- marked by U.S. sanctions since 1990 -- the Pakistani government pledged its support for the counter-terrorism effort in a statement Thursday, which said "Pakistan is committing all of its resources in an effort coordinated with the United States to locate and punish those involved in these horrific acts."
And on Wednesday Musharraf left a meeting with his military and issued a statement that read: "I wish to assure President Bush and the U.S. government of our unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism. The world must unite to fight terrorism."
Experts agree that Pakistan is not in much of a position to bargain with American diplomats. "I don't think the discussions happening now are quid pro quo discussions," said Teresita Schaffer, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' South Asia Program, and former U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka. In the long run, of course, Pakistan would hope that any cooperation could lesson its international isolation, and hasten an end to sanctions.
Pakistan's support could be crucial to the uphill effort to get Afghanistan's Taliban to turn over bin Laden. Despite Pakistani leaders' claims that they wield little influence over the Taliban, Schaffer says Pakistan was involved with the creation of the extremist Islamic government "very early on. The Taliban probably had their first home base on Pakistani soil." In a report Thursday, CNN cited unnamed sources saying Pakistani officials have had at least one meeting with Taliban leaders urging them to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. following Tuesday's attacks.
Although U.S-Pakistan relations have been strained in recent years, Pakistan has proved a useful ally in the fight against terrorists living in Afghanistan before. In 1998, for example, Pakistani intelligence was widely believed to have helped guide the American military response to the African embassy bombings. Those cruise missile attacks inside Afghanistan led to the destruction of a known training base of bin Laden, and subsequent reports indicated those attacks barely missed bin Laden himself.
Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as a member of the U.S. Department of State's policy planning staff from 1985 to 1987, says the U.S. will not only demand that Pakistan use its influence with the Taliban to out bin Laden, but U.S. diplomats will try to deal directly with the Taliban as well.
"The Taliban is very nervous," he said. "We happen to be their major economic supporter. They may hate us, but we give $200-$300 million per year in economic aid, humanitarian aid, so that Afghani citizens can eat."
Cohen says, "We've had direct contact with the Taliban from time to time. Our diplomats come back totally frustrated that the Taliban hasn't budged on this issue," Cohen said. "But the stakes are much higher now. The bar to using force is much lower than it used to be. I know the Pakistanis are telling their Taliban friends this."
(Anthony York is an associate editor
for Salon News.
Max Garrone <ayork@salon.com>
is an editor for Salon News.)