The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

Heading toward Normalization? A complete normalization of relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan will necessarily require a com- plex set of compromises as well as deeper structural changes. The first priority is obviously to lessen tensions between the two countries. Relations have im- proved since 2007, but are still far from healthy. Mutual recognition of the current border between the two countries, requested by Islamabad but refused by Kabul, is probably impossible in the short term because it is unacceptable to the Afghan Pashtun population. However, should the Afghan government be politically strengthened, it could then explore the feasibility of a “soft border” between the two countries, where people on both sides could move freely as they have done historically. Ultimately, Pakistan will have to be given the security guarantees that it has been seeking since its independence in 1947; in particular, the assurance that Afghani- stan will never enter an alliance with India directed against Pakistan, nor try to mobilize the substantial Paki- stani Pashtun minority against Islamabad. Normalization of relations with Afghanistan will therefore be a bilateral process, but one that is highly dependent on a complete normalization of Islamabad’s relations with India. The U.S. should expect to play no more than a facili- tating role, helping to diminish Pakistani anxieties by using its influence with both Afghanistan and India. The Bush administration’s controversial 2005 decision to help Pakistan modernize its army, expressed in U.S. willingness to sell F-16 fighter planes to Islamabad, could also be used to induce it to adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward Afghanistan. Such assistance, however, must be conditional. Before the sale of F-16s, Pakistan must clearly renounce all ties to the Taliban and their allies, and hand over the leadership of the Taliban and al-Qaida in order to prove its good faith. The modernization of its army could be the reward, but it cannot be a prerequisite. Throughout this process, the sequencing will be as important as the content of any potential agreement. n F O C U S J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45