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Afghanistan continues to both sustain and injure bilateral ties.

The United States and Pakistan have a shared history of misadventure in Afghanistan, paying dearly for each others mistakes. Afghanistan is the latest place here e have found one another to be indispensable, partially reliable and sometimes unhelpful allies. Scapegoating is a common practice, but as much as both countries complain about each other, neither can cut the ties that bind ithout causing grievous self!punishment. Pakistan is as necessary for the ithdra al of US military e"uipment as it as for its deployment into Afghanistan. And Pakistan continues to need US help to deal ith economic difficulties and internal security threats. #either can succeed at counterterrorism ithout the others help. Pakistani and US soldiers ho have served multiple tours battling violent e$tremism have borne the brunt of mistaken national security policies. %ther reasons to stabilise bilateral relations are obvious. As the communi"u& from the state visit makes plain, the United States has helped Pakistan to deal ith its energy dilemmas far more than 'hina. This has barely been noticed in the current phase of anti! Americanism ithin Pakistan. (ilitary assistance continues, but has shifted ) and ill shift still more ) a ay from hard are associated ith conventional arfare to helping Pakistans military deal ith e$tremists ho kill at a rate that d arfs that of drone arfare. As long as it is easier ithin Pakistan to rail against drones than for the Pakistani military to take action against the targets of drone strikes, our t o nations ill remain only partial and troubled partners in countering violent e$tremism. *nternal and e$ternal security threats are linked, of course. +ut internal cohesion can only be accentuated by missteps in Afghanistan or in dealings ith *ndia. *n Pakistan, internal security is of paramount importance, as ,en -ayani repeatedly says. To the outside orld, Pakistans efforts in this regard are overshado ed by those ho use its soil to carry out violent acts across borders. *ts hard to recognise mistakes, and even harder to engineer course corrections. There is good reason to suspect that Afghanistan is too fractious a place for ambitious state! building. A grand Afghan political settlement is likely to remain ephemeral or illusive. .amiliar divides ill reappear because they have never gone a ay. /hatever chips Pakistans national security managers might try to play in an Afghan settlement have not re arded Pakistan in the past, and are unlikely to help Pakistan find a brighter future.

T o generations of Pakistani strategic analysts have held the mirage that Afghanistan provides strategic depth, hen the reverse has proven to be true. Pakistan has been destabilised by its o n and by US. misadventures in Afghanistan, and could be destabilised further if *ndia gains a foothold there to use as a staging ground to support disaffection in +alochistan. A role reversal of this kind, mirroring *ndias decades!long misfortunes in -ashmir, could only multiply Pakistans domestic oes. A political settlement, if one can be found, ill have to tackle this issue hich, in turn, re"uires improved ties bet een Pakistan and *ndia. #a a0 Sharif has great sympathy and support in /ashington. The %bama administration ill continue to provide assistance to tackle Pakistans economic, energy and internal security oes. .irst impressions in /ashington, as in Pakistan, suggest a man hobbled by the immensity of his countrys problems and the obstacles that others so easily place in his path. 1ast month, at the margins of U# ,eneral Assembly speechmaking, he and *ndian Prime (inister (anmohan Singh promised to "uiet e$changes of fire across the -ashmir divide. These flares appear to outsiders as contrived to prevent #a a0 from pursuing hat he so clearly ants ) improved relations and greater direct trade ith *ndia. As long as firing across the -ashmir divide continues, it suggests opposition to this agenda, hich is critical to Pakistans ell!being. (ore difficult, by orders of magnitude, ill be taking action against e$tremists that are driving up Pakistans death toll. 1eaving aside countries like Syria hich are in the throes of a civil ar, Pakistan no ranks above Afghanistan, and second only to *ra", in fatalities due to sectarian violence. The writer is co-founder of the Stimson Centre in Washington.

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