Right from day one of the US/NATO move into Afghanistan, Pakistan has sought to understand the US end game. The initial attack against Al Qaeda and their hosts, the Taliban, scattered Al Qaeda into Pakistan and beyond because the attack was never coordinated with Pakistan to seal off exits. Since then the US has alternated between varieties of strategies none of which signaled the end result that the US sought in Afghanistan. There were surge operations, the battle for hearts and minds, the use of reconstruction teams (PRC) and the strategy to rebuild Afghanistan’s institutions and its security forces. In between there was the diversion into Iraq with still ongoing consequences not just for the Middle East but the entire world as Syria and Yemen descended into violence and created new scenarios of which the ISIS is just one facet. Never sure of how the Afghan situation was to end, if ever, Pakistan, with its long land border with Afghanistan and its territory along the border area in the grip of spillover violence and an insurgency, had to keep its options open. This led to accusations of a ‘forked tongue’ policy by Pakistan of aligning with the US to fight the Taliban and also permitting sanctuaries to the Taliban in its territory. Pakistan did, however, cooperate with the US to round up Al Qaeda, permit the vital flow of NATO logistics from its ports overland into Afghanistan, institute border controls, shared intelligence, accepted drone strikes against its better judgment and supported the US nation building efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan did, however, balk at completely cutting links with the Taliban and alienating them irrevocably and thereby closing all its options.
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