WASHINGTON: Pakistani generals had no desire to wrap up the civilian administration, a senior American commander responsible for his country’s military strategy for the Pak-Afghan region told a congressional panel on Wednesday.
US Army Gen. David Petraeus, CENTCOM Commander, participates in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. -AFP Photo
But a senior State Department official told the same panel that the United States was trying to build institutions in Pakistan so that a change in leadership did not affect relations between the two countries.
‘I don’t think that the current challenges imperil civilian rule,’ Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
‘We’ve been working with the current government to try and help build the institutions, and not just the people, so that there is the ability to rely on ongoing relationships, regardless of the leadership,’ said Jacob Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.
Gen David Petraeus, who as head of the US Central Command deals directly with his Pakistani military counterparts, said President Asif Ali Zardari faced many challenges but a military coup was not one.
He praised the efforts of Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has performed shuttle diplomacy with senior Pakistani generals for years. Gen Petraeus said it appeared that the US desire for continued democratic rule in Pakistan had Pakistani uniformed partners: ‘I don’t see the prospect or desire for anyone to change civilian rule.’
Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, raised the issue of a military coup in Pakistan, telling the committee that President Zardari had been under increasing pressure from the military in his country as well as those opposed to his close relationship with United States. ‘And the threat of impeachment continues to loom — I’m told it was the case,’ he said.
Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew, while responding to the senator’s remarks did not address the possibility of impeachment. Instead, he reminded US lawmakers that the difficulties of maintaining a stable civilian government in Pakistan were not new.
Mr Lew said he would not like to address the day-to-day risks that the current Pakistan administration faced, but he did see signs of improvement in strength and governmental capacity in a number of areas.
‘The tension, the constant tension between the civilian concerns and the military concerns is one that is publicly debated,’ he noted.
He pointed out that the support that the US had extended to the Pakistani government over the last year, particularly the adoption of the Kerry-Lugar bill was ‘really central to what we’ve been trying to do — shore up the idea of the need to invest in lasting civilian institutions’.
Mr Lew then invited Gen Petraeus to talk about the military-to-military relationship between the two countries.
The general told the Senate committee that as Centcom chief he had visited Pakistan five times in the last six months, and had a lot of conversations with military leaders as well as the civilian leadership.
‘I actually don’t think that the current challenges imperil civilian rule. There clearly are challenges to — potential challenges — to President Zardari. But again, I don’t see the prospect or the desire for anyone to change civilian rule,’ he added.
The US military, he said, had worked very hard to establish a relationship of trust with the Pakistani military, after the 1990s when a decade-long US embargo on Pakistan had severed those ties. ‘So we’re making up for the lost generation,’ he said.
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