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Just that much pressure!
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Obama’s electoral compulsion of a Democrat not being seen as ‘soft’ on terror may have forced him into forceful rhetoric against Pakistan, and Obama is serious against terrorism and his warnings against Pakistan were not frivolous. But realpolitik in the post-Bush era of hope and peace makes a tectonic shift in US foreign policy, like an invasion of Pakistan, seem refreshingly implausible, says Ethan Casey

Barack Obama has a lot on his plate. Far be it from me to downplay the centrality of Pakistan to the world''s fate in our time. But the good news is that there''s so much wreckage to sift through, on so many fronts, that it is hard to imagine President Obama picking a fight with Pakistan any time soon. To be sure, his words of August 1, 2007 were pointed enough to be alarming. "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," he said. "They are plotting to strike again… If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won''t act, we will." To many Pakistanis this sounded like a threat, and it is understandable that they took umbrage at it.

What sounds especially ominous is the suggestion that Pakistan not only should, but must do – or else. It is difficult for people who haven''t been to Pakistan''s tribal areas to appreciate just how incomplete the state''s writ has always been there. The British never fully controlled the region, and neither has the post-1947 state. Whoever represents the central government – whether Musharraf, or (as in early 1999, when I visited the tribal regions) Nawaz Sharif, or Queen Victoria – is seen as a meddling bully.

Americans aren''t noted for readily grasping ambiguity and subtlety, and the danger is that we''ve forgotten what we should have learned from Vietnam: that local people will circle the wagons against perceived interlopers, without regard for outsiders'' self-justifying notions of right and wrong. Add to that Pushtun codes of hospitality and Pakistani nationalism, and it''s highly likely that any large-scale US intervention would end in tears. Transforming US foreign policy is like turning around an aircraft carrier; it can''t be done quickly. But if any president has earned a mandate to attempt it, Obama has, and his understanding of the world outside America surpasses that of any previous US president. His words must be considered in the context of an American election campaign, in which Democratic candidates in particular have a compulsion not to seem ‘soft’ on foreign bad guys. Like it or not, such a declaration by candidate Obama was almost obligatory.

Those of us who thought it didn''t make much difference who the President of the United States is have been proven very wrong since 2000. The personal character of political leaders matters, and nowhere has this been clearer than in recent and current US and Pakistani leaders. Bush was eager to start wars. Not only does Obama have a mandate to try to get America out of the wars Bush got us into; he seems personally inclined to do so.

My many Pakistani friends are entitled to mind the suggestion that a foreign power would infringe on their hard-won sovereignty, especially given the history of US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Equally, though, an American presidential candidate is entitled to give fair warning that we need Pakistan's cooperation in the tribal areas. The elephant in the living room is the Pakistani state's inability to exert full control over its own territory.

Here in the US, the mood since November 4 has been euphoric. We're still pinching ourselves. The previous regime had so habituated us to fear and loathing that we forgot to believe in hope and possibility. To at least 52.6 per cent of Americans, the moment feels almost like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the end of apartheid. There are many messes to clean up, much damage to undo. On Election Night, Obama urged us to put our hands "on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day". And Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland nicely captured the tone already being set by the president-elect: "Prepare for bluster about enemies to become nuance about not-yet-friends; for ideology to cede to empirical practice; for co-opting to overtake confronting as a first resort."

Innocent Pakistanis are being killed by American bombs in Waziristan, and towns like Dera Ishmal Khan are suffering from the arrival of more refugees than they can absorb. The next US president will assume responsibility for this and many other tragedies. After he takes office, Obama will be culpable for any harm done by the United States on his watch. We don't yet know exactly how he will handle the fragile situation in and around Afghanistan. But given the character of the man, and the public mood - both global and domestic - a major US military incursion into Pakistan seems refreshingly implausible.

(Ethan Casey is the author of “Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time” (Penguin India, 2005). He is currently working on a documentary film about contemporary Pakistan: “www.aliveandwellinpakistan.com”)

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