The United States has set itself up for failure by making Pakistan a centerpiece of its Afghanistan policy. It has provided incentives to Pakistan to promote instability and radicalization in the whole region.
The United States has defined a stable Afghanistan as contingent upon Pakistani action against extremists on its own soil. The US is also willing to provide Pakistan with military and financial aid to eradicate Al Qaeda and Taliban militia operations from Pakistani territory.
This US policy encourages factions in Pakistan to profiteer from promoting conflict by supporting these same extremist militias. In the last 7 years, Pakistan has become more violence-ridden, Taliban and Al-Qaeda affiliated militias have grown stronger and durable peace in Afghanistan has become a distant goal. Despite exhortations to ‘do more’, the US is unable to force Pakistan to stop supporting Taliban proxies waging war on US/NATO troops.
Currently, Pakistan enjoys an ongoing payoff of US aid while simultaneously gaining influence over regions in Afghanistan via Taliban militias. In the medium term, Pakistan can also hope that the Kabul government will forced to share power with its Taliban clients.
Pakistan can also look forward to achieving its long term goal of Taliban control over Afghanistan after eventual US departure. These payoffs ensure that Pakistan will not decisively oppose Taliban and Al Qaeda activity within its own territory, even when Pakistani citizens and state institutions are systematically targeted by these militias.
Pakistan's internal discourse blames not the domestic and foreign armed groups operating on its soil, but the US-Pakistan alliance for attacks against Pakistani citizens and state institutions. This allows Pakistani state elements supporting these extremists as policy or for ideological reasons, to escape culpability. Since the pro-Taliban and pro-American factions of Pakistani polity are at cross-purposes, there is no domestic consensus for internal reform.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's future trajectory as a state has been forcibly tied to Pakistan's Afghan policy. The US has set up Afghans to pay whatever political price that Pakistan will demand, in order to attain peace. Pakistan might in fact be incapable of ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan, and yet American framing of the Afghan problem has conferred on Pakistan, overweening presumptive power over Afghanistan’s internal affairs.
Other pressing Afghan issues such as narcotics, corruption, rebuilding of the state, economy and infrastructure have been subordinated to the ongoing drama of Pakistani actions with respect to Afghan security.
The US has created insoluble problems for itself. By declaring that Pakistan deserves US aid to tackle its internal situation and extremist militias, the US encourages Pakistan not to address either. By declaring that American failure will result if Pakistan cannot end Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks from its Federally Administered Tribal Areas(FATA), the US incentivizes Pakistan to promote such failure, gain the prestige of ‘defeating a superpower' and become kingmaker in Afghanistan. In other words, US policy is encouraging its ally to ‘defeat’ the US and win boasting rights.
Looking east, whenever America's pressure across Pakistan's western borders becomes intense, it seeks breathing space by reviving its conflicts with India. To avoid blame from the international community, Pakistan has been recruiting Indians and Bangladeshis for its jihad project against India. Religious radicalization as Pakistani state policy now encompasses Indian and Bangladeshi Muslims as well as Pakistanis and Afghans. Under US auspices, its most favoured non-NATO ally, Pakistan, is promoting terror.
To end this intractable situation, US policy must stop enabling Pakistan to profit from promoting conflict. The US must remove Pakistan from its prima donna position in its Afghan policy and treat it on par with Afghanistan’s other neighbours, thereby depriving Pakistan of political space to demand limitless compensation for feigned cooperation.
The US can continue to pay Pakistan for services actually rendered and also financially aid Pakistan to keep afloat, without reference to Pakistan's own hyped-up demands and security perceptions. American battle effectiveness in fighting insurgents from Pakistan will not materially deteriorate. Its metrics of success must be solely linked to normalcy in Afghanistan, with no reference to Pakistan’s stage-managed 'successes' or 'failures' against Taliban and Al Qaeda militias in FATA or elsewhere in Pakistan.
Most importantly, the US must refrain from assuming any responsibility for internal reform of Pakistan, in the tribal areas or elsewhere. The responsibility for internal reform must lie with Pakistan alone, to either sink to Talibanisation or swim to moderation by its own actions and choices.
By ending the Pakistan-centeredness of its Afghan policy, the US would do no worse in Afghanistan than presently but would quell growing regional instability caused by Pakistan’s opportunistic profiteering from this policy.