Will the United States and Pakistan ever trust each other enough to cooperate fully in fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda? This was the question haunting the recent strategic dialogue between the top brass of the two countries, which aimed to put their prickly relationship on a new footing. Although Pakistan's delegation was headed by its Foreign Minister, the suave Shah Mahmood Qureshi, it also included its wily military commander, General Ashfaq Kayani. Washington promised to speed up delivery of economic aid and military equipment for Pakistan's increased efforts at battling militants on the Afghan border. “This is a new day,” declared Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who hopes to shrink the yawning trust deficit between the two countries. But are there grounds to believe that when it comes to fighting militants, Islamabad and the White House' interests can converge? 

For New Delhi, the recent strategic dialogue between Pakistan and the United States is an effort by Washington to coax Islamabad to play its part in the Afghan theatre. The US needs Pakistan’s help to stabilize Afghanistan even as it seeks a rapid-fire exit from a region that has always been a nightmare. Pakistan knows that this is the perfect time to extract its pound of flesh from the White House. So the Pakistan wish list continues with demands for helicopter gunships, pilotless drones, and a civil nuke agreement akin to India. Add to that a US intervention to cajole India into resolving the Kashmir impasse. At the end of the day, it’s a great game being played like in 19th century Central Asia.     

So what's the roadmap ahead? US Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has asserted that Washington cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan and that requires a US-Pak symbiosis. India is perturbed about the dollops the US is giving Pakistan. While a stable neighbour is always good news for South Block, the strategic goodies doled out to Islamabad could be used against India. Nevertheless, India does have a multi-dimensional rapport with Washington. The US needs to hook on to India; it needs to booby trap Pakistan into fighting the terrorists on the Afghan front. It also needs to ensure that Pakistan stops its covert operations against India. All this has to be cleverly managed, much like a game of chess. Thus while checkmating Pakistan; Washington has to deploy its pawns carefully. For the US, the New Delhi and Islamabad situation is like a cliffhanger. So while diplomats rattle off anecdotes at press conferences, the motive is simple. Don't rock the boat and keep everyone on tenterhooks. 

That is why the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke emphatically opined that the US-Pak dialogue is not at India's expense. The only reason why the Pakistan Army and Inter Services Intelligence Chiefs were present was to annihilate al Qaeda, help the Afghans to be self reliant and see Pakistan ending the menace of terror. But India blatantly fears a secret, clandestine US-Pak deal antithetical to New Delhi's interests. 

The US is also skeptical as it has been frustrated in the past by Pakistan's focus on its arch enemy India and its unwillingness to root out the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda from safe havens along the Afghan border. Pakistan helped train the anti-Indian Afghan Taliban in the 1990s and views them as a useful card should the United States quit Afghanistan soon. Some speculate the recent arrests of top Taliban leaders by Pakistan were part of an effort by Pakistan's ISI to ensure it controls any talks between Afghan Taliban and the President Hamid Karzai's government. Pakistan wants to have a seat at the bargaining table and the ISI is trying its best to place its pawns on the chessboard. 

In the US, any meeting with Pakistan is tantamount to overcoming their mutual trust deficit. And for Pakistan any India-US summit is a cause of worry. But any partnership between any two of this troika remains precarious and prone to suspicion, eruptions and posturing. Pakistani officials are also seeking reassurance that a substantial US military presence will remain in Afghanistan for a longer time. Obama's promised withdrawal begins in mid-2011 and Pakistan hopes that adversary India will not be allowed to expand its strategic presence in Kabul. 

Times are definitely changing but that doesn't mean the United States and Pakistan now operate from the same playbook. Some US officials doubt Pakistan will ever move against the Afghan Taliban groups in North Waziristan. The Pakistanis say they have enough on their platter for now and want to attack in sequence. There is intense US-Pakistani intelligence cooperation on drone attacks against their common Taliban enemies. The Pakistani military realized they could no longer tolerate their own Taliban who had broken deals and were attacking army and intelligence bases. Once the Pakistanis began a war against their own militants they found that the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban were joined at the hip and hard to separate; finally causing a much needed change in their attitude.