THE PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR SPEAKS AT USIP – Newly appointed Ambassador of Pakistan to the U.S. Sherry Rehman made her American debut as ambassador at USIP Feb. 15 with a pointed speech about empowering women, fighting extremism and the state of the U.S.-Pakistani relationship. She hinted at the need for greater trade ties, and continuing civilian and military assistance. But as the former Parliamentarian, journalist and Smith College graduate begins her diplomatic career here - a “red eye job,“ as she termed it - she sought to convey a message that Pakistan is independent from the U.S. but that the countries’ futures and goals are inextricably tied.

THE MARRIAGE METAPHOR WON’T GO AWAY – Rehman noted the attack on Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan-Pakistan border that caused such a rift last year is being seen as a “cut-off date for our broader bilateral engagement,” but that she saw the incident as a convenient way to force the two countries into better relations, something she is intent on seeing through.

“On the strategic end, this relationship has been burdened with too many expectations, and invested with an inordinately high wattage of emotion,” she said. “The marriage metaphor, for instance, never seems to go away, with its implicit embrace of love and hate, life, death and in fact, divorce, which we seek to avoid.” The good news, she said, is that “many of us on both sides” think it’s time the U.S.-Pakistani relationship matured to a more “consistent, stable and transparent equation.”

TO PAKISTAN, ARE THERE GOOD TERRORISTS AND BAD TERRORISTS? – USIP’s Stephen Hadley, who moderated the event, asked Rehman if Pakistan differentiates between some terrorist groups and others – a common perception in the West. Rehman: “There is no such thing as a terrorist that can ultimately be considered OK,” she said. But with limited capacity and resources, there is only so much Pakistan can take on, she said. It’s a question of resources and sequencing. “We’re not blaming you but we need for you to understand what we’re taking on,” she said. “We need fresh hope and this is our best hope to fight any of these fights.”

WHAT SHOULD THE END-STATE IN AFGHANISTAN BE? – Rehman was asked how Pakistan views the fight next door and what Islamabad would like to see develop there, presenting an opportunity for her to address another common perception that Pakistan wishes for certain groups to prevail over others. “Pakistan is certainly not seeking to favor or ally with any one group,” she said. “We support the search for the Afghan-led initiatives for peace.”

TRADE NOT AID? – Rehman noted the need for preferential trade treatment, saying the European Union, which is a far larger bureaucracy than the United States, has succeeded thus far in an agreement. “So the question is, what is our biggest ally doing for us as we stand out on the front lines?”

THE NEED FOR TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY – The ups and downs between the U.S. and Pakistan over the past year has many Pakistanis wanting more assurances that the U.S. will respect its sovereignty even as the American presence in Pakistan grows. “For Pakistanis, the notion of territorial sovereignty dominates public space today in important ways, simply because the symbol of its subversion is so repeatedly and unfortunately associated with the United States’ growing footprint in Pakistan,” she said. “However, make no mistake, to us terrorists represent as much a breach of our sovereignty as state-sponsored unilateralism of any kind,” she said. “You will be happy to hear though, that despite our resource constraints and much damage to Pakistani terrain, the core assets of al-Qaida have been defeated and destroyed with Pakistani cooperation.”

PAKISTANI SACRIFICE AND A SCORECARD – The sacrifices of the Pakistani military and security forces in the fight against terrorism are often overlooked by the U.S. and the international community. Rehman announced a new “score card” the embassy will publish each week detailing Pakistani casualties that occur as a result of Pakistan’s fight against terrorism. “This initiative is not intended to vitiate the atmosphere,” she said. “To the contrary, if anything, this will reduce the knowledge gap about the limits to Pakistani abilities to degrade, defeat and destroy terrorists of all stripes at the same time.”

A RECIPE FOR THE ROAD AHEAD ­– The reset between the two countries will only come if there is broad agreement on a new series of “codified protocols” when crises do arise, as they invariably will. “Our challenge in the days ahead is to not only reset this relationship in seminal ways so that we avoid being caught in the cross-hairs of a tough conflict in a very tough neighborhood, but also build on vital gains that can bring more light than heart to any given situation.” One way to do this, she said, is to modify the current rules of engagement, which she said leave this “vital relationship too vulnerable to the enemies of peace,” as well as to communication gaps. A remedy would be to do more people exchanges between the two governments, but also between Americans and Pakistanis generally.

BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST, GOOD NEWS SLOW – “We have cooperated with the U.S. at key moments in our history, but have managed somehow not to overcome the cognitive dissonance that derails the relationship,” she said. “The negativity that you often see here is partly a function of information deficits on both sides,” she said. While Pakistan “faces down a crippling internal terrorist challenge,” for example, “the media in both countries is very free and like all media, it flashes the bad news in nano-seconds while good news everywhere crawls on its belly.”

“PAKISTAN TODAY IS NOT JUST ABOUT BOMBS AND BULLETS” – The outliers, Rehman said, have captured “street space and militant resources” as well as media attention. But that’s not the whole story. “Today the Pakistan story is also about its vast multiplicity of young musicians in the largest pop franchises in South Asia, its resilience in the face of natural calamity, its creativity in art, media, telecommunications, fashion weeks and literature festivals, but equally importantly, about the scale and complexity of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity we negotiate every day,” she said. Rehman, who has taken at times unpopular but courageous stances on women’s issues in Pakistan, says she will continue her fight to advance a pro-woman agenda. High rates of political participation and leadership among women leads to the conclusion that the slew of recent landmark laws on women’s empowerment will “build serious equities in advancing a progressive agenda.”