March 25, 2009 9:50AM 

# Obama on Pakistan (and Nawaz Sharif) 

By [Malou Innocent](https://www.cato.org/people/malou-innocent) 

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The *New York Times* [reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/world/asia/25sharif.html?_r=1&ref=world) this morning that the Obama administration is deciding whether Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif is likely to be a reliable ally or an obstructionist force.

Honestly? This is a man who in 1999 [agreed](http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20011004&slug=strikes04) to send a special operations team to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, who later tried to forge [peace](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/sharif-peace-offer-divides-pakistan-1104613.html) with India, and recently agreed to [mediate](http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/nawaz-sharif-mediating-truce-between-taliban-and-karzai-govt_100104384.html) a truce between Karzai’s government and the Taliban.

Right now, there’s no solution in Afghanistan unless Pakistan is stabilized. Sure, Sharif is pompous, self-aggrandizing, and as religiously conservative as ever before, but he’s still immensely popular and (reminder to policymakers in Washington) it’s not our job to pick and choose that country’s political winners.

In this turbulent region our strategy should be narrowly tailored to securing our specific objectives (i.e. — narrowing our aim to denying al Qaida the use of sanctuaries, if that’s even still achievable), implementing the few policies likely to achieve those goals (i.e. — cooperating with local leaders and tribal elders along the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border), and being flexible with whatever leader holds power in Islamabad (i.e. — not expecting Sharif to toe the line on every conceivable issue).

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[Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy) 

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