The Foreign Policy of Pakistan in doldrums?

The Foreign Policy of Pakistan in doldrums? The international relations of a country are tailored according to the national interest. In the conduct of the foreign relations there is no foe or friend. Today's friend can be tomorrows adversary. The successful foreign policy is the one that create more friends,explore the market for the foreign trade and promote national credibility. We have no such thought out guide lines, the whole country is being run on ad hoc basis since its inception. Ad hoc ism is being defined as the addition of extraneous hypotheses to a theory to save it from being falsified. To save one falsified theory requires endless falsifications. The internal and external policies are formulated to supplement each others. Generally the experts set up the guide lines and the parliament rectifies. In our history, parliament has never been given this honour. The present parliamentary exercise was against the established code of conduct. The horse was tied behind the cart. The parliament formulated a policy and handed over to diplomats to implement. To involve the parliament on this occasion was not due to sudden change of mind set. Parliament was used as a scape goat because the establishment was licking its wounds. The professional image of the establishment was tarnished by successive lapses in the security. The attack on GHQ and naval Head Quarter had multi demential significance and was not easy to swallow. The subsequent two incidents that strained our relations with USA were picked up,for point scoring and public consumption, but handled foolishly. We are not in the present awkward state just out of the blue. There is a chain of events going back to Liaquat Ali. Neither the present incident was the first one of its nature. Our air force facilities in karachi were used in Suez canal conflict and the same facilities were given to Israel during Iraq-Iran war, in return Israel was helping and training mujahideen in Afghanistan. It is silliness to squarely blame US and let our rulers go scot free.. The American action is deplorable but not unexpected. We are strategic ally and US access to our air and ground facilities was an open secret. It was not possible without the tacit support of our rulers. Pakistan was a launching pad to attack Afghanistan. We were in bidding race with India. to keep her out and to rob them of any future regional role, particularly in Afghanistan. We were milking two cows at the same time, as a strategic ally and to be front line state but the front line province was totally ignored. If we presume that there was no memorandum of understanding withUS, then how our land and air facilities were used by USA for the last three decades? And why the establishment let it go unchecked? If the memorandum of diplomatic and strategic understanding was there that should be made public and we should stop to fool the public. After all ISI and CIA were involved in Afghanistan before the invasion of USSR and according to Gen. Hamid Gul, the game was started by Bhutto. USSR invasion was prompted by our rulers to jump in. It is intellectual dishonesty and rape of history that we attach the bloody big game in Afghanistan,to the invasion of Russia. Unfortunately the focal point of our foreign policy is lying in Delhi.The only guiding principle is to oppose any thing that is supported by Delhi irrespective of the ground realities. We as a nation suffering from the delusion of grandeur. We are eating barley but shooting rice. In the conduct of external relation the dependability and trust of the international fraternity are important factors. The responsibility that we have shouldered to be international warriors has discredited us globally. We have stretched ourselves beyond our limits. To us double game is the second name of diplomacy And every time we have been caught red handed. Our Afghan policy had four main aims. The first and foremost was to legitimise illegitimate governments. Second was to go for the lowest possible bid to exclude India. The third was to attain strategic depth. If the last one is not materialised, then, to have a stake in the future of Afghanistan. In other words to impose a government of our cronies and export a sectarian religious philosophy to Afghanistan. We wanted the success of our internal failures in an another sovereign country. And to cash Afghanistan instability to stabilise our country, ignoring that to milk the international players we have to pay back. Money does not speak but if it speaks, it says one word "bend." The most holy and sacred mission was kept secret. The rulers assumed that if the facilities are provided to US and in return whatever is given, will be used in Kashmir and khalistan liberation struggles and training of terrorists for this unholy cause. The terrorism was sown under official patronisation. We rented out our air and ground facilities and they promised to look after our defence needs. It was a straight deal and with no conditionality attached, you scratch my back, I will scratch yours. They were political dwarf to understand that rented launching pad has no sovereignty. Their political acumen of our leaders can be judged that in bipolar world they picked on a superpower that was having the closest proximity to us and now when the world is unipolar we have chosen to go for head on collision with the other super power that was once our saviour and non atheist bed fellow. We ignored a simple fact that if you marry a gorilla for the sake of money when the money is finished the gorilla will still remain gorilla. US played a very negative role. They helped in radicalising the masses and establishment of Pakistan. Though none of the fundamentalists are in power but still they are controlling the government, press and masses. In our this crazy ideological race we didn't even spare China, our great friend? India is of course a sworn in enemy. Our foreign policy is responsible for the brutal crushing of Muslims in eastern China and is creating socio-political problems for the Muslims in India. We defeated the cause of Kashmir due to our own follies. We claimed to be the champions of the right of self determination for Kashmir. The logic demanded that our political parties should keep out of Kashmiri politics. And let Kashmiris rule themselves. But we opted to have Kashmiri government subordinate to Islam Abad. That was self defeating and ferociously contradictory to our so called principled stand, on Kashmir. We should have contributed to the economical and social uplift on our side of Kashmir, to induce an urge and desire in Indian held Kashmir for unification. But it is the opposite, Indian held Kashmir have substantial autonomy and the election are held on regular basis. We should have proved ourselves better than Indian, but...? Siachin is another holy war against nature. One hundred and forty lives perished under the icy slab of snow. Our civil and military leadership is enjoying photo sessions and political scoring. I don't advocate that we are the sole wrong doers but comparatively we contributed more. India is also having Hindu fundamentalists. But there institution are so established and civil bodies are so strong that they have have gone far ahead of us in every sphere. They have six hundred million vibrant class of technically educated youths. They have a broad based strategy to build their economy and their agricultural and industrial growth is far ahead of us. It is beyond comprehension that if we cannot be friends with India, Israel, Russia and US why should we be the enemies? We can play a positive role in Palestinian cause if we are internally stable and internationally credible. Let us be honest to ourselves, can we engage US on air or ground? Who will be the looser? Or if we have trade relations with India, will we not get access to cheap technology? Who will be the beneficiary?If Saudi can understand this simple fact why can't we? The governments keeps on changing but the national policies are continued. We haven't learnt from yesterday, care less for tomorrow and play with today as there is no tomorrow. The three pillars of the government have divorced each other. The fourth newly born pillar, the free press, is adding fuel to the fire. Some time, patience for a while can thwart catastrophe. To blow out the two incidences out of proportion was the most ill conceived idea of point scoring. Our DG of ISI with complete disregard for the protocol, rushed to construct memo scandal and but unaware of two operations conducted in our air and ground spaces, each lasting for two hours. Doesn't it smell foul? The bigs confessed on the floor of parliament that they have the capability and expertise to counter such violations but need permission of the civilian government, as if they always sought the permission of the civilian government? It is the other way round. Had we pursued the path of quite diplomacy we would have avoided exposing our weak points. In my view, there were many options opened but we opted for the path of confrontation without considering the long lasting political repercussions. One of the option was joint action with US against terrorists hot spots. Or we should have taken the total responsibility to target them and asked for technical know how and financial help in return. This would have left US with no alternative but to apologise. It does not fit in any frame of logic that we stop them not to target the terrorist who are threatening their men and women in uniform and do nothing ourselves. Let us show a bit of serenity, logical approach and experiment with truth and honesty. Flexibility is a better alternative to rigidity as it does not lead to a point of no return. Dr. Khurshid Alam London 22/04/2012