FROM A DIFFERENT PLANET – SYED TALAT HUSSAIN

On a different planet a Pakistani prime minister visiting the United States could have made the following points in his meeting with the host president.

“Thank you for hosting us. Convention demands that I ought to be conservative and considerate in my response to the points you have raised concerning the role Pakistan is expected to play for world peace and regional stability. Honesty demands that I should be forthright in my review of our bilateral relations. What follows is a delicate marriage of truth and protocol. Bear with me.

First Afghanistan. We have multiple concerns. We border this chronic battleground. We have paid the cost of being a neighbour – in blood, in money and in the lost opportunity to expend our energies on more productive pursuits. There are no two opinions on the need for an Afghan-led peace process to move forward. However, the pre-requisite for that is a modicum of stability in the existing order in Kabul. Without that no one is in any position to convince the battling groups to cease fighting and get back to the negotiating table.

Unfortunately, a decade of intervention, occupation, engineering and re-engineering of Afghanistan incurring trillions of dollars, and a truckload of boasts of great results, the country lies broken. Militant forces are on a roll everywhere. You can blame it all on Pakistan. Or you can find some courage in your heart and admit that your policy in Afghanistan has been a resounding failure.

Mr President, the latest chain of events in this strategic underbelly of ours is totally troubling. You have apologised for the attack on Kunduz hospital. This is a gracious act even though we cannot help but notice that through calculated leaks and media hype the narrative is being changed to dilute your apology and build a case for the attack, suggesting that this place was hiding Pakistani operatives. But leaving that side of the issue aside the damage done to the cause of peace in Afghanistan has been collateral.

We should not be surprised if this attack has already driven thousands of borderline cases right into the lap of the Taliban, or has destroyed whatever respect the local population had for the Afghan forces, whose political bosses continue to peddle the insane line that this was a terrorist hideout.

We find it tremendously perplexing that a sophisticated system such as yours, which has been looking at Afghanistan’s terrain from every possible corner of the universe and which can spot even a pinhead on the surface, could possibly not know that this was a hospital and not a military target?

Just as confounding is the misreading of the ground situation in Afghanistan. Going by the testimonies before Senate and House committees your military commanders and intelligence chiefs have been cited quoting an all-well scenario in Afghanistan. Independent assessments by neutral observers and UN bodies have been warning loudly about the growing Taliban power.

Do you not ask anyone in your chain of downward command about the yawning gap, now proven by facts, between their claims and the ground reality? While there is so much focus on the tragic events of Benghazi to fix responsibility for the four lost lives, why has there not been any accountability of those who messed up Afghanistan (or Iraq and Syria) and who have cost millions of lives and turned this world upside down?

We would not have even asked this if it wasn’t for the obvious spill-over effects on Pakistan of the Taliban and other terror groups like Daesh regaining strength and recruits just across the border. Fleeing populations from Afghanistan and terrorists from the Middle East will land at our doorstep, swelling the ranks of the older refugees that we are hoping to send back. Dealing with infiltrators will become an even grimmer issue. Extremist groups that we have barely been able to tame in our country will find a new cause to rally around.

That you are staying in Afghanistan with higher troop levels is neither here nor there. How is five thousand something different from nine thousand something, we fail to understand. You can’t achieve with ten percent of your strength what you could not achieve when money and men were in abundant supply.

So can you, Mr President, explain to us what your game in Afghanistan is? This will help us explain to you better what we can and cannot do with regard to the peace process.

Now, regional stability. We have no real or imaginary goal that is served by heating up borders with India. Ask UNGOMIP or your own intelligence community. Most important, please do analyse what your extreme pampering of India in general and Narendra Modi, in particular, has done. The nuclear deal, total silence on Kashmir, and now even tighter lips on the dark and deadly deeds of the terror brigades of Shiv Sena, have reinforced India’s bullying habits. Mr Modi’s active encouragement has unleashed structural terror upon vulnerable religious communities – not just Muslims – in his own country. Your winks and nodes and silence have had the same effect on India. Appeasement is a bad policy. You should know.

We urge you, Mr President, to factor out Pakistan and assess on pure merit what Mr Modi has done to the Kashmiris and to the minorities in India? Does this not require a statement? Some protest? Some evidence that your administration isn’t totally blind to the regime of violence Mr Modi has tried to create in South Asia?

It is important to focus attention on this because Indian war pursuits cement the traditional security paradigm in our outlook, which in turn devours limited resources and unhinge development priorities. Further, Indian sabotage and subversion via proxies promote domestic instability aggravating the governance challenge.

We are mature enough to know that our own house is not exactly in order; we admit that our work has been below par, and in certain respects not even average, nay absolutely unsatisfactory. But the factors listed above are an additional burden we can do without and this is where your role becomes crucial.

And if you cannot play that role, Mr President, is it fair for your administration to talk to us about our security arrangements? What would your country have done when confronted with an enemy of India’s size and led by such government as Modi’s? Recalling Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we can only imagine.

As it is, you have not done badly with defence spending, nuclear stockpiles and delivery systems. Statistics speak better than speeches. Even Britain and France, who don’t figure on the radar of any state in the world as a potential war target, have battle-ready nukes. We would not mention Israel because we know that is a special case, beyond your power to debate.

So each nation has its own ways to secure itself. You have yours. We have ours. If we can agree on this core theory of engagement we have much to talk about.

Mr President, we thank you for acknowledging our impeccable democratic credentials in the comity of nations. The compliment belongs to the people of Pakistan. But we are mindful of Washington’s long-affairs with military dictators, all of whom it consistently bankrolled and for whom it happily rolled out thick red carpets.

This traditional romance has not waned. Your eagerness to engage with the brass is palpable. You have kept two windows of different sizes of engagement with Pakistan. The large one opens in Pindi; the smaller one in Islamabad. You say one thing in one and a different thing in the other. You think this is smart. History says this is stupid. Why are you doing this? If we have clarity on this issue, we can genuinely build a durable partnership for peace, security and democracy.