Pakistan in Media

Daily Times, Pakistan
Comment, Shahzad Chaudhry
Monday, May 25, 2009

Pakistan can be more secure socio-politically only if it is included in regional and global linkages as a trusted partner and equal player. It is imperative to understand the psychosocial make up of the Pakistani mind and its likely responses to emotive issues

The affable Hillary Clinton needs to play close attention to the second and more serious gaping hole in her president’s AfPak strategy: the absence of a cooperative geo-political security regime in the larger Af-Pak-Ind region — a direct interest of the Secretary’s own department.

The United States is in a unique and a historical position in terms of its influence with all three countries. Pakistan holds the key to the long-term stability of South and West Asia; an unstable or socially fragmented Pakistan could mean an entirely unstable Afghanistan, regardless of the quality and expanse of the democratic dispensation there, such is the interacting dynamic of social integration on both sides.

Also, the 28 million Pashtuns in Pakistan form the critical mass of Pashtun sentiment. Simply the neutralisation of Al Qaeda or the mitigation of the Taliban problem through on-going efforts alone will never be sufficient to leave a sustaining sense of either stability or security. And without stability there never will be security.

Inalienably, there is a need to provide a sense of assurance to the Pashtuns. To achieve so, Pakistan itself needs to be secure, stable and assured; this realisation is entirely missing from the proposed political construct of how the US wishes to deal with the region. The US emphasis continues to be on a transactional relationship for the returns that it seeks from Pakistan; this irks the Pakistani sense of self-respect, national pride and dignity.

Pakistan’s nuclear status haunts the western world mostly for the wrong reasons. It is not the command and control mechanisms that should be of any serious concern, since those are as good as any — and this statement is based on well founded knowledge of the structure. It is the insidious aspersions on the quality and character of the human resource engaged in the strategic programmes that betray a transparent and unsavoury attempt to demean Pakistan’s credentials as a nuclear power.

The US does not understand the very strong sense of nationalism that the nuclear programme evokes in the Pakistani people, which in a strange paradox becomes a shield against any attempt to retrench, dislodge or dismantle the capability. Such a reaction is practically embedded in the Pakistani character. Similarly, any effort to attach religious definition to Pakistan’s nuclear capability is mala fide and a figment of the western imagination. Pakistanis neither give the capability any religious association, nor do they accept such a classification.

For the much larger majority, Pakistani nationalistic pride will still override religious identification, something that the West, especially US, has failed to register; and something anyone wishing to do business with Pakistan should exploit to their advantage. More than the nuclear arsenal, it is the socio-political and economic instability of Pakistan that should haunt the world.

If there is anything that triggers Pakistan’s nationalistic sentiment even greater than the nuclear capability, it is events in the Indo-Pakistan context. That testifies to the shared history and socio-cultural commonalities, interspersed with significant variations, that became the driving force for the two-nation theory. This love-hate relationship is mutual and the basis of a psychotic infatuation between Indian and Pakistani societies. Neither is complete without the other; such is the compulsive nature of this relationship, whether in love or war.

This is not going to change soon. Better to acknowledge it and tie in the inextricability and mutuality through an inclusive and all-encompassing engagement than to deny it.

By excluding India from the larger mosaic of the declared American intent in the AfPak policy, the Americans have denied themselves the assurance of a sustainable secure and stable region. This is the missing kernel in the political stability equation for South Asia, seen as the major omission in the new strategy.

Socio-political stability, lying at the heart of regional stability, is the key to forging a cooperative regional mechanism built around shared stakes and progressive, prosperous futures. Trade, food safety nets, energy corridors and enhanced connectivity can weave threads of interdependence in the entire region that can only augur a better tomorrow.

To reach that end though, the prescriptive methodology will need to be replaced with an inclusive, cooperative framework, far different than what the new American establishment is currently willing to entertain. For necessary modifications to the geo-political design for South and West Asia, the US will have to view the region more carefully and not base its understanding around the Indian read of the situation alone.

Necessary modifications in the revised strategy should include resolution of age-old issues and the trust issues between the three neighbours. But for America to be the honest broker, it is imperative that its own credibility within the larger region too is established without doubt.

Two things can be done by the Americans straight away: one, provide a de facto acceptance to Pakistan’s nuclear status by concluding a treaty similar to the one signed with India, allowing Pakistan a level playing field. This would lay to rest the bogey that American ambivalence to Pakistan is intended to bring into dispute Pakistan’s nuclear assets, and that the US somehow wants to de-fang Pakistan of her nuclear capability.

Second, the US should use newly gained influence with India to encourage it to work with Pakistan to resolve long-standing issues. Since a Kashmir solution was almost ready about two years ago, it may need just a little more attention. With a resurgent Congress and a reassured and more confident Manmohan Singh, perhaps the time to remove the biggest strategic roadblock in the Indo-Pak relationship has arrived.

Without these two nations evolving their relationship on a more cooperative and even keel, a better future for South Asia can never be ensured; history stands witness to this reality. But, if that proves too sensitive as a triggering platform, the US could do well in arbitrating the more recent and pervasive issue of the management of shared water resources.

This could be a tough ask, only if the proposals do not agree with the US agenda in the region. And if these two or three cannot be a part of the US agenda, there is precious little that the US can ever hope for beyond the transactional objectives. There too, the credibility of intent will always be seriously questioned on both sides.

Even more disconcerting, the post-American environment will be greatly more fractious and unstable with newer issues coming to the fore. The American effort to expand, enlarge, re-equip and re-train the Afghan military, which may in future establish even deeper links with India, will place Pakistan in a crunch. This in turn is likely to push Pakistan into a corner.

Pakistan can be more secure socio-politically only if it is included in regional and global linkages as a trusted partner and equal player. Prescriptive hierarchies will be the anti-thesis of a stable end-state that should be the prime international objective. It is imperative to understand the psychosocial make up of the Pakistani mind and its likely responses to emotive issues. What may appear clever can only have countervailing consequences. Transparency and cooperative engagement alone could move the region forward smoothly.