Amb. Haqqani – Lobbying for “Transformation” – by Anas Muhammad
Ambassador Husain Haqqani
On January 15, 2009, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, was a special guest to a gathering at the Nixon Center, which discussed the US-Paksitan relations. This is one of the many forums Honorable Ambassador has addressed, since being appointed at his current position in April 2008. Since taking office he has lectured many think-tanks and academia on a regular basis, which is a part of his efforts to bridge the gaps between US and Pakistan and create a better understanding and relations.
With the return of democracy to Pakistan, it has become critically important for both US and Pakistan to establish close strategic relations. This partnership shall not only be limited to military – transactional – like in the past, but needs to be a transformational that serves the interests of both nations.
As the former Prime Minister late Ms. Bhutto had envisioned the future of both countries – US and Pakistan – is tied together and is directly linked with the eradication of terrorists networks from the region and establishing democracy along with improving and supporting Pakistan’s economy for the long term.
It is vital that United States does not remain just a fair-weather friend like it has in the past. US has used Pakistan when it was strategically required but did not follow through with its partnership and left Pakistan to face the consequence, which at times had been dire for Pakistan’s interests and security. Mr. Haqqani wants that attitude to change:
There is barely a think-tank in Washington that has not heard Mr Haqqani argue this must change. “We are transforming ourselves from an authoritarian state to a democratic state. We want it to be a real alliance this time round.” – Financial Times
For the longest time US has allied itself with the dictators in Pakistan, which indirectly ended up keeping them in power. As an Ambassador Mr. Haqqani has lobbied to change that image along with the misconceptions and bad-taste that exists, between the two nations, due to the burden of history.
Representing and clearing the image of Pakistan might be one of the hardest job on the planet, which is why Mr. Haqqani might just be the right person for the job. Ambassador Richard Holbrook has occasionally admired and claimed that Mr. Haqqani is:
“one of the most skilled ambassadors I have ever seen.”
“Some ambassadors’ influence is derived logically from the country they represent; Husain Haqqani’s influence is derived from his absolute mastery of the American media.”
Amb. Haqqani has repeatedly argued that it were the Pakistan’s insecurities towards its much larger neighbor and a foe India – that forged previous military relationships between US and Pakistan – which has changed over time and US needs to address Pakistan’s much larger concerns which are not only the military needs but also social and economic situation.
There needs to be a partnership between the democracies of two nations that will help complete the democratization of Pakistani society. Ambassador argues that the goal should be to offer alternatives to militancy and militarism and a future to the very vibrant youth of Pakistan, which can only be done by helping Pakistan increase its literacy rate from 49% to upper 90s.
Mr. Ambassador has been able to put forward his argument to the policy makers in a way that has already started to change perceptions and policies. One example would be the passage of Kerry-Lugar Aid package along with recent announcement of $1 Billion into Pakistan’s energy sector. He does not only enjoys the trust of President Zardari but also, being a familiar face on Capitol Hill, gives him access to the corridors of power and important decision-makers of American politics. As the Washington Post article noted:
As spokesman and political confidant of then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Haqqani became a familiar face at Washington think tanks, on American news programs and on Capitol Hill, where he lobbied, after being exiled in 1999, against the government of President Pervez Musharraf
His deep insights and lobbying skills has most probably helped Pakistan Air-force secure the delivery of much awaited F-16 that Pakistan had been lobbying to receive since the 1990. It is apparent that:
Mr. Haqqani has become an influential figure in Washington — a silver-tongued interpreter in public of his country’s bewildering politics, but also a relentless, unyielding defender of Pakistan’s image and reputation – New York Times
With all that we wish you best of luck Mr. Ambassador.
Hussain Haqqani has been fighting the case for Pakistan with diligence and intelligence. He had a key role in drafting the Kerry Luggar Bill which is one of the most remarkable legislations in Pak-US friendship.
Engaging with the US
Syed Talat Hussain
On the face of it, there is no need for deep intellectual analysis to figure out why Washington and Islamabad are locked in dualistic bilateral diplomacy. There is a general belief in Pakistan that the US is taking this nation for a ride. This belief is born of a pervasive fear that the essence of the US agenda is to weaken the country to a point where it is unable to resist perhaps an eventual global effort to neutralise its nuclear arsenal. With the nuclear weapons gone, Pakistan’s prime force of resistance to US pressure would die. The country would then be forced to accept all sorts of imposed experiments in regional stability: formal Indian hegemony; a trade corridor connecting the subcontinent with Europe through Afghanistan and Central Asia; and even fragmentation of the state of Pakistan into smaller, more manageable units, with port cities like Karachi, Gwadar and the town of Pasni becoming the hub of world trade, commercial activity and a gateway for energy supplies.
There is no reason to dismiss this point of view. It is not wholly unrealistic to assume that all, or some, of these fears tally with actual US intentions and policy objectives. But to allow the fog of fear to dominate diplomacy serves no purpose. It is actually infantile. It speaks of our own insecurities more than the hidden goals of Washington and its allies. No two countries in the world ever agree on everything under the sun. Even the best of allies have plans against each other. This is power politics. This is how the game is played. The whole challenge of diplomacy is to reduce these frictions and focus attention and energy on more achievable and mutually beneficial goals.
Admittedly, this is the hard path to finding agreement. It is made harder still by the peculiar manner big, arrogant or frustrated but powerful states conduct their relations with smaller countries. Unfortunately, at this point in time, the US is all three: big, arrogant, and frustrated. Even then, by relying on the basic instinct of fear, Pakistan has not made its task of stabilising relations with the US any easier. The whole environment in which even normal diplomacy has to be conducted has become so vitiated that no two heads in Pakistan meet without broaching the possibility of Washington bringing Pakistan down. As a result, placing everything at the US doorstep has become a ready-made excuse for not looking at our own weaknesses and blunders. It is also the new platform for struggling politicians and ranters to ramp up public support for their shady causes.
However, even fear as a factor in fixing the trajectory of our ties with the US would have been acceptable if it could bring about predictability in our own goals and objectives. That has not happened. Parallel to our extreme distrust of Washington, is an equally intense desire to keep the US in good humour, and win the prize of its friendship. In a manner of speaking, we want the payment but do not want to become the piper. We want the arms but no arm-twisting. A natural corollary of this parallel desire to ‘befriend’ the US is that the pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US’s objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust. More than mere friendship, members of this lobby want a lovers’ embrace, regardless of the fact that the temporary joys of such arrangements are fraught with frightening and unhappy consequences. These lobbyists assiduously work with US diplomats and visitors from Washington to ‘combat’ anti-American sentiments in Pakistan. A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers — they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan.
But both the anti- and pro-US lobbies have one thing in common: they are offshoots of the confusion in our decision-making apparatus about the nature and substance of our relations with Washington. Consider this supreme irony. The Pakistan Foreign Office, General Headquarters, and offices of intelligence agencies are places where distrust of the US is widespread these days. Yet these are the very quarters where the argument in favour of having a strong pro-US lobby inside Pakistan reigns equally strongly.
The rationale that is offered in support of this contradictory approach is that the US is too important a state for Pakistan to run completely afoul of. Another argument is that Pakistan’s chronic adversary, India, would be more than delighted to see Islamabad’s relations with Washington break down. This would afford Delhi a vast array of opportunities to push for Islamabad’s regional and global isolation. Needless to say, these goals, along with others that we may have in our mind, are unlikely to be achieved if we don’t streamline the manner of our engagement with the US. Between noisy defiance and shameful diffidence lies a more practical dimension Pakistan can explore to deal with a country that is as much part of our national problems as it can be of solutions.
Engaging with the US — II —Syed Talat Hussain
Sheeting questionable cooperation with Washington in ambiguity only fed speculation that the country’s sovereignty was being compromised under US pressure. Also, this ‘open-endedness’ in our dealings with the US allowed Washington incredible leeway to interpret different commitments differently at different times
“What’s in it for me? What’s in it
for you?” These two expressions, and dozens of similar ones, summarise a cultural belief that everything in the world is driven by personal motive. That nothing is, can be, and should be free. That even those who do not make use of an opportunity to their advantage must be doing it for some good reason. These hard-nosed assessments are hardened into a collective social habit of drawing up cost-benefit calculus on all minor and major issues. These are then cemented by the ruthlessness of global power politics, where states interact on the basis of pure and simple self-interest, where nothing matters more than getting the best bargain for one’s national goals in the grand market of give and take.
These principles of personal, national and state conduct are generically applicable to the entire globe. But the United States of America has turned them into a fine art: even at its best giving behaviour, the US would always have an eye, and a hand, on taking. They are masters of selfish survival. With this American core instinct comes the presumption that everyone else is made the same way; that only fools would come to the negotiating table without a list of ‘what’s in it for us and what’s in it for them’.
We, in Pakistan, have not understood the inveterate nature of this belief system. Nor have we worked out the diplomatic necessities it generates for all those who have to deal with the US in war or in peacetime, through secret talks or in open diplomacy. This has become a fatal fallibility of our diplomacy towards the US. We have been poor, flimsy bargainers, allowing ourselves to be satisfied by the nonsense of friendship and goodwill — words we so often hear from US officials at set-piece press conferences, and in their absence, from the spokespersons of our government. We do not realise that these phrases are the vendor’s pet: these are his sales pitch. His love is for his goods. He cares two hoots about the buyer.
Does this mean that the US sets us up, deliberately misleads us, and in the end leaves us high and dry? Does this prove conspiracy theories right that the US has always had a cloaked dagger hidden behind its wonderful rhetoric about Pakistan’s welfare? Not necessarily. Not always. More than the conspiratorial brilliance of the US, it is our own incompetence that lands us in complex straits and causes us the loss of diplomatic opportunities that we, with extra care and smart deskwork, could use to serve our national purposes.
A critical examination of our present engagement with the US reveals the full spread of this weakness. We all know that it all started from the fateful day General Pervez Musharraf, an anxious, politically illegitimate ruler of the country, committed Pakistan to the war against terror. What is not known so widely is that little or no homework was done to create a solid balance sheet of national interest and US expectations in those critical days of making a final decision. Barely a few notes are available in the official records of the meetings that led to the policy of tying Pakistan to the shoestrings of the US footprint in Afghanistan. Far thicker files are part of official archives on matters far less significant than the commitments Pakistan gave to the US under George W Bush.
Worse than the diplomatic groundwork was actual paperwork. While the US was to be generously facilitated — at the airports, airfields, airbases, on ports and roads for logistics, and also surveillance — the details of this deep cooperation did not form part of a properly written agreement. It was mostly done either by word of mouth, or by verbal instructions whose brief summaries are about the only documentary evidence that exists in the form of official communication. Even when it came to money the US was paying for our overt support, our homework was pathetic. From the draft of reimbursement requests to payment schedules to oversight of money claimed and received, the record speaks of extreme negligence to detail. The record of our covert support to the US is even more problematic. In a sentence, it does not exist.
Some of those involved in policy formulation cite ‘expediency’ to be the main reason for leaving things open-ended. They also argue that an agreement on the status of support to the US would have meant officially acknowledging the existence of American presence (forces?) on Pakistani soil — a politically costly and explosive issue. The argument is flawed on several counts. The US presence in Pakistan under General Musharraf was the world’s worst kept secret. Sheeting questionable cooperation with Washington in ambiguity only fed speculation that the country’s sovereignty was being compromised under US pressure. Also, this ‘open-endedness’ in our dealings with the US allowed Washington incredible leeway to interpret different commitments differently at different times. Take the title of ‘frontline state in the war against terror’. Under General Musharraf, Washington, busy at that time destroying Iraq, used this term to italicise Pakistan as the most important part of the coalition against terrorism. Now, the same title means that Pakistan is the centre of all terror in the world. While we continue to engage with the US on the same grid of being an important non-Nato ally, the US’s definition of our role has changed dramatically. Now we are seen as not much of an ally — ‘ingrates’ is the word a Fox television journalist used for Pakistanis in her conversation with Senator John McCain — but more of an albatross.
Similarly, the requirements of ‘cooperation’ and what this cooperation entails too have been given a totally one-sided twist. US diplomats believe that unhindered movement of their personnel, and a quick ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC) to all those who come and go out of Pakistan, is part of this cooperation. For them, the public hue and cry over the role of contractors and sub-contractors is part of a vicious propaganda. They think it is legitimate to hold back Coalition Support Fund (CSF) reimbursements for months on end because Pakistan is ‘playing games’ with Washington.
Much of this bilateral mess would not have been created had we been clear and forthright in dealing with Washington and if we had worked out the minutest detail of every part of our support to the US, not just in monetary terms but also procedurally, and then inked a proper, honest and honourable agreement and made it public. Instead, we chose the wrong path and, regrettably, continued on it even after the administration changed in Washington. Even today we see piecemeal agreements with the US as sufficient grounds for cooperation and building a mutually beneficial relationship. And when it comes to our defence arrangement with Washington, even a self-contained document is lacking that could offer a broad insight into this important realm.
Predictably, Washington has exploited this ambivalence to its maximum advantage. It is shopping from all floors of the Wal-Mart that Pakistan has become. But, at heart we are responsible for this spree. We have not nailed down this ambitious customer to the rules of acceptable behaviour. We are the ones responsible for turning important national concerns into a cheap sale at a cut-price shop. The problem is in Islamabad, not in Washington.
(Concluded)
The writer is a leading Pakistani journalist
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\14\story_14-1-2010_pg3_2
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\21\story_21-1-2010_pg3_2
Pak-US: prospects and prognosis —Shahzad Chaudhry
The war against al Qaeda has practically already shifted out to Yemen. There are only a few remnant interests for the US now in this region as far as the war on terror goes
Let’s get the context right.
The baggage: Pakistan carries two negatives from the past at the international plane. The AQ Khan episode is difficult to explain at that level and continues to sully every sincere effort by Pakistan to play its part as a responsible nuclear-capable state. This eats at the roots of the construct that Pakistan has carefully evolved to make itself relevant in the global and regional hierarchy of nations. Competitor nations such as India play on the incredulity of Pakistan’s position on this deviation away from the formal and informal set of behavioural and conformance standards that are used so often to validate a nation’s power base and its contextual relevance.
The second negative is arguably the use of non-state elements as a proxy capability to force a change in the context of intractable regional issues; on such issues we may be morally and politically correct, but the manner of their emphasis and the use of proxy ploys to achieve our aims falls far short of both moral and legal credibility. Pakistan must therefore carry the disadvantage of being judged in the light of such historical experience and any argument in support of such issues of importance stands significantly compromised.
The US on the other hand also has a compromised past, particularly in popular perception; on two occasions that mark major turning points in the Pak-US historical context, the US decided to leave Pakistan to its own fate after having squeezed the most out of Pakistan in support of American interests that did not sustain but were time-restricted in terms of their significance even to the US. Though declared an ally of the US in the Cold War days, rather than assist Pakistan in its first full-blown war with India in 1965, the US imposed military and economic sanctions and pushed Pakistan into precarious economic consequences. That then became, from amongst various other factors, the underlying reason for the vastly perceived inequitable resource allocation between West and East Pakistan, alienating the Bengalis of East Pakistan and causing the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.
In the second instance, the US connected back to Pakistan in 1979 when Pakistan again became a conduit for American efforts to dislodge the Soviets in Afghanistan. The resulting eviction of the Soviets brought the curtain down on the Soviet Union as an entity, tore the Berlin Wall down, unified Germany, thus strengthening the West’s political perch against a truncated Russia, and spelled the end of the Cold War. What Pakistan got in return for this favour was both the baby and the bathtub: the mujahideen that Pakistan helped create and employ to defeat the Soviets and the state of Pakistan were left high and dry, each to their own fate. Both Pakistan and the US today rue the consequences of an ill-thought abdication of responsibility to bottle the genie of the Afghan jihad and are inextricably embroiled in facing the unintended consequences of the failure to clear up the mess before quitting.
The context: the US again needed a referral back to Pakistan after 9/11. Osama and his lieutenants, looking for a new mission after the Afghan jihad, found one in the Middle East and the US-Israeli nexus. Gradually, and with time, the mission has morphed into a transnational agenda to fight US imperialism against the perceived wrongs meted out to most Muslim nations. A response to 9/11 and the pursuit of al Qaeda may have brought the Americans into the region once again, but an added concern now is the security of Pakistani nuclear assets and a pervasive apprehension within the American strategic community of such a capability falling into the hands of al Qaeda. As such, Pakistan’s nuclear capability becomes an implicit mission. When, and if, the mission against al Qaeda is over, or declared over, Pakistan’s nuclear capability will become US mission number one; which of the two, or both, might continue to interest the Americans in the main will determine the extent of the US’s proclaimed long-term involvement with Pakistan. Altruistically, the US’s claim for a preference for a strategic relationship rather than a transactional relationship, as has been the case hitherto, seems again conditional to the US seeing fruitful returns in both cases. What is close-ended and a definable objective cannot render itself into a strategic context that may run the course of time. Alternately, a continued interest is possible if a productive engagement becomes the sustaining compulsion to the end of achieving a salubrious objective.
When Musharraf acceded to the American challenge to side with them, he had two specific objectives in mind: one, to somehow use American influence while they happen to be in the region to trigger a resolution of the age-old Kashmir problem with a recalcitrant India; and two, to secure Pakistan’s nuclear assets against any inimical design to force Pakistan to give up the capability. Siding with the US in their latest war, particularly when they were so heavily dependent on Pakistan for its successful prosecution and for logistical and supportive operations, was likely to cast the dice in Pakistan’s favour to retain the capability.
But has it? That shall remain the popular refrain for quite some time.
The prognosis: The war against al Qaeda has practically already shifted out to Yemen. There are only a few remnant interests for the US now in this region as far as the war on terror goes: seek some stability for Afghanistan for a ruse to exit gracefully out of there; hunt Osama and any of his deputies if they still happen to be in the region; through application of force denude and diminish Taliban capability to re-appropriate power for the more secular leadership currently in place, denying them the ability to provide yet again a ready haven to al Qaeda if they need one.
The US will likely remain the dominant power in the world till the mid-century — that is another 40 years; American leadership in technology, innovation and systematisation of newer capacities will add to its continued domination in the global order. China will be a close number two when all is added up to index national power potential. China’s consumerism will follow the patterns of the US with growing purchasing capacity of its large mass of population gobbling up the manufacturing advantage that gives China the boost in current climes. The US will therefore remain important to the world; Pakistan will need to keep on the Americans’ right side; its relations with China will only, at the cost of great foolishness, assume any exclusive colour. The correction in our national discourse needs to be factored in right away.
American interest will lie in Pakistan following a steady course in its national journey. As long as the nukes are safe and the country remains above chaos, chances are a lot of American fears can be appeased. It will equally be in Pakistan’s interest to retain a secure and assured nuclear capability to grant the nation an unreserved opportunity to pursue prosperity while remaining assured of a strategic equilibrium endowing long-term peace to the region — the enduring dividend ever since India and Pakistan embraced nuclear status.
A single point of convergence should be attainable if Pakistan will ensure and possess the type of internal and external stability that can measurably add to regional and global sense of growth, prosperity and peace. Making Pakistan relevant to the international order, and in more positive ways than what is currently the case, shall enable its rightful place in the global hierarchical order. Pakistan could then deservedly stake its claim for seeking the kind of parity that is granted to the other members of the nuclear club. In short, a country at peace with itself and with others, on the march to economic stability and progress in all areas of socio-political domains will reassure the world of its capacity to retain, secure and responsibly sustain its position as a member of the elite club. This shall, in all probability, define the future of the Pak-US relationship. Inherent therein also is Pakistan’s most imperative challenge.
Shahzad Chaudhry is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\18\story_18-1-2010_pg3_2
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