This is with reference to Mr Bruce Riedel’s article published in The New York Times and excerpts of which were published in your newspaper. Mr Riedel who headed the Af-Pak policy review by US government last year now wants and suggests another US policy review for this region. The new review of the policy is centred around the isolation of Pakistan army as a powerful institution in Pakistan.
He suggests that not with Pakistan army anymore but with the true civilian leadership, the US must negotiate. But US will do well to seek true answers to some of the questions that the writer has raised before reviewing its policy. “Is Pakistan Army’s aggressive instinct” a recent creation? Is “the US-Pakistan conflict of strategic interest” something new? Has the US not encouraged, enhanced even propelled to power in Pakistan “the generals (who run Pakistan) and who are obsessed with challenging India”? Why suddenly the shift to “people-centric” policy?
How could Mr Riedel believes that the people of Pakistan will accept any “focused hostility” by US against Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency and yet not consider that hostility actually directed against the very people of Pakistan?
Will “initiating strategic dialogue with India about Pakistan” help US to “curb Pakistan Army’s aggressive instincts”?
Sadly, but realistically, the US is increasingly becoming unilateral in seeking its foreign policy interests. It heavily relies on its military power to manage a world that must fit the order that it wants to create. If power is the ability to do or affect something then US today enjoys absolute power to affect and change the dynamics of any conflict as well as its resolution. Its interests determine its political and military actions, not the interests of actors involved in the conflict.
The US policy reviews and re-assessments about this region may be necessary but so is our concern with our security. How secure we feel? Little else should take precedence over state security. The US has grand strategic designs in the region in which Afghanistan and India are likely to play important roles. As far as Pakistan is concerned, the US must realise that “states and actors balance not against power but against the threats.”
If threats surround and endanger Pakistan, it will have to increase its military spending to counter them. Will such spending change for better the lives of the people of this country?
LT COL (Retd) MUHAMMAD ALI EHSAN
Karachi