No right way to do this job
She has her job cut out for her. If she thought the travails of running the information ministry were tough, Sherry Rehman has another thing coming when the initial rush of the ambassadorial appointment wears off and the bleak realities that come with the job sink in. To call it a tight-rope walk would be oversimplifying it.
Since 2008, our diplomatic assignment to the US has suffered the fate that their counterparts in India had been facing all along: to be looked at with suspicion if you were actually good at your job. The job in question being diplomacy, that ancient craft replete with the laws of takalluf, whispered suggestions and sugary eloquence.
When it comes to situations of conflict in India – and, increasingly, the US – the establishment back home doesn’t want any expert use of wry understatement but a Wagah-like goose step. And in situations of goodwill, a recall is expected because genuine goodwill with a country like India (and now, a terror-focused US) is indicative of the diplomatic corps doing something wrong somehow.
That all ensures Ms Rehman will have, regardless of how she does her job, her share of detractors both within the country and without. If she makes effective statements of solidarity in the shared struggle against terror, she becomes “America’s ambassador to America.” On the other hand, a pursuit of the policy of smug indignation which demands aid without having any progress on the war on terror front to show for it would peeve off the US state and defence departments.
Truth be told, both Ms Rehman and her boss, foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, like most of the professional foreign service itself, exist only to soften the blows. Even an expert dexterity at this courier-like assignment can go only so far in keeping one’s country out of harm’s way if those who call the shots back home insist on a march of folly.