Foreign policy novelties
The whole NSG thing caught the PML-N at a very bad time. The Panama leaks had just brought a world of trouble and the ruling party had to fall back on politics of survival. And while our prime minister was recovering from his quadruple bypass in London, India’s PM was jetting from N America to S America to Europe, whipping up support for Delhi’s inclusion. Our action, or rather reaction, meanwhile, was limited to Sartaj Aziz placing a couple of phone calls to a couple of foreign ministers to plead either for India’s exclusion or Pakistan’s inclusion.
Needless to say Nawaz Sharif won few foreign policy points in this episode; at home or abroad. And he continues to invite further trouble by refusing to appoint a full-time foreign minister, no matter how difficult the external position becomes. But – and this is important – it’s not as if the foreign ministry or foreign office has had much to do with foreign policy in Nawaz’s third term. Not since the dharna put him at the mercy of the brass, at least. Not that that clears Nawaz, but it isimportant.
Also, while India remains the establishment’s obsession, our foreign policy paralysis is hardly limited to it. The Afghan breakdown is no less significant. We almost pulled one on everybody again with the QCG; but there was only so long everybody could wait for one party to bring the Taliban to the table. And once Kabul realised that was not happening, Ghani simply pulled the plug on the Quadrilateral – something he’d threatened to do all along but we convinced ourselves he was bluffing.
And that, not so surprisingly, just soured everything with the Americans. The “do more” returned. The F16 subsidy disappeared. And further aid is tied to quantifiable progress on very specific items – Haqqanis, Dr Afridi, etc. And since the Haqqanis didn’t figure even in the success story of the Operation, and there’ll be political hell to pay just ahead of the election if they pull a Raymod Davis on Shakeel Afridi, everybody knows what this two plus two will equal.
Then there’s the not so curious case of Iran. Militias from our side of the border killed their border guards and we did nothing; because Iran’s a friend and it would understand. They built their part of the gas pipeline and we violated the contract and felt no remorse; Iran will understand. We cozy up to Saudi Arabia as a proxy war engulfs the Gulf but Iran would understand. They came to us with Chabahar first but no thank you we have CPEC, etc. And now that they’ve joined with India and Afghanistan they’ve “stabbed us in the back”.
Of course the going theme is that all this is so obviously India’s doing. It lobbied the Afghans, 24 consulates and all, to turn against Pakistan even though we held the key to peace. And they Indians got Congress to bloc our F16s. And, of course, the Indians sweet talked Iran into a binding three-party alliance for the express purpose of isolating Pakistan.
And that’s not all. Modi’s just finished his whirlwind tour of the Gulf where he hugged every monarch that was supposed to side with Pakistan. That this happened just when the sheikhs were upset because we didn’t fight in Yemen, etc, must just make it sweeter for Modi and the sheikhs.
And then India’s also fomenting rebellion inside our borders, especially in Balochistan. Wasn’t that what Kulbhoshan said when we arrested him and decided to treat him like a gentleman because he’s military?
But it’s not as if we didn’t react.
Somebody – who must really run things – decided to parade the Difa-e-Pakistan Council in Islamabad; complete with threats to nuclear-drone India if they let the Americans use their airbases to kill Afghan Taliban leaders in Pakistan again. The corps commanders meeting a day or so later reminded everybody that outsiders would never be allowed to sabotage CPEC, and that we’d fight terrorists to the last man, but neither the military nor the government had a word to say about the Council’s chest thumping in the capital.
Fast forward a few days and Pakistan’s complaining about being left alone in the war against terrorism. It’s not as if we’ve not fought the war on our side. It’s just that we’ve still kept our eye on India.
But there’s a big problem there too.
And that is that we played it very badly. And now India’s marching ahead and we look like we’re playing catch-up.
So there’s a government that’s supposed to handle this but is incapable of handling it. And there’s the very strong perception that it wouldn’t have been handle it even if it could, because others handle these things.
And they handle them because those who are supposed to handle them do a lousy job. But, again, it’s not as if we are winning any feathers in our cap at the moment. And the breakdown has not just left us left out, but also got everybody else to join together.
At least two certainties come out of this confusion. One, somebody obviously pushed for a foreign policy model that has left a little to be desired, to say the least. And two, Pak-India imbalance is the theme for the medium term, or at least as long as our denial lasts.
