P for Pakistan

A definite snub

Official spokespersons, by definition, have a tough job to perform. Especially when a large swath of opinion doubts the credibility of the government they represent.

The White House spokesman Sean Spicer has a Herculean job defending his enigmatic boss US President Donald Trump. Spicer is the butt of all kinds of jokes on SNL (Saturday Light Live), a satirical popular TV program that does not spare anyone including US presidents.

But spokesmen of various departments of the GOP (government of Pakistan) don’t even sound funny defending half-truths or plain lies. Take the case of Nafees Zakria, the official spokesperson of the foreign office, playing down the diplomatic embarrassment caused to Pakistan by the Saudi monarch by not inviting Nawaz Sharif in the presence of the US president to speak.

According to Zakria it was no snub at all as our prime minister was amongst thirty leaders who did not get to speak owing to paucity of time. According to him the Saudi monarch personally apologised for this affront.

Another person close to Sharif gave a novel explanation for the omission. Apparently the heads of state or governments present at the summit were to speak in alphabetical order. Since P (for Pakistan) is after Indonesia, the Indonesian president was able to address the summit while Pakistan was excluded.

This explanation, even if true, is laughable. It only means that while we bend backwards to claim that Pakistan is pivotal to the interests of the Islamic world and to the west owing to its strategic location, the reality is quite different.

Our officialdom claims ad nauseam that no one can afford to ignore Islamabad. After all we are a nuclear power with more missiles than even Great Britain and have the fifth largest professional and well-equipped army in the world to boot.

Nonetheless it is quite obvious (at least to discerning observers) that we simply love to punch much above our weight.

Our Middle East policy is full of contradictions. Despite our self-perceived importance, the Saudis — our biggest sponsors — merely treated us at the Summit in alphabetical order. They did not give Sharif any preferred treatment.

In the initial phase of forming of the 41-nations so-called Islamic anti-terrorism force we procrastinated. It was claimed that Islamabad will not dispatch any combat troops for the anti terrorism coalition.

At the time General Raheel Sharif was the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Both the army chief and the prime minister flew together to Riyadh and later Tehran to mediate between the two implacable foes of the Middle East.

Our Arab friends were not at all amused by Islamabad apparently trying to pay the role of an honest broker. They perceived it as deliberate delaying tactics and as a ploy for hunting with the hounds and running with the hares.

The Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, was so incensed that he readily accepted New Delhi’s invitation to be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day. Mega economic and defence deals were signed during the visit. The UAE deputy foreign minister went to the extent of bitterly castigating Pakistan in a statement.

The Abu Dhabi leaders refused to invite or receive any functionary of the Pakistan government. It was only the newly inducted COAS, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who was able to visit the Gulf Emirate and eventually break the ice.

Nevertheless, the Riyadh summit is symptomatic of Islamabad’s virtual diplomatic isolation. Even if it is accepted that Sharif did not get a chance to speak at the summit owing to shortage of time, what prevented our Saudi hosts and the US president from acknowledging Pakistan’s critical role in countering terrorism in the region?

President Trump, however, did not forget to mention India as one of the victims of terrorism. Islamabad’s omission seemed deliberate.

Washington is stuck in the Afghan quagmire. The resurgence of the Taliban, as a result of which US troops are dying there, has forced Trump — contrary to his election pledge – to send 5,000 additional troops to the beleaguered country.

Ironically Washington, New Delhi and Kabul, in unison blame Pakistani based terror groups for fomenting trouble in the region. Trump in his speech without naming Pakistan obliquely mentioned cross border terrorism in the region.

Ironically, even Tehran is miffed with Islamabad on two counts. Firstly Pakistan after initial hesitation dispatched its recently retired army chief to head the essentially anti-Iran coalition. The venom spewed against Iran at the summit and the $110 billion US arms deal with Riyadh leaves no doubt about the real intentions of the so-called Islamic coalition and its patrons.

Secondly, Tehran accuses Islamabad of incitingtrouble in Iran from its borders. There have been skirmishes on the Balochistan border followed by a very threatening statement from the Iranian military chief.

Pakistan is also annoyed with Iran, especially when the Iranian Foreign Minister Jawed Zarif had only visited recently to discuss better border management.

Hopefully backdoor diplomatic efforts will lead to some sort of fence mending between the two neighbours and Islamic brothers. Resultantly both Sharif and the COAS should consider visiting Tehran sooner than later.

We should also revisit our foreign policy options. If so many international players and all our neighbours, with the sole exception of China, are annoyed with our policies then we should take a hard look at them.

Merely playing the victim card will no longer do. The world simply does not buy this hackneyed mantra: being a victim of terrorism, how can we sponsor terrorism in the neighborhood?

Of course we have lost 70,000 lives at the hands of those perpetrating terrorism by virtue of a misconceived and self-serving interpretation of religion. But this does not mean that certain groups should continue using our territory to fan the flames of terrorism in the region.

The prime minister, instead of assiduously keeping the portfolio of foreign affairs with him, should appoint a full time foreign minister. With Tariq Fatimi, the special assistant to the prime minister foreign affairs, made to fall on his sword in the Dawngate saga and the octogenarian Sartaj Aziz too old for the job, he should pick some able person from the parliament.

If he cannot find anyone from the ruling party, he should look elsewhere.