Isolated we stand

Not many reliable friends or allies

President Zardari’s lament while addressing the UN General Assembly that military strongmen are given red carpet treatment while those who have struggled for democracy are ignored by the West will fall on deaf ears.
Perhaps the president was obliquely hinting that Obama did not give him time on the sidelines of the General Assembly session on the pretext that he was too busy in his re-election campaign. It is a justified complaint. Despite strained relations of the past one and a half years Islamabad is supposed to be Washington’s ally.
The highest-ranking US official to meet the president in New York was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar had met her only last week in Washington. Hence, strictly speaking, there was no urgent need for the president to stretch the limits of protocol by meeting Clinton.
Admittedly the past four years have seen a consistent downward slide in the US-Pakistan relations. During the period, Islamabad has been downgraded from an ally and a friend to a “frenemy”.
After the killing of Osama bin Laden last May at Abbottabad by US Navy SEALs in a clandestine operation, the rot became apparent. And the Salala incident was the last straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.
His ultra-conservative opponents have accused Obama of being a closet Muslim. By most accounts, at college he had numerous Pakistani friends. As a student he even visited Karachi. Nonetheless, he is tougher on Pakistan than his predecessors.
Most people suffering from the “victim syndrome” perceive the downward slide as a result of American policies towards Pakistan, and successive governments kowtowing to its dictates. The approval ratings of the US, one of the lowest in the world are cited as an example.
The former US ambassador to Islamabad Cameron Munter feels otherwise. He thinks that Pakistan has, more than any other country he has served in 30 years of Foreign Service, latent pro-Americanism. The good ambassador resigned from his post before the end of his tenure in sheer frustration at the manner in which US policymakers were handling Pakistan.
The mayhem witnessed on the streets of Pakistan last Friday and calls from mainstream parties to sever the US connection however tell a different story. Munter’s recipe for the two countries to break out of competing narrative and traditional “bilateralness” remains a forlorn hope.
Our flawed strategic paradigm is generally blamed for the drift in relations between Washington and Islamabad. This criticism, although partly justified, does not absolve the civilians of the blame. In the field of diplomacy, like in other areas, the present government has taken the path of least resistance.
If its successive foreign ministers look towards the GHQ for guidance, why blame the diplomats? A case in point is the UN itself. Our permanent representative Abdullah Hussain Haroon is a political appointee who resigned his post a year ago.
By his own admission, Haroon is a proactive candidate for the caretaker prime minister’s post. On his recent not-too-infrequent visit to Pakistan he has been extremely critical of his own government’s US policy. According to him, Pakistan is all too willing to kowtow to US demands.
Obviously with his eyes on the top slot, Mr Haroon’s heart is not in his job. At a time when Pakistan is a member of the UN Security Council it is rather unfortunate.
Haroon considers Husain Haqqani, the controversial former Pakistani ambassador to the US, as a security risk. Ironically, his closest buddy amongst the UN diplomats is the Indian Permanent Representative.
There has been a lot of talk about Islamabad opening new foreign policy options, instead of being solely dependent on Washington. We already enjoy an ideal relationship with China. But as events have proved relations between states no matter how close have their limitations.
No one is willing to bail us out from the consequences of our own flawed policies. Even China is weary of the Pakistani Taliban knocking at its doors. And Russia is no exception either. In a sense, there is a wide consensus in the world that Islamabad should stop pandering to jihadist groups and come down hard on them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelling his scheduled visit to Islamabad is a big setback. The visit would have been the first ever by a Russian head of state. It could have been a game changer by providing a long overdue reset in Pakistan-Russia relations.
Putin’s ostensible warming up towards Pakistan after decades of neglect had sent jitters across the border. New Delhi has now relatively a much cozier relations with Washington. Being cash rich it has diversified its arms procurement drive, rather than being solely dependent on Moscow.
Putin in his letter to Zardari has hoped that he would be happy to receive him in Russia. This means that, for security reasons or otherwise, Putin is not going to visit Pakistan anytime soon.
According to media reports, Russia’s giant oil conglomerate Gazprom is interested in participating in the construction of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline as well as the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline. Hopefully, the Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s proposed visit to Moscow is still on. According to reports, Russia is keen to sell arms to Pakistan.
As is evident, Moscow becoming the new sugar daddy of Pakistan has severe limitations. Having been India’s traditional ally for decades as well as being its biggest arms supplier, New Delhi’s clout in Moscow remains strong.
On the other hand, Russia also knows that the deep differences notwithstanding, Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership is largely dependent on the US for economic survival as well as military hardware. Despite scaling back, intelligence and security sharing with the US still runs deep. Moscow is highly suspicious of Islamabad’s strategic paradigm.
It is evident that despite our policymakers’ own sense of Pakistan’s strategic importance, internationally speaking and in the region, we stand virtually isolated. Apart from China (its limitations notwithstanding) we cannot count on very many reliable friends and allies.
The need of the hour is to develop a new concord by engaging in a dialogue not only with the traditional doorkeepers but with the people of Pakistan as well. The national security state that we are, is no longer working.

The writer is Editor, Pakistan Today