We have seen the world’s political landscape alter decisively between two television news bulletins. The Soviet Empire has crumbled and all power has at last gone to the people. A full scale civil war rages in the heart of Europe. Democracy and development are the new buzz words for Latin America. The Arab world is about to change incontrovertibly, with the Middle East peace conference due later this month. Heady times, for some.
But not for Pakistan. For Pakistan, these are desperate times. The Americans have abandoned Islamabad and Europe seems to be following suit. The world’s only well-stacked creditor, Japan, is so distressed with the government that the Japanese Ambassador’s statements have turned him into a local celebrity. For most Asian countries, Japan is the new power and even before that era has properly dawned, Mr Sharif’s credibility in Tokyo is hovering around zero.
Is there any chance that Pakistan will respond sensibly and in it’s greater national interest to the new world that is upon us? There has been a great deal of running around, on the part of the Foreign Office, cabinet ministers and even the ISI chief. And it has all gone to show one thing. That Pakistan’s political establishment is as divided over foreign policy as it has ever been. That Nawaz Sharif has proved incapable of giving the country either a vision or a direction.
Look at the facts. We are still stuck in a war in Afghanistan, about three years after the rest of the world has lost interest. The recent offensive against Gardez demonstrates that although the Foreign Office is ostensibly pursuing peace, the military still wants to talk tough. Pakistan’s credibility on this issue stands at its lowest ebb, because we have lied about our intentions for too long. The more protracted the Afghan war, the more military successes the fundamentalist Mujahedin notch up, the greater will be the suspicion in Moscow and Washington that we are not serious about peace.
For those who may be in doubt, we are mired in a war in Kashmir. As the Indian army intensifies it’s repression, Pakistan increases it’s help to the Kashmiri militants. In the past few months there have been a number of serious scares that cross border shelling could escalate into a full scale war. There is nothing new or ingenious about Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. It lacks coherence and seems not to take into account the fact that we need peace with India, not just to prosper but to survive.
And as if all that were not enough, we are bang in the middle of a tug of war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This played itself out first in Afghanistan and now perhaps more seriously, in the bitter and bloody sectarian strife between Pakistan’s Shias and Wahhabis. Witness the violence and blood-curdling proclamations from both sides. Witness the chaos in once-peaceful backwaters like Jhang in the heart of the Punjab. Where in all of this is a serious effort on the part of the government to prevent outside funding of sectarian parties?
The cold war is over and with it has gone our ‘front line’ status. It is time to rid ourselves of the 1950’s mindset which confirmed us in our station as a linchpin of American strategy in the region. The West and its allies have paid our bills for 44 long years. They are not interested any more. We need to look to ourselves for our salvation and to neighbours closer home. We need to re-examine our bomb-in-the-basement mentality for something more feasible. We cannot wish the New World Order away. It exists and we have to look it squarely in the face.
Today, you cannot avoid the conclusion that Pakistan’s foreign policy is adrift. While President Ghulam Ishaq Khan waxes eloquent about a new imperialism in such well known anti-imperialism in such well known anti-imperialist capitals as Riyadh, foreign diplomats in Islamabad snigger at his naivete. The new Islamic block that will somehow turn the world around, is actually lining up behind the West as fast as it can. Even Iran has beaten us at the pragmatism game. More to the point, there is no resonance between Mr Khan’s proclamations in Saudi Arabia and those of the Foreign Office or even the Prime Minister. Is it true then that the Foreign Office is not immune to the national malaise of fragmentation? Has our country’s foreign policy been divided into fiefdoms by the warlords of present day Pakistan?