First, what the program wanted to achieve & could not. I wanted to highlight that US foreign policy is fast becoming irrelevant in South Asia. The avowed center piece of US policy since early 1950s was to maintain stability, prevent expansion of communism and not to let the US relations with India and Pakistan to become a zero-sum game in which one side will use the power of United States to dominate the other. Throughout the 1960-1980s Pakistan was a crucial ally in fight against Soviet Communism and providing openings to China that turned the global balance in favor of the US and west and later Pakistan physically fought against the Indian supported Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; despite all these intimacy of relationship the cornerstone of US foreign policy was to maintain a balancing act with India. It did not want to lose India; it did not want to pressurize India to make it more unpopular in Delhi than what it was. It still saw its long term objectives in a less Soviet and more neutral India. US forcibly prevented Ayub Khans Pakistan from entering into the Indian occupied Kashmir in 1962, at the moment when Indian military machine was under-developed and demoralized after being humiliated by China. Pakistan wouldnot have reached Srinagar but would have generated enough pressure to seek a solution; it was its only chance to bring India to a negotiation table in a meaningful way to find some substantive settlement of Kashmir that would have provided lasting peace to both India and Pakistan - today both countries would have been much closer and friendly with deeper economic integration, may be like France & Germany. History is not pedestrian stuff; it is made of vision and bold strategy, any way Washingtons influence, its narrow self-centered short term goals and Pakistani underdog mentality failed Pakistan, India and history. US had stopped Pakistan from further demoralized a defeated India on the promise that it will force India to settle Kashmir. It tried in 1962-64 but Indians now recovering their confidence were able to successfully defeat the US diplomacy and nothing came out on Kashmir. This ultimately lead to the Pakistani frustrated military moves that culminated in the ill conceived Operation Gibraltar and all out Indian attack in 1965, that ultimately crystallized Indian plans for 1971. (which were in making since 1963) Throughout US tried to play a balancing act, desperately in 1971 when it had no influence on India. Indira Gandhi successfully outmaneuvered US influence in bailing out Pakistan, though Americans did stop India from forcibly taking out Azad Kashmir after the collapse of Dacca, realizing that rest of West-Pakistan will become totally unstable and India will become too powerful. Now skipping the 1970-90 period, which is much discussed. The real game changer whose influence we see now in South Asia is not 9/11This is a misunderstood pedestrian argument. The real change was collapse of Soviet Union and Indian foreign Offices quick realization that without aligning it with the US and west its interests will be jeopardized. They quickly abandoned Soviet block, entered US through Israel, and worked intelligently on creating new narratives to isolate Pakistan. The international perception of Pakistan as some sort of evil, and a threat to the world is a fruit of an intelligent, creative and persistent work by Indian intelligence communities aided by Indian educated diasporas across the west and other parts of the world that started much before 9/11. Events of 9/11 provided lucrative opportunities to Indian thinkers. Pakistani governments, intelligence communities and media have been no match for the Indian craftiness and have remained obsessed with physical and material things like Jihadis, guns and bombs; Indians understood the importance of abstract and thus narrative shaping. India has created a Psych-Strategy against Pakistan, beefing it up by creating events on grounds where necessary for example the false flag operation on Indian parliament in Dec 2001 or the attack on Sri Lankan Cricket team that completed Pakistans isolation from international sporting. (And the pathetic Pedestrians in media and politics keep on discussing whether foot soldiers were Muslims and had Khatnas or not) But the main center piece of Indian policy is a not a physical war against Pakistan; their goal is to isolate Pakistan, to demoralize it internally and to reduce its ability to resist Indian influence and to bargain effectively in a new evolving South and Central Asian region - a goal which they have mostly achieved or will achieve if Pakistanis failed to wake up from their shallow hopelessly pedestrian arguments of No Muslim can do it and Khatna theories to make sense of the larger conflict (attempts to find Ram Prakash in dead body of Muhammad Aslam or Usman Khan Mohmand is a pathetic failure of Pakistani imagination) This much background should suffice. Yes, fear of a rising China dominates US and western minds and shapes all their attitudes towards India which they desperately want to beef up. A recalcitrant, defiant Pakistan (though pursuing its own regional interests and imperatives) remains a problem for US and western policy on South Asia. They see it as an irritant for India and thus for themselves, since they are wedded to India. Read their policy papers in Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs and host of such policy publications. This is a long debate , but the net outcome is the emerging shape of a weak US foreign Policy that has totally capitulated itself to Indian interests in South Asia. All what they are trying today is to please India. They have started to act like Indian messengers. (Ailchis) John Kerrys hopeless performance (which is only a replay of all US officials visiting South Asia for the past several years) was evidence if needed. Watch his troubled, defeated body language when he responds to Dawns correspondent, Mateen Haider. The fact that US has lost all trust in Pakistan, the fact that it has started to behave like an extension of Indian interests (which they shamelessly call US interests) means that now US will have increasingly less and less honest leverage in the region. They already have no leverage in Delhi, they are hostage to Delhis clever maneuvering. You need evidence? look how whole west is dancing to curry favors with Narendra Modi, a confirmed fundamentalist and killer of minorities. (Decisions of Indian courts dont matter; even Lakhvi cannot be convicted in a normal court process) US keeps on asking Pakistan to do more, but is unable to extract any concessions from New Delhi. Pakistani ruling elites look more and more like shameless US underdogs to majority of Pakistanis. This further reduces their ability to deliver on crucial regional issues. Today US foreign Policy is fast becoming a hostage of their Indian Affair the way it had started to collapse in front of Israeli maneuvers after 1967 and look what happened to middle east once it lost its international balancing levers. Fast emerging collapse of US foreign policy in the region is a recipe for incalculable disasters, blood sheds and instability - all what the US historically wanted to prevent. Yes! Pakistani Army is struggling to get rid of Indian penetrated TTP and other groups, but there are limitations to what military alone can achieve and our romance with a genius kind of military is totally misplaced. Pakisan needs broad political solutions and ultimately a deal with India. Most Pakistani columnists and Editors for instance still talking of blow backs are smoking pot or living on Mars.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:33:34 +0000
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