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Foreign policy fumbles
Comment
Dr Niloufer Mahdi
THE discerning Pakistani citizen could, retrospectively, validly
conclude that this state has never been under competent stewardship.
It has had rulers rather than leaders. But that same citizen would
also arrive at the ineluctable conclusion that the current situation
is the worst in this nation’s history.
It is almost three months since the new government attained to
power. Yet, the opacity in terms of imperatives, priorities or,
simply, direction is depressing. This is both in the internal and
external contexts.
Conventional wisdom has always had it that the transitory nature of
governments has hardly mattered, insofar as in terms of policy
formulation and implementation, the bureaucracy has been there to
handle affairs. Its permanence, as an institution, is also assumed
to provide a level of expertise to the political functionaries in
terms of options and evaluation. This is all pathetic myth, and
Pakistan’s Foreign :Office is a prime example. The denizens of the
FO arrive via the CSS exams to the post of section officer and
proceed, with the fullness of time, to reach the upper echelons of
that service.
The process is hardly conducive to honing the intellect or
substituting for perspicacity, academic excellence or innate
capacity. All that acclivitous movement through the ranks
strengthens is sclerotic vision. This being the case, governments in
this country cannot rely on the bureaucracy to provide viable
policies or guidance. There is, thus, an exigent need for rulers to
be endowed with the vision, the intellect, the experience and the
instinctual qualities to chart a viable course for the nation. That
there has been precisely such a lack of qualitative leadership is an
irrecusable fact. Space prohibits an expatiation on the past lack of
leadership and, therefore, attention will be focused here on the
present situation.
Lamentably, and true to tradition, the incumbent decision-makers and
their coteries evince little of those qualities that could assure
one that Pakistan’s foreign policy is viable, independent and in the
national interest. Ask the foreign minister to locate Bujumbura on
the map. Ask Asif Zardari to locate Ouagadougou. And do not ask
Nawaz Sharif to locate any place other than Macdonalds. Lets face
it: the people who are the repositories of the decision-making
powers, are simply not imbued with the wherewithal to guide the ship
of state through the perilous shoals in which we now flounder.
When the Great White Father in Washington dispatched his henchmen,
John Negroponte and Richard Boucher to this land of subservient
natives, it was to size up the new dispensation and to read it the
US diktat. As per tradition, other than some mewling, one could
safely conclude that the government respectfully touched its
forelock. The American duo would not have expended much time in
evaluating the government or the party leaders. Their conclusions
could hardly have been complementary. Given the American agenda, the
collective capacities of Messers Zardari, Sharif and Gillani would
not have impressed the US representatives. Symptomatic of the
capacity of the power-wielders is their choice of advisors in the
foreign policy context. For example, the N-League trots out its
expert in the form of a superannuated FO “babu”, who doubles as
putative analyst on the telly. The PPP’s paucity is illustrated by
its choice of an erstwhile resident of an American institute whose
real capacity lies in jumping parties, this time landing on the
right side of the PPP.
It is inevitable, then, that the Americans should reaffirm and
reinforce their commitment to Pervez Musharraf’s completion of his
tenure. After all, he has been their boy for the last eight years,
and if they expected him to always do more, they would, nonetheless,
find him more competent than the present rulers.
When the N-League and the PPP were in opposition mode and, later,
during the elections, they gabbled, ad nauseam, about their
commitment to Pakistan’s sovereignty and independence and the
inimical consequences of following the American agenda. To be fair
though, the PPP was never as strident as the N-League, simply
because of Benazir Bhutto’s proclivity towards accommodating
American interests, and returning to Pakistan via Washington. The
real vehemence erupted from the Sharif camp. Nawaz was going to
remove Musharraf, pronto; install Dr. Qadeer Khan as president;
restore the judges and end American interference in Pakistan. All of
which merely illustrates how ignorant Mr. Sharif is of the
imperatives of realpolitik.
The fact of the matter is this: the US has its grip on Pakistan’s
jugular. Economically, Pakistan’s condition is brittle enough to
have brought it almost to shattering point. If the masses are not
given relief, the escalating deprivation can plausibly lead to civil
war. Any withdrawal of US financial support, at this point, will
propel Pakistan on the declivitous slope to hell. Baluchistan and
FATA are out of control. Elections have not healed suppurating
wounds, nor stemmed the alienation of the masses. Under these
conditions, it would have taken real leadership to chart a viable
foreign policy course and to release Pakistan from its gnaithomic
submission to Washington. To our irredeemable misfortunate, we lack
that leadership.
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