COMMENT: The Clinton statement —Shahzad Chaudhry
The total deaths of Pakistanis in this war against terror amount to around 27,000. And yet some question the ownership of this war? Secretary Clinton may have many reasons for her frustrations but that can never include Pakistan’s lack of commitment, paid for in blood
When Faisal Shahzad attempted that crude adventure to light a fireball in Times Square, the most likely beneficiary through relative gains was thought to be India, since Pakistan’s loss is translated easily as India’s gain. Preet Bharara, the naturalised Indian-American legal expert of New York City, at least, would have us believe so with an almost reflexive pronouncement of the Pakistani state’s culpability. The one to, however, totally lose her equanimity was the variously hallowed Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Threatening Pakistan with unbearable consequences of actions that would take shape in the coming days, the lady resorted to unacceptable crudity. Just a month back, as she hobnobbed with Pakistan’s foreign minister and set forth the seriousness in the ‘strategic dialogue’, she appeared to be giving a slightly deeper meaning to the term strategic. It has been my refrain though for a long time that the durational definition of the term strategic in the US-Pakistan context is never longer than five years; 10 years would be grand strategy. So short would be the US cover has come as a surprise to even the most ardent of US haters.
Some things have not been right with Mrs Clinton. Recent reports suggest she is not inside President Obama’s closest circles, that she took her time finding comfort in working with him — as late as the Environment Summit in Copenhagen — and, in some cases, the president’s office has assumed direct control of policy and translation of the president’s intent in the foreign policy domain, particularly in the interest to allay Muslim apprehensions. Her nominee and point man on Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has been practically sidelined under presidential preference and has actively been seeking avenues outside the government, in anticipation. The president’s other interest in foreign policy, the Israeli-Palestinian equation, is tended to by George Mitchell. The president’s own disposition to Israeli arrogance is well established and does not gel with Mrs Clinton’s world view on the same issue. Remember, she is heavily dependent on the support of a large Jewish and Indian lobby in New York for her political relevance and has favours to return. She has herself stated that she does not see herself lasting out President Obama’s entire first term. She has also determined that she may not have what it takes to fight another election for president. The lady is quite obviously out of sorts, despite the gloss.
Life in the Washington Beltway, they say, is hard. Frustrations are many and one may soon lose the needed focus. Could this explain her outburst, especially since this is in direct contrast with what both the secretary of defence and his generals have tended to convey when commenting on the near incident? Bob Gates was measured in his qualification of Clinton’s aggressive statement: not only were the Pakistanis in the front seat in their own war against the TTP, they could ask for any type of support from the US to aid their effort. Notice the difference? General Patraeus brushed aside any questions of commitment and will on the part of the Pakistanis; he quoted the heavy price that Pakistan has already paid in its bid to cleanse its surroundings. The Pakistan Army has lost over 2,700 men, perhaps even 3,000, in this war against terror, which is more than what Pakistan lost in the 1965 War against India. Who would ever question Pakistan’s resolve to fight terror against such clear and obvious facts? The total deaths of Pakistanis in this war against terror amount to around 27,000. And yet some question the ownership of this war? Secretary Clinton may have many reasons for her frustrations but that can never include Pakistan’s lack of commitment, paid for in blood.
Make no mistake, there is a lot more to do in Pakistan. We have yet to garner a discernible, integrated, comprehensive way out of our current muddle, and little is forthcoming. We have to recover our lost potential and promise in economic terms and a better social direction and more integrated and complementary societal coexistence. We still need to figure out a way to bring closure to this current war and define the endgame with clearly delineated objectives against a time-line. But for someone of Mrs Clinton’s stature to pronounce the Pakistani state and people’s culpability for a crude individual act in the US, is extending the argument far beyond reason. Hillary Clinton has lost the mileage she covered in Pakistan when she visited last and has wasted the capital she diligently cultivated. Hillary Clinton’s worldview is incongruent with that of the Pakistanis and is in need of serious repair. Perhaps it is her job to act the bad cop and perhaps she arrogates too much to herself.
In conducting diplomacy, it is instructive to study societal responses in various testing conditions. The Americans become paranoid about their safety, leading them at times to dehumanise all else for their own survival. The Indians are careful teasers of an environment and test the waters fully before they jump right in, mostly exaggerating their sense of self-assurance thereon, but remain steadfastly deliberate. The Pakistanis are a strange brand. There is not a nation that has seen so much adversity in the last six decades, each time raising the fears of a state ready to fold, and yet it lumbers on, sometimes recovering stronger than the original — resilient you might even call it. They have staved off a living and existential danger in India since inception, a nation as big and large in relative terms as the US, and a more persistent threat. Even if the US were to convert itself to the same status as India from the existing — courtesy Mrs Clinton’s efforts — it shall still be in desperate need of support in her primary agenda to neutralise the terrorists that haunt Americans at home. The US will still seek partners to stabilise Afghanistan before it can beat a retreat and, with some prognostication, still remains in the need to remain cooperatively engaged in the pursuit of abiding interests in the region and specifically in Pakistan. The Pakistanis will live through an inimical US as well, but one doubts whether the US may be able to gain what it intends to without Pakistan’s support. Not without reason then that President Obama and his men have been working overtime in damage control following the Clinton statement.
Hillary Clinton has done no service to herself, her nation, or to the Pak-US relationship in uttering the nonsensical. This has been the most damaging single act, defeating by miles Faisal Shahzad’s misadventure. The Pakistani state must urgently engage the US on the implications of such provocative pronouncements. The earlier Hillary Clinton repairs the damage, the better it is for our joint cause of fighting the menace of terrorism. Or else, the other side and all their kin shall have the last laugh.
Shahzad Chaudhry is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador
