The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.
In today’s world of chaos and mayhem, when everything seems to sit on the edge of the knife, most countries would want to lessen their strategic burdens. They would welcome stability, some harmony and equilibrium in their relations with other nations. But not us. Shahid Afridi-like, we continue to hit at everything. We take great but transitory pleasure in seeing the loftiness of our shots even though they never get us over the rope, and in the end, lead to bizarre and embarrassing situations.
It is hardly surprising that we are staring at the real prospect of getting isolated in our immediate neghbourhood. As other countries, big or small and in different regions, move with tremendous speed towards securing stable toeholds, we are going round in circles, chasing the lasting shadows of our own mistakes.
Of the four significant countries that border us – Iran, Afghanistan, India and China – we have precarious situations with three, and if this trend continues then our relations with China too could be severely jolted. Beijing’s entire policy of trade and commerce across Asia and beyond hinges on keeping its near-abroad sane and uneventful. It does not want quarrels. They are bad for business, trade and smooth flow of energy.
It makes perfect sense that we should be livid with India’s blatant attempt at sneaking spies into our cities and trying to encourage forces that either want to promote chaos in our heartland or foster terrorism. Any country would be terribly upset with a discovery like that, and if the instigator-in-chief of such a move happens to be a large, menacing and arrogant neighbour then expressions of dismay must translate into a full-fledged protest with all options on the table to take the reaction to the next level.
Equally strong is the logic for keeping all vain and limp peace efforts with Delhi on hold till such time that there is a measure of reciprocity from the other side. The one-sidedness of the peace-push is both useless and demeaning. However, if history is any guide no two nations have allowed incidents like these to become the basis of their long-term policy towards each other. Unless one of them happens to be North Korea, generally, it is assumed that such events are part of the I-spy-on-your-back-you-spy-on-mine pattern.
India has a network here. We would have a network there. Today we caught their undercover agents; tomorrow they might catch ours. Is that going to become the corner-stone of our long-term policy to deal with a tough neighbour? Certainly not. If not, then what is our policy towards a tough neighbour? We don’t find any answer to the question because we don’t have a policy. We have events filling in for policy.
This is disturbing. Let us not forget that our high-moral ground on this matter is as shaky as our expectation is flaky that the international community is going to suffer emotional agonies over the capture of an Indian spy in our midst. At present if there is one thing that the international community is looking at in the context of India-Pakistan relations it is the nukes and with it incidents like Pathankot. And that is where it becomes dangerously slippery for us. Inviting more international attention to our relations with India means getting more focus on these two matters.
Further, the Indian spy capture is becoming the equivalent of the cold-war Red Scare in the United States, spearheaded by many mini Joseph McCarthys who are accusing everyone they dislike of being an Indian agent. They see gigantic conspiracy in the low-key stance of the civilian government on this event and with the help of paid-pipers in the media create daily episodes of Body Snatchers and The Invaders – movies made under the influence of McCarthyism to suggest that every strata of American society was penetrated by Communists that needed to be fought and annihilated for the real Americans to survive.
This craziness of over-reaction has led us to lock horns with Iran, our second important neighbour. A perfectly good opportunity to instil some balance and strategic sense in our ties with Tehran has been perfectly ruined. If Iranian soil is indeed being used to promote trouble here then there is not just one, but dozen of channels available to drive the point home to the Iranians that this is unacceptable and shall not be tolerated. Pakistan’s interests come before any other consideration.
But we had to be bombastic about it; we had to show how hard we can’t hit it and how long it will go. Now the result is upon us. We have only smacked ourselves in the head and have driven ourselves farther from the objective of rationalising our equation with Tehran. We have used an Imprecion-Imprecision Missile (our very own creation) upon an already bruised relationship. Now see the situation: You have Narendra Modi with all his unholiness being feted in the Holy Land while we are thinking of how to make Iranians forget how their president was treated in the Land of the Muscular Pure. This qualifies to be put on the top of the list of Strategic Stupidities.
Moreover, if we were genuinely so protective of our land and wanted it to be purged of all manner of trouble then we should have cracked down on foreign funding for terror networks and demolished that vast western espionage system, both human and technological, that leads to repeated bloodbaths and breaches of security. But we won’t do that. So we apply our love for our country selectively.
The third country, Afghanistan, too is not in a celebratory mood as far as our relationship with Kabul is concerned. In our zeal to be relevant and stay on the high table, we committed to getting the Taliban to talk peace. Here is the non-news for you: They aren’t talking – neither to Kabul, nor to each other, nor indeed to us. And as for peace, the less said the better because it is not there.
It is only a matter of time before Ashraf Ghani dons the Hamid Karzai robe and begins to attack us for destabilising his already upside down country (minus their cricket team of course). When that happens – ‘if’ is not even relevant now – our emaciated cooperation with Kabul shall become weaker still. And this at a time when the summer offensive will be speeding up with its extra casualties and violence and Daesh, dislocated from Nangarhar, will be using its new base in Kunar and Nuristan to expand its ingress in our land. How do you think the Chinese will look at us in such circumstances? They have asked us to do one thing – stay stable, keep your troubles at bay, and let a thousand flowers of trade and commerce bloom. And what is our response? Embrace more trouble, generate more controversy and get into a three-dimensional fight.
But even this doesn’t complete the picture we have created for ourselves. India, Afghanistan, and Iran, all three score very high on the card of US interests in the region. If Washington has to pick a side in this saga, it won’t be us. So the cookie crumbles something like this: four vs one plus China that is pleading for calm and praying not to be dragged into this mire. All of this is, of course, apart from is our domestic situation where a game of thrones is on with renewed vigour. You see a race for prominence; a hysterical attempt at hogging power, and a shrinking democracy.
Where have we learnt this undying art of self-destruction? How have we mastered the skill to always be hoisted by our own petard? Who plans these things? Very few countries in the world have so much going for them as Pakistan does. It is a democracy with a strong defence and a location that the world desperately needs. And still we are in the state that we are in. This is a stroke of the same genius that drives Mr Afridi to do what he does.
Email: syedtalathussaingmail.com
Twitter: TalatHussain12