Pakistan and its Foreign Policy

Pakistan and its Foreign Policy 

By Syed Mansoor Hussain

If we did not have an ongoing confrontation with India, why would we need such a big army? For all practical purposes, Pakistan became an army with a country. 

A friend of mine recently asked me why I never comment on Pakistani foreign policy. My response was that the Pakistan army has a foreign policy but does Pakistan have a foreign policy? His question did, however, start me thinking. If someone asks me to sum up Pakistan’s foreign policy, I will just say ‘India’. As a Pakistani-American acquaintance in the US once insisted, Pakistan and being a Pakistani is all about not being Indian and no, he is not a Punjabi.

Here, let me just sum up some of the ‘facts’ that I grew up with. My father’s family migrated from the district of Gurdaspur when they found out that it was not going to be a part of Pakistan. My childhood memories are replete with stories of how thousands of Muslims were massacred in their homes and how marauding bands of Hindus and Sikhs preyed upon unarmed caravans of Muslims coming to Pakistan and how they brutally killed everyone including children. And how trains would arrive in Lahore full of dead passengers.

Then there were the stories of Indian perfidy. How India prevented the princely states of Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad Deccan from joining Pakistan. And how the Indians refused to pay up Pakistan’s share of money held in the Bank of India, thus almost driving the new country into bankruptcy. But then things started to calm down a bit during the mid-1950s. Pakistan it seemed was there to stay, and the new country also seemed to be doing better. So, we watched Indian movies and listened to songs from those movies playing on the radio, and stopped thinking too much of what happened around the time of the partition.

But Kashmir continued to be a sticking point. Most of us in Pakistan felt at that time that the Kashmir ‘issue’ would be decided in our favour by the United Nations (UN), and all would be just fine. We joined international defence pacts with the US so we could get arms aid and also get the US on our side in our dispute with India over Kashmir. However, by the time the 1960s came around it became pretty obvious that India was not going to give up Kashmir. Then came the 1965 war between India and Pakistan that we ‘won’. But still no Kashmir!

Pakistan had by now come under complete control of the army and, therefore, ‘foreign policy’ was entirely about India. After all, if we did not have an ongoing confrontation with India, why would we need such a big army? For all practical purposes, Pakistan became an army with a country. And then came 1971. Perhaps the saddest year in our history. Pakistan went mad. Pakistanis killed Pakistanis without mercy in what was then East Pakistan and India stepped in and helped to break Pakistan up. The Pakistan army was utterly humiliated and it withdrew to the barracks to ‘lick its chops’, handing the country over to the ‘bloody civilians’.

Once the Pakistan army had recuperated from its humiliating defeat, it took over Pakistan once again. Then the Pakistan army got a present from above. The USSR invaded Afghanistan. Suddenly the US that had ignored Pakistan found new love for it. Money and arms poured in so that the Pakistan army could help Afghan ‘mujahideen’ fight the Russian invaders. The generals in Pakistan got rich ‘beyond the dreams of avarice’, while the Islamist general running Pakistan pushed the country into the lap of ‘petro-Dollar Islam’. The Soviets were eventually forced to leave Afghanistan and the Pakistan army declared victory! The Pakistan army it now seemed would run Pakistan forever. 

But then came another intervention from ‘above’. As a result another ‘democratic’ dispensation came into existence. However, a new paradigm of ‘strategic depth’ became established. Now the army was needed more than ever to also prevent the perfidious Indians from establishing a foothold in our backyard in Afghanistan. This mindset eventually led to the Taliban and creation of jihadist ‘surrogates’ trained to fight future proxy wars in India. For almost a decade of the supposed democratic interregnum, the army continued to run foreign policy.

Mian Nawaz Sharif became the Prime Minister (PM) with an overwhelming mandate in 1997. He thought that it was time for the ‘bloody’ civilians to actually run the country. The Pakistan economy tanked after the ‘tit for tat’ nuclear explosions and the following international sanctions. Even so, the Indian PM was invited to Lahore and it seemed that having achieved ‘nuclear’ parity, India and Pakistan were finally ready to ‘live and let live’. But the army was not taking this lying down. Mian Sahib’s ‘handpicked’ army chief created the Kargil ‘situation’ that brought to an end any peace initiatives between India and Pakistan.

Of course, the army took over once again. Things looked bad for Pakistan but then 9/11 happened. This time the US and its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan. And the generals started getting rich again. But the US after a while realised that the Pakistan army was not playing ‘fair’. The president-general was packed off and another democratic dispensation was brought in but foreign policy was still run by the army. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 made sure that the weak civilian government in Pakistan could not possibly improve relations with India.

Mian Sahib is now back with another ‘mandate’. But before he can do much else he has to first take care of the economic situation, control the terrorists, some of whom are supported indirectly by the army; and keep ‘his cool’ while the US and its allies leave Afghanistan. Perhaps then we might see a ‘pro-Pakistan’ and not just a ‘pro-army’foreign policy. Of course, the first step will have to be normalisation of relations with India. Will the Pakistan army let him do that and will the Indian army let the Indian government reciprocate in good faith? That remains to be seen.

The writer has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com

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