Opinion The dark side of foreign policy

Not many foreign secretaries of Pakistan have critically examined the extremist elements serving as instruments of its foreign policy. Riaz Mohammad Khan was foreign secretary (2005-08),ambassador to China (2002-05),to the European Union,Belgium and Luxembourg (1995-98) and to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (1992-95). Before that,as a junior officer,he had started as a “China hand”,trained in the Chinese language when he began his career in Beijing as third secretary. As a junior officer,he served in Pakistan’s UN mission in New York (1979-86).

The book is about not only foreign policy but also the nature of the state shaping it. The reference to extremism and resistance to modernity in the title of the book is significant,and most Pakistani bureaucrats and retired generals will take it as a digression from the “pure art” of describing foreign affairs as practised amorally by governments in the pursuit of their national interests.

This,in fact,is the intellectual dimension of Khan’s book. It threatens to expose the unfolding of Pakistan’s foreign policy as a negative factor in the evolution of the state. This is something that no one serving Pakistan,in whatever official capacity,thinks of doing. The reason is loyalty to the employer and attachment to nationalism,where no impartial judgements are allowed.

He challenges opinion-making in Pakistan with the following observation: “regional and global issues,Pakistani reactions and commentaries often betray a besieged mentality verging on a persecution complex. In addition to an appetite for outlandish conspiracy theories,the political culture of the country shows a proclivity to look for extraordinary explanations,in particular for failures. Political changes in the country have often been attributed to foreign machinations rather than to mistakes committed at home.”

Only an outsider could see and marvel at the compulsive use of the “foreign hand doctrine” in Pakistan,as the federal interior minister of the last government attributed the killing of innocent Pakistanis by Taliban to the US,the ethnic cleansing of the Hazara Shia in Quetta to India and the target-killing of citizens in Karachi to Israel in tandem with the other two,by adding the saving clause “can’t be ruled out” to his statements.

Extremism based on religion springs from a condition of certitude. And no certitude is possible without reductionism. When collective certitude wells up,it leads to violence. Individuals backed by groups become fascistic in their effort to impose their creed on others. People who are fired by conviction can be opposed at the risk of attracting the label of heresy. Liberals are less impressive because they find fault with creeds and are singularly lacking in the symbolism of power. The state in Pakistan,to the extent that it is religious,is an extremist state.

Pakistan’s foreign policy towards India is based on nurturing some of the most dangerous international terrorist organisations and their local protégés: “groups such as Sipah-e-Sahaba and Jaish-e-Muhammad commonly resort to threats to browbeat opponents. A perverse form of religious vigilantism is evident in the violence directed against individuals and religious minorities over alleged incidents of blasphemy. Low-level police officials and even lower court judges feel harassed or have dealt with cases under pressure from fanatical religious groups”.

The book contains a tonic passage about the doctrinal noose strangulating rational policy: “dubious and impractical doctrines and ideas would only give rise to misgivings and distrust. Ideas such as ‘strategic depth’ only reflected confused and warped thinking that sometimes clouded Pakistan’s policy and approach to Afghanistan.” The army chief,General Beg,who mouthed this doctrine,could,under normal circumstances,face charges of treason for rigging an election.

The “instruments of Pakistan’s foreign policy” — the mujahideen — were not really controlled by the state; in fact,there is growing evidence that it was the other way round. Khan tells us how Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s effort in 1992,through Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed,to get the mujahideen to agree to his policy came to grief. In 2012,Qazi Hussain Ahmed died,possibly from the stress he suffered from an unsuccessful suicide-bomber attack,from the very elements he had supported as an instrument of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

Khan knew that the ISI’s support of the “charismatic” mujahideen was based not on any strategic analyses,but on “reverse indoctrination”,something that haunts the GHQ in Rawalpindi,where the army chief may at times be scared of his own officers. Soon,the army chiefs of Pakistan became convinced that if they tried to get rid of the non-state actors-turned terrorists they could get killed. Khan writes what must rate as the most significant paragraph in the book: “In April 2000,I had occasion to raise the issue of support to jihadi groups with General Pervez Musharraf,then chief executive,on the occasion of the Havana G-77 summit,in the company of Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed and National Security Adviser Tariq Aziz. I argued that Musharraf could not realise his economic agenda for development without giving up support for jihadist groups,who were spawning an environment hostile to foreign investment and economic growth. Musharraf disagreed and placed the blame for economic ills on corruption. When I persisted,he literally closed the argument with a remark that what I was suggesting could bring an end to his government.”

Khan served Pakistan during what looked like the end of the epoch of a 60-year war with India. His thinking is,in a way,anticipatory of a paradigm shift in the state’s attitude towards India,but he may feel lonely among the phalanx of retired diplomats and military officers still hanging on to the conflictual status quo. It hardly matters in 2013 that the people of Pakistan,haunted by terrorism,have stopped supporting nationalism based on rivalry with India.

Khan is convinced it’s time Pakistan changed its policy towards India. Pakistan’s ambition to become a hub of economic activity would be difficult to realise without the opening of transit routes to India. When Pakistan initiated the idea of activating the KKH for commerce with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in early 1993,the two countries were enthusiastic. The Kazakh minister for transportation convened a meeting and invited both the Pakistani and Indian ambassadors based in Alma Ata. He was disappointed to learn that India could not be included at that time,in view of tensions in relations between the two South Asian neighbours.

The Pakistan army should let foreign policy go. One says it because all armies attach foreign policy to geopolitics and therefore disqualify themselves as arbiters. They tie a most changeable category to the most unchanging physical aspect of the country where they imagine they see permanent advantage.

The concept of negotiating with rival states on the principle of sovereign equality is easily made irrelevant and reduced to mere rhetoric by diplomatic isolation. The most extreme form of isolation is the implied name-tag of “rogue state” which denudes the country of all prospects of ever achieving the “soft image” needed for economic survival. Pakistan is fast approaching that crossroads in its trajectory of statehood; and some glimpses of this journey are flagged in Riaz Mohammad Khan’s book.

PS: Khan was retained after his retirement for “back-channel” diplomacy with India,but was abruptly fired in 2008 before the expiry of his extension.

The writer is a consulting editor with ‘Newsweek Pakistan’

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