Husain Haqqani vs Riaz Haq on India-Pakistan Ties

Ex Ambassador of Pakistan Mr. Husain Haqqani was interviewed on October 22, 2016 by Talk4Pak team's host Faraz Darvesh on his views on India-Pakistan relations.



This week,  regular Talk4Pak panelist Riaz Haq has offered his rebuttal to a number of statements made by Ambassador Haqqani during his interview. Here's a brief summary of Mr. Haqqani's views and Riaz Haq's responses.

Husain Haqqani: Pakistan needs to treat all "terrorists" alike and crack down on all of them.

Riaz Haq:  Most nations differentiate between "good" militants and "bad" militants.

For example, Indians see Bhagat Singh as "shaheed" (martyr) and Burhan Wani a "terrorist" even though both were fighting for freedom from foreign rule.

Also, Haqqanis were called freedom fighters (Mujahedeen) against Soviets but now called terrorists by Americans.

US and Israel founding fathers are accepted as freedom fighters, not terrorists.

Like others, Pakistan, too, has to differentiate among militants as a practical matter because, as President Clinton has said,  "you can not kill or jail all the terrorists".

Pakistan security forces are already stretched in their fight against Indian-backed terrorists like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (See Doval Doctrine), the Baloch militants openly supported by Indian Prime Minister Modi and MQM militants who, according to sworn testimony of Mohammad Anwar and Tariq Mir, receive funding to launch attacks in Karachi.  Opening up additional fronts against more groups in response to Indian and US demands can potentially lead to the defeat of Pakistani security forces followed by a civil war.

HH: Indian economy is 20X Pakistan's

RH: According to World Bank data for 2015, Indian GDP $2,073,543 Pakistan $269,971 Actual Ratio is India's GDP is 7.68X Pakistan's, not 20X

Mr. Haqqani is known for exaggerating India's size, strength and importance while diminishing Pakistan's. Is this intended to demoralize and discourage Pakistanis and tell them they are insignificant relative to India? Is it meant to please Mr. Haqqani's Hindu Nationalist fans in India?

HH: Kashmir Unresolvable

RH: Kashmir is eminently resolvable as demonstrated by Musharraf formula agreed between India and Pakistan in 2007. Formula: LoC becomes soft border with easy movement of goods and people, Total internal autonomy of each region, overseen by a committee with reps from both regions, India and Pakistan, phased withdrawal of all troops. It is absolutely resolvable.

What has Changed since 2007? The players have changed in both India and Pakistan since Musharraf-Manmohan deal....especially in India where PM Modi thinks he can intimidate Pakistan with rhetoric like "chhapan inch ki chhati" (56-in chest) and "boli nahi goli" (bullets, not talks) and use of proxies like TTP, BLA and MQM to terrorize Pakistan and kill Pakistanis

Stephen Cohen has said this about India-Pakistan situation: "The alphabet agencies—ISI, RAW, and so forth—are often the chosen instrument of state policy when there is a conventional (and now a nuclear) balance of power, and the diplomatic route seems barren."

I expect PM Modi will soon realize that only workable option is to use the diplomatic route of dialog with Pakistan.

HH: Put aside Kashmir like China put aside Taiwan.

RH: Unlike Indian occupied Kashmir, there are no mass protests, ubiquitous checkpoints and extended curfews in Taiwan. No 700,000 troops there. There's no Burhan Wanis in Taiwan to resist occupation. It's not possible to ignore Indian occupied Kashmir with daily killings and atrocities against innocent people.

HH: There is consensus Pakistan did not win 1965 war.

RH: Both governments claim victory in 1965. Many Indians, including insiders like RD Pradhan and Gen Harbkash Singh believe India did not win the 1965 war. Indian journalists like Shivan Vij say it was at best a stalemate. If India was winning in 1965, it wouldn't be the first to agree to ceasefire as it did.

 HH: His diplomacy as ambassador in Washington was effective.

 RH: Every product has features and benefits but also flaws. Ambassadors are expected to be a pitchmen at least in public.
Pitchmen highlight features and benefits, not flaws. Ambassadors do not denigrate the countries they represent as Mr. Haqqani did.

 New York Times said this when Haqqani was forced out. As ambassador, Mr. Husain Haqqani behaved like "One Man Think Tank" who was "eager to share his own views, which often dovetailed American criticisms of Pakistan’s military". “There were questions about his influence at home and whether he could be trusted to accurately convey what his principals were thinking,” said one of the American officials.

HH: India's GDP growth rate 2.5X  Pakistan's

RH; Not true. India's GDP growth rate is 7.6% and Pakistan 5%.

So  the ratio is 1.52X not 2.5X

 Growth rates are not permanently sustainable.

Pakistan economy grew much faster than India's in 1960s-1980s and India's economy has grown faster since 1990s.

CPECis expected to add 2.5-3% growth on top of the current 5%, something India is strongly opposed to and trying to disrupt and sabotage.

HH: India's Literacy Rate 6 points higher in 1947, 22 points higher now.

RH: Not true either.  In 1951 census, the overall literacy rate was 20% in India and 14% in Pakistan, according to UNESCO.

As of 2012, India has achieved 75% literacy rate while Pakistan is at 60%.

Pakistan literacy is up 4X while India's is up 3.5X


HH: 1947-1958 was a good period for Pakistan, then Army messed it up.

RH:   Economists call this period the Flat Fifties when there was very little economic growth. Pakistan economy grew very rapidly in 1960s, much faster than India's "Hindu growth rate" under Nehru's democracy.

Pakistan had major development of agriculture with the Green Revolution that included several large dams and word's largest contiguous irrigation. Without it, Pakistanis would have starved to death.

Bangladesh happened because elected Pakistani politicians, particular Bhutto and Mujib, failed to work out difference after the elections.

Summary:

Pakistan is neither a delusion nor owned by mullahs or military as claimed by Husain Haqqani in his books "Pakistan: Between the Mosque and the Military" and "Magnificent Delusions".

Pakistan is not one or two dimensional...it's much more complex as explained by Christophe Jaffrelot in his book "The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience".

Political, military, religious, ethnic, sectarian, secular,  conservative and liberal forces are constantly pushing and pulling to destabilize it but Pakistan remains resilient with its strong nationalism that has evolved after 1971.

Pakistan continues to defy pessimist pundits like Husain Haqqani and Tarek Fatah.

Bill Clinton once said "Follow the trend-lines, not the headlines".

There are many sensational negative headlines about Pakistan that are misleading.

But look at the trends that are all positive in terms of economy, security, democracy, life expectancy. per capita incomes, education, etc etc.

 If you look at Pakistan's socioeconomic indicators, they are all up over 5,10, 15 years in spite of all the difficulties.

Swedish Professor Hans Rosling compiles these for all of the countries. His website is gapminder.org. Go take a look at it, especially health and wealth of nations.

Pakistan has lower levels of income poverty than India. It also lower levels of multi-dimensional poverty as measured by MPI index that looks at not just income but also other dimensions like education, healthcare, hygiene, etc.

Here's a video of the rebuttal:

https://youtu.be/Yjsh7eSAZGs





Related Links:

Haq's Musings

History of Literacy in Pakistan

Brief History of Pakistan's Economy

Depth of Deprivation in India

Tarek Fatah vs Riaz Haq on India, Pakistan and Muslims

Indian Sponsored Terror in Pakistan

700,000 Indian Soldiers Vs 10 Million Kashmiris

Indian Insider Account of 1965 War

Musharraf's Kashmir Formula

Who Are the Haqqanis? 

Debunking Mr. Haqqani's Op Ed "Pakistan's Elusive Quest for Parity"

Doval Doctrine

Views: 613

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 30, 2016 at 10:26am
#India #economy racing before #Modi removed oxygen of cash. #Demonitization #BJP #achedin http://reut.rs/2g6Ge2J via @Reuters India posted on Wednesday the world's fastest growth rate for a large economy in the September quarter, yet that offered cold comfort after misery inflicted by the government's unexpected move to remove high denomination banknotes from circulation.
 
Gross domestic product (GDP) INGDPQ=ECI clocked an annual 7.3 percent growth between July and September, faster than 7.1 percent in the previous quarter and higher than China's 6.7 percent.
 
That impressive headline figure, however, failed to mask the underlying weakness in Asia's third-largest economy.
 
Not only was the overall growth lower than expected, it was primarily driven by consumer and government spending. Contraction in capital investment deepened.
 
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision this month to scrap 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee banknotes as part of a crackdown on tax dodgers and counterfeiters denting consumer spending, which makes up 55 percent of India's economy, the outlook for upcoming quarters is not encouraging.
 
In a country where most people are paid in cash, and buy what they need with cash, Modi's decision has removed 86 percent of the currency in circulation virtually overnight. His shock therapy has left companies, farmers and households suffering.
 
"Post-demonetization the situation is really grim whether you look at any sector or talk to people," said Devendra Kumar Pant, chief economist at India Ratings & Research.
 
KNOCK-ON EFFECTS
 
Economists agree the economy will take a hit this quarter and for several quarters to follow. But opinions on the scale of damage vary widely.
 
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expects a minor impact lasting for a quarter or two. Private economists, however, reckon the impact would be felt through 2018.
 
The most optimistic forecasts suggest that India will finish this fiscal year in March with a respectable, but slightly lower, growth rate of 7.3 percent.
 
But the most pessimistic forecast, from Mumbai-based brokerage Ambit Capital, is for a precipitous drop to 3.5 percent growth.
Comment by Riaz Haq on December 4, 2016 at 10:08am

#Pakistan can’t be faulted for #Kashmir unrest: Ex CM Omar Abdullah. #India #Modi

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1252801/pakistan-cant-faulted-kashmir-u...


With tensions simmering between the two rival states, former chief minister for Indian Occupied Kashmir Omar Abdullah on Saturday said that the unrest in Kashmir cannot be blamed on Pakistan but was a result of mistakes made by New Delhi for not engaging with the people.

“Do not be under this false impression that the fire you see in Kashmir has been ignited by Pakistan. It is a result of our mistakes,” Press Trust of India quoted Omar as saying at a National Conference in Baramulla.

Kashmir unrest: OIC calls for immediate halt to Indian atrocities

“To blame Pakistan alone for the political situation or the current unrest in the valley is a distortion of the truth,” he said adding that the people of the Indian Occupied Kashmir had sentiments against the Indian government even when there was no external interference,.

These sentiments, he stated, were a result of the ‘historic blunders and broken promises by successive dispensations’ in New Delhi.

“This political sentiment forms the basis of the state’s special status that has since been eroded by extra-constitutional machinations,” Omar said.

The former chief minister stressed that the current situation was because of the incumbent Indian government’s refusal to even acknowledge that a problem existed in Kashmir.

The statement comes at a time when Pakistan’s Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is in Amritsar for the Heart of Asia Conference.

Iran willing to mediate on Kashmir

Two days before the conference was due to start, Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup categorically ruled out any possibility of talks between Indian officials and Sartaj on the sidelines of the conference.

Earlier, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit on Wednesday had stated that Islamabad was ready for a bilateral dialogue with Delhi at the Heart of Asia summit.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 11, 2017 at 8:52am

Ex #Pakistan Envoy Husain Haqqani: "I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of #CIA operatives" in #Pakistan

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/10/yes-the...

"Among the security establishment’s grievances against me was the charge that I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of CIA operatives who helped track down bin Laden without the knowledge of Pakistan’s army — even though I had acted under the authorization of Pakistan’s elected civilian leaders."

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 12, 2017 at 7:54am

Is Notorious Islamophobic Think Tank Inspiring More Far-Right Terrorism?
More worrying is the prestige that the Gatestone Institute seems to be able to flaunt along with its considerable resources.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/notorious-islamophobic-th...

Blumenthal notes that Gatestone emerged in 2011 as an offshoot of the right wing Hudson Institute. Since then it has become a hub for anti-Muslim ideologues of all hues; neoconservative, ultra-Zionist and so-called ‘counterjihad’. It has acted as a clearing-house, for example, for claims about Muslim ‘no-go zones’ (the likes of which ‘terrorism expert’ Steven Emerson was widely ridiculed for, including by UK Prime Minister David Cameron). Its articles carry fear-mongering titles such as: ‘‘Spain: Soon the Muslims will be kings of the world’, ‘Britain’s Islamic future’, ’The Islamization of France’, ‘The Islamization of Germany’ and ‘The Islamization of Belgium and the Netherlands’.

The theme of so-called ‘Islamisation’ is fundamental to the paranoid political imaginary of the counterjihad movement, combining anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment. It is the notion that animates a network of groups under the banner ‘Stop the Islamisation of Nations’ (SION), and underpins street movements like Germany’s PEGIDA (an acronym of the German for ‘Patriot Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West’) and the English Defence League (EDL) – and their respective copycat movements.

It is a favourite topic of many right-wing populist politicians like the infamous Geert Wilders, anti-Islam leader of the Dutch ‘Party for Freedom’, who, according to Blumenthal, calls Gatestone founder Nina Rosenwald a ‘good friend’ (perhaps why Gatestone recently published an article defending his call for ‘fewer Moroccans’ in the Netherlands, comments for which he is facing hate speech charges). ‘Islamisation’ was also, of course, the major preoccupation of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. In July 2011 he killed 77 people in an attack he called ‘gruesome but necessary’ and saw as a precursor to the civil war he believed was inevitable - that he hoped would drive Islam and Muslims out of Europe.

Eurabia conspiracy theorists and the Abstraction Fund

Breivik detailed his views – typical of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant counterjihad movement - on the ‘threat’ posed to Europe by Islam in a 1,518 page ‘manifesto’. Given that virtually every article that Gatestone publishes is suffused with the same assumptions (for instance ‘How Islam Conquers Europe’, ‘UK Islamic takeover plot’) it is no surprise to learn that the institute’s authors include many of the writers cited by Breivik in his notorious tract. Gatestone author Robert Spencer and his Jihad Watch website were mentioned 116 times, while Daniel Pipes and his Middle East Forum (MEF) got 18 citations. Other Gatestone authors mentioned in Breivik's lengthy screed include David Horowitz and the aforementioned Steven Emerson.

More importantly, Nina Rosenwald’s mega-foundation, the Abstraction Fund, provides funding to many of these organisations: the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism, Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP), Pipes MEF, and many other Islamophobia industry groups besides. (Abstraction also gives to a host of pro-Israel organisations like CAMERA, MEMRI and the Zionist Organization of America, illustrating the increasingly common funding overlap between many anti-Muslim and some pro-Israel groups, observed in the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network’s recent report ‘The Business of Backlash’.) Interestingly, as well as presiding over the Gatestone Institute, Rosenwald is also financing it with money from the Abstraction Fund, albeit indirectly: as with other groups, the money is being channelled via a third party (MEF).

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 12, 2017 at 2:28pm

Can US President take Hudson Institute report on Pakistan seriously?

by Jamal Hussain

https://www.globalvillagespace.com/how-seriously-should-us-presiden...

Dismissed for suspected anti-state activities, which he vehemently denies, accusing the Pakistan Army of orchestrating a plot to implicate him in a false case. HH settled in the USA and currently is the Director for South Asia and Central Asia at Hudson Institute. He has authored three books on Pakistan where his animosity towards the Pakistan Army is apparent.

He is known to carry a grudge against the Pakistan Army that a clear majority of Pakistanis consider the only state institution which secures the country from foreign domination. With such a credential of HH, should one expect objectivity if he heads a policy paper advising the US administration on how to deal with Pakistan?

Lisa Curtis, the co-author is a retired CIA employee who has also served as a diplomat in Pakistan and India. With her CIA background where the confrontation of the CIA with the Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI is an open secret, can one expect an impartial approach when dealing with Pakistan where the ISI is known to provide key inputs on the conduct of the nation’s foreign policy?

Among the signatories, Christine Fair, Polly Nayak and Aparna Pande ring alarm bells. Christine Fair, who once was considered the darling of the Pakistan Army, is now known for her anti-Pakistan sentiments. Her earlier work on drones and her pro-drone stance and viewpoints has been denounced as “surprisingly weak” by Brooking Institution and journalist Glenn Greenwald dismissed it as “rank propaganda.”

n 2011 and 2012 she received funding from the US embassy in Islamabad to conduct a survey on public opinion concerning militancy. Her journalistic sources have been questioned for their credibility and she has been accused of having a conflict of interest due to her past work with the US government think tanks, as well as the CIA.

In the Pakistani media, she has been accused of double standards, partisanship towards India and has been criticized for her contacts with dissident leaders from Baluchistan, a link which raises serious questions “if her interest in Pakistan is merely academic.”

Polly Nayak, a South Asian expert and currently an independent consultant retired from CIA in late 2002 as a senior executive. Her views on Pakistan, like those of Lisa Curtis, would not be free from the bias that colors CIA’s opinion about Pakistan and Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency the ISI, which is viewed as an ally only when its help is desperately sought— otherwise a nemesis.

Aparna Pande is a born Indian working for the Hudson Institute and her writings mirror the rabidly anti-Pakistan stance of the Indian government under Narendra Modi.

-------

Avoid viewing and portraying Pakistan as an ally, is the first policy recommendation of the briefing paper. The USA has never considered Pakistan as a true ally and has used this term only when it suited them. It considers Pakistan as a rentier state and hires it for a price to pursue policies to promote their regional and global agenda.

Yes, Pakistan has often willingly accepted the US offer, at a considerable price to its security and well-being. Even though the military aid package of 1954 and the collaboration in the 1980s to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan was on a reciprocal basis where both sides viewed it as a win-win situation, the USA benefitted far more from them while Pakistan, in the long run, paid a very heavy price for the liaisons.

The Mutual Defence Assistance Agreement of 1954 turned Pakistan as the bulwark against any spread of communism that was primarily aimed at containment of the USSR. The defense pact ruled the USSR, the rival superpower, and a neighbor of Pakistan to an extent where they established a strategic partnership with India, the country’s principal security threat and enemy, which had unlawfully and illegally occupied two-thirds of Kashmir.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 13, 2017 at 11:33am
Ex #Pakistan Envoy Husain Haqqani: "I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of #CIA operatives" in #Pakistan

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/10/yes-the...

"Among the security establishment’s grievances against me was the charge that I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of CIA operatives who helped track down bin Laden without the knowledge of Pakistan’s army — even though I had acted under the authorization of Pakistan’s elected civilian leaders."

In Husain Haqqani's Op Ed titled "Yes, the Russian Ambassador met Trump's team. So? That's what we diplomats do", it seems that Husain Haqqani has tried to achieve the following objectives:
1. Be on President Trump's good side by defending contacts between Trump campaign and Russian officials.
2. Show how he helped the United States by facilitating the entry of large numbers of CIA agents in Pakistan when he was Pakistan's envoy. 
3. Cover his own back by saying he had the support of the ruling PPP at the time. 
Meanwhile, PPP leader Khurshid Shah has denied the PPP government approved Haqqani's actions and declared Haqqani a traitor. 
An ambassador of a country sending foreign intelligence agents into his own..that's what's wrong with the big picture. 
The OBL hunt was just an excuse to let in "large numbers of CIA operatives  "who most likely have a far wider wider agenda, including tracking Pakistan's nuclear assets and spying that could risk Pak security. As undercover foreign agents unknown to Pakistan's intelligence agencies, there was no way to track what these CIA operatives were doing in Pakistan. 
An ambassador of any other country would have been tried for treason in similar circumstances.
Comment by Riaz Haq on March 30, 2017 at 4:16pm

View from right-wing India:

Pakistan’s Political Economy Is Changing – And India Must Take Note
Monica Verma
- Mar 30, 2017, 8:35 pm
https://swarajyamag.com/world/pakistans-political-economy-is-changi...


Pakistan, according to experts, can now be classified as a stable economy in view of its comparatively strong macroeconomic indicators.

The country’s economic performance, along with China’s investment into the CPEC initiative, has encouraged investors to look at the country in a new light.

Such is the dominance of geopolitical narratives in South Asia that any positive news from the neighbourhood does not reach us. While thinking about our neighbours, especially Pakistan, images of a country whose economy is in shambles and polity unstable strike us.

Not that these images have changed completely, nor has Pakistan moved on to become a developed economy overnight, but the changes in the neighbourhood are significant. The country now has the potential to transform itself into a stable polity and healthy economy pending a good deal of caution.

The positive signs

In 2013, Pakistan’s economy was on the verge of a collapse. The foreign exchange reserves were drying up, and fiscal deficit was mounting even as the rate of economic growth was slowing down. It was during this turbulent time that International Monetary Fund (IMF) extended a loan of $7.6 billion to help the country stabilise its economy and protect the vulnerable sections of its population. This three-year IMF-supported programme not only helped the country stave off a foreign exchange crisis, it also laid the foundation for macroeconomic and financial stability in the country.

Pakistan, according to experts, can now be classified as a stable economy in view of its comparatively strong macroeconomic indicators. The economy witnessed a 4.7 per cent real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2016, the country’s highest in the last eight years. Fiscal deficit has also come down to 4.6 per cent from 8.8 per cent. Another sign of revitalised economic activity is the stock market that rose by almost 50 per cent in 2016. These figures might indicate a positive turnaround in Pakistan’s economy, but in comparison to other South Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, Pakistan’s growth rate is still miniscule. If the country maintains its fiscal prudence and executes reforms as suggested by IMF fairly, there is still light at the end of the tunnel.

Promising sectors

The construction industry has emerged as one of the sweet spots for Pakistan’s economy. Government of Pakistan considers it an important driver of economic growth, where a spurt in economic activity has the potential to positively impact growth in allied sectors as well. The boom in the industry is a result of increased infrastructural activities as well as various residential projects that have been initiated to deliver housing solutions to the people. This boom is aided by favourable fuel prices including oil, electricity and coal. The government has also given tax relief to builders to facilitate growth in the real estate sector.

Along with construction, the Information Technology (IT) sector has emerged as a promising sector for the Pakistani economy. In 2015, Pakistan’s IT sector accounted for $2.8 billion, of which services worth $1.6 billion were exported abroad. This is an almost negligible share of a $3.2 trillion global IT market, but the commitment of the Pakistani government to the IT sector signals that this share may increase exponentially.

The model followed by the Pakistani IT industry has helped it cut through problems like corruption, bureaucratic red tape and security challenges. The software professionals in the country seek clients through popular freelance hiring sites such as Elance, Upwork and Fivver. The freelance software professional community from Pakistan is now the third largest in the world. Various estimates put the number of IT companies in the country at 25,000.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 7, 2017 at 10:32am

In the book, “How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century”, Mr. Saran records the crucial meeting of the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) on the eve of India-Pakistan Defence Secretary-level talks in May 2006, where the draft agreement, that had been approved by the Army and other stakeholders, was to be discussed. However, he said two crucial players, the-then NSA MK Narayanan and then Army Chief General J.J. Singh made last minute interventions to cancel the proposal.

“When the CCS meeting was held on the eve of the defence secretary–level talks, [Mr.] Narayanan launched into a bitter offensive against the proposal, saying that Pakistan could not be trusted, that there would be political and public opposition to any such initiative and that India’s military position in the northern sector vis- à-vis both Pakistan and China would be compromised. [Gen] J.J. Singh, who had happily gone along with the proposal in its earlier iterations, now decided to join Narayanan in rubbishing it,” Mr. Saran writes.

According to Mr. Saran both Indian and Pakistani armies had agreed to authenticate the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL), and sign an annexure with maps marking exactly where Indian and Pakistani troops held positions. As a result, Mr. Saran says, Indian troops, who occupy the heights of Siachen would be able to mutually withdraw and be spared “extreme cold and unpredictable weather in inhospitable areas, [where] their psychological isolation was just as bad as their physical hardship.”

Mr. Saran’s revelations are significant as it is the first time that an Indian official of the time has accepted that agreements on Siachen and Sir Creek, often called the “low-hanging fruit” of the Comprehensive bilateral dialogue between both countries, was a reality. In 2015, former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has written about the agreements in his memoirs “Neither a Hawk nor a Dove”, with an account of the Pakistani side of those negotiations.

During the book launch on Wednesday, General (Retd) J.J.Singh, who was also in the audience, asked Mr. Saran whether it would have been possible, in fact, to “trust Pakistan”, and ensure Pakistani troops wouldn’t return to occupy positions in Siachen. “In matters of international diplomacy, it is a convergence of interests rather than trust that counts,” Mr. Saran replied.

The book also records what Mr. Saran calls a “missed opportunity” to solve the Sir Creek dispute in Kutch, with the solution crafted by the Navy to divide the creek between India and Pakistan according to the “equidistance” principle. When asked by Mr. Menon whether the opportunities to resolve the long-standing issues with Pakistan still existed, Mr. Saran said, “Opportunities are perishable. When they aren’t seized, they don’t return.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-pakistan-nearly-agreed-...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 14, 2018 at 4:11pm

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2018/06/14/pakistans-civil-military-im... 

The reality is a lot more complicated than this Eurocentric view of Pakistan’s civil–military relations, which tends to reinforce a perception of Pakistan that serves Western powers and interests. At the core of this Eurocentrism is a tendency to view Pakistan’s civil–military relations through a foreign policy lens, while almost entirely neglecting the domestic political and structural issues at play. Western commentary also tends to treat civilian political leaders as passive actors, overlooking their role in the imbalance.

The civilian and military leadership in Pakistan are on the same page when it comes to foreign and security policies. Disagreements are only over the right methods for achieving these foreign policy goals, and reflect an internal power struggle rather than an ideological difference between civilian and military factions.

For instance, after former prime minister Nawaz Sharif took power at the 2013 elections, he was interested in bold steps to move quickly on peace with India — often even going beyond state protocol and opening backdoor channels. The Pakistan Army was not disinterested in peace with India. Military leaders just wanted to mend relations in a systematic way that would not compromise Pakistan’s interests and that would make peace last beyond rhetoric.

Military leaders advised caution and small steps to achieving sustainable peace with India — advice which Sharif ignored. After several months of futile attempts to court Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who pressed hard on Pakistan after his rise to power, Sharif faced an embarrassing situation. He accepted that his strategy had been a failure and allowed the military to devise a new strategy to engage India.

Civilian and military leaders were similarly split over issues of method when it came to tackling terrorist safe havens inside the country. In 2013, the then new government under Sharif was not interested in launching operations inside the country against the Taliban and other extremist actors. The government instead began peace talks with the terrorist outfits despite repeated advice from the Pakistan Army to the contrary.

The Pakistan army pushed the view that terrorist outfits use ‘peace talks’ as a pretence to regroup, develop credibility and then launch attacks again when the government is vulnerable. Months later, when the terrorists continued their attacks on Pakistan and US forces despite the ongoing negotiations with the Pakistani government, Sharif again was sheepish in front of Pakistan’s security establishment and allowed the military to launch an operation.

When it comes to Pakistan’s current foreign policy posture, there appears to be no rupture in civil–military relations. Both civilian and military leaders support deep ties with China, opening up to Russia, balancing the Middle East, defying the United States and finding a sustainable peace with India and Afghanistan. Even the ‘Dawn leaks’ controversy was less a matter of disagreement over foreign policy than a case of the civilian government trying to embarrass the military establishment.

While civil and military leaders in Pakistan are locked in a power struggle, they are on the same page in terms of foreign and security policy — which is why Pakistan has seen much policy continuity over the past four decades. Civilian leaders pitch this domestic power struggle to international audiences as a matter of ‘foreign policy’ and a ‘fight for democracy’ for the purposes of seeking international endorsements that can be leveraged in the local power tussle.

This absence of nuance in Western academic writing and commentaries on Pakistan is not just a blind spot. It is deliberate neglect whereby the dominant characterisation of Pakistan’s civil–military relations is constructed to suit Western political interests that include aligning Pakistan’s national security policies with that of the West, and having a strong check on its nuclear program.

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