Our strategists still question why Americans are fighting all those jihadists who were once working for Americans
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Let’s accept the fact that Pakistan has been facing diplomatic isolation all around while the Indian charm attack is winning India friends, one after the other. Isn’t it time to sit back and revisit our polices leading to such a disastrous situation? Why are we hell-bent on finding scapegoats, blame them and go back to sleep? Does Sartaj Aziz really think that Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ex-ambassador to the US, is such a powerful lobbyist that he has forced the Americans to make drastic changes in their policy towards Pakistan? Shouldn’t the events of the last few weeks — the F-16 sale fiasco, the getting together of Pakistan’s three neighbours at Chabahar, Afghanistan’s aggressive stand on the border issue — not good enough for us to face the reality?
Don’t we know the outside world doesn’t give two hoots about our stand on the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban? We need to realise that the time of waging proxy wars in neighbouring countries is over. The world is not ready to accept our explanations over what OBL and Mullah Mansoor were doing on our soil. Apparently our strategists are still living in the 1980s and that’s why we are not ready to accept a post-9/11 world. Our strategists still question why Americans are fighting all those jihadists who were once working for Americans. There is no rescue in finger-pointing at Hussain Haqqani; face the fact that despite Operation Zarb-e-Azb, we still face threats from militant organisations and that the absence of an alternate narrative has squeezed the space for liberals while sectarian and jihadi lashkars — the ASWJ, the Lal Masjid brigade, Jamatud Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad — are freely roaming our land. What does Sartaj Aziz think foreign diplomats in Islamabad would be reporting on rallies and public meetings under the auspices of the Defence of Pakistan Council being attended by sectarian outfits? Mr Aziz, please be brave enough to call a spade a spade.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, June 23rd, 2016.
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