From defensive to offensive

From being eternally on the defensive, batting back the accusations of a suspicious world, Pakistan in the last six months has begun to crawl out from under the shroud of victimhood and has started to move to foot-forward in terms of foreign policy. There are new rules of engagement with the Americans who, under President Trump, have begun yet another round of doomed interventions in Afghanistan. There is expected to be a visit by an American delegation in October and a strategy has already been shaped. The Americans are to be presented with a list of groups in Afghanistan that are directly or indirectly engaged in terrorist activities in Pakistan, and going with the list will be the question as to what the Americans, in conjunction with their allies the Afghans, are going to do about it. Something of a reversal of the usual order of business.

Broadening the agenda and to a degree moving on from the relationship with America because Uncle Sam is not the only player in town, the interior minister has called for combined regional cooperation in order to counter terrorism and craft an environment that is stable and conducive to development. In some ways the interior minister is making a statement of the blindingly obvious as he spoke of the need for states to work together to promote peace and stability and that if one part of the region is insecure this leads across to a potential destabilising of other areas. He also called for a political solution to the Afghan imbroglio and pointed out, rightly, that Afghanistan in 2017 is no more stable than it was in 2001.

Blindingly obvious it may be but it is also the fundamental heart of the complex difficulties shared by Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran and China with Afghanistan the hub around which all to a greater or lesser degree revolves. Pakistan is a lead stakeholder and is going to be around long after the last American has left, and with American hegemony on the wane there is an opportunity to be geopolitically proactive, moving from the back foot to the front. We suggest it is grasped with both hands.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2017.

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