Observability of moral principles

Those were easier times. Despite my relative lack of experience and the probationary phase of my job, I had no difficulty scheduling an interview. The year was 1999. The Kargil war had just concluded, and Islamabad and Washington were quite visibly drifting apart. The rumour had it that President Clinton was soon to visit South Asia. A precursor to that visit was the arrival of several American intellectuals and influencers to gauge the temperature. Professor Stephen P Cohen was one of them. I had just booked his interview.

When he arrived, and we sat down for the televised interview, a tug-of-war began. He wanted to convince this rookie of the growing chasm between the two countries. If I had a nickel every time I heard the sentence, "there are no permanent friends in the international system, only permanent interests", I would have been a wealthy man. Exhausted by this smooth operator's stalling, I blurted out the next question: "How relevant is morality in the international system?" He smiled. His reply was measured, but encouraging. He did not want to dismiss the notion outright. So, he offered two examples of the relevance of morality in long-term relationships: China-Pakistan friendship and the US-Israel relationship. The former does not need any qualification. I have never quite understood the latter beyond the lobbying chokehold that Israel has on America.

Experiences like these have helped shape my worldview. What was said and what was left unsaid all matter. In my humble opinion, assigning a set of policy choices to national interest is almost as naïve as believing that morality has ever shaped the international order. These policy choices are defined by a government's outlook. They can be an individual's choice or the sum total of a cabinet's will, but in countries with regular government turnover, this is the deepest you can think of. In America, a sizable chunk of bureaucracy changes with the change in government. So, the idea of a long-term approach is just glorified fiction.

Where policy persistence does occur is at a different tier. The permanent staff of any department can keep institutional memory. This memory is not reinforced by the staff's ideological creed but by lobbying circles' efforts. The nation that is not seen as antithetical to the country's interest by the incumbent administration and has the necessary wherewithal gets to set up a better shop and, over the years, becomes a part of the sphere's muscle memory. First movers almost always have an advantage here. Therefore, you do not need John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's brilliant book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, to tell you how deeply entrenched the Israeli lobby is in the US. When everyone else wanted to handle the US diplomatically or through external means, this one country meticulously studied the American system and made the necessary inroads. How can you begrudge it of that clout? The moral argument that you often hear in the US is then the sum total of the lobbying efforts of various interest groups, in which Israeli influence still plays a central role. The sources of all moral arguments, philosophers, treatises and obscure foundational works are used and abandoned at will, depending on their usability at any given time. This is rational state behaviour, albeit compromised, amidst the chaos of an anarchic world order. It is also indicative of how political interests use emotive, moral arguments as a mask. In this context, the invasion of Iraq is a dead giveaway.

I do not by any means imply that Israel is the only influence in American foreign policy. It gamed the American system most effectively, but there are countless others. If a rifle association can have an inordinate amount of influence in domestic matters, you can see that this won't be that difficult a task. But other countries, especially the Muslim nations, despite possessing incredible wealth, dropped the ball during and in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. Today, countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have made incredible strides in opening up to the world. I wish we had leaders like Mohammed bin Salman back then. The absence of this manoeuvrability and such finesse allowed an Islamophobic and Sinophobic alliance to congeal into existence. With Israel's help India became the next country to effectively game and vanquish the American system.

The period that I opened this piece with was the time when Israel and India, through men like Samuel Huntington and Fareed Zakaria, were whispering into American ears that militant Islam and China were the next big threats. The former became a self-fulfilling prophecy because of 9/11, and in the aftermath, both countries milked the resulting Islamophobia to the fullest. The latter was an unsettled question. While ostensibly speaking against Huntington and his clash, Clinton swallowed his propaganda hook, line and sinker. From there, America took another leap of faith that containing China was an article of faith and that India could be a helpful ally in that. Had it not been for his administration, the Indian story of economic recovery and growth would have been a distant dream. The credit for shipping lucrative American manufacturing jobs to countries like India and for the genesis of the American real estate bubble that led to the 2008 financial crisis also goes to Clinton.

If America's own destiny was repeatedly hacked in the name of the moral principle, Europe and other democratic nations were not to be left behind. When EU DisinfoLab uncovered the machinations of the Delhi-based Srivastava Group, prompted by a visit of far-right MEPs to the post of Article 370 Kashmir, the existential implications were enormous. It meant Indian groups were sponsoring the rise of far-right elements in Europe. But did you look at the smiles on the EU leaders' faces when they announced the India-EU deal? Well, there goes your moral principle.

In Pakistan, the moral principle is used as a kind of noose. Our intelligentsia still harps on the India versus China, America versus China myth created by Clinton and perpetuated by India. Likewise, a constant refrain is that whatever is going on between America and Pakistan is not real. Of course, it won't be if you y'all keep inhaling Indian propaganda. Similarly, when it became clear that the India-Israel alliance was the worst outcome for the country, logic dictated that an attempt ought to be made to break the nexus through diplomacy. The Abraham Accords presented an optimal route. But our moral sensibilities wouldn't want to discuss the notion even if the idea was to join after every other Muslim nation. Of course, a lot has changed since, and it is no longer a question. But moral principle is neither here nor there.