Foreign policy is too complicated, too sensitive a matter to be handled by generals or businessmen-turned-politicians
LAHORE: Foreign policy must always be based on shared economic and national security objectives and never on bonds of common faith or language. Long-term national interests dictate that inputs from all stakeholders be taken to evolve a sound foreign policy. While the decision by Pakistan to stay aloof over the Yemen conflict was a wise decision based on consensus — especially as we are fighting our own belated war against terrorism, which has threatened our way of life, state sovereignty and the lives of our citizens — it should have been left to the diplomats to convey it to governments in the Middle East, appropriately and skillfully. It is unfortunate that a few television anchors and self-proclaimed defence analysts thought it appropriate to embark on hostile and offensive analyses, instead of being discreet over such a sensitive matter. As for intervention by governments in the Middle East and their funding of seminaries, ethnic and nationalist organisations, we are to blame for this. It is time that Pakistan’s policies were made after sound analyses and that our public office holders, diplomats, and those at the helm at financial and other regulatory institutions should hold a single Pakistani passport, with no conflict of interest, as is the practice in India and every other country in the region, with the exception of Afghanistan.
Foreign policy is too complicated and too sensitive a matter to be handled by generals or businessmen-turned-politicians, since it is an established fact that good professional soldiers can never be diplomats. In any case, this problem of terrorism which we face today is because of our own myopic foreign and strategic policies, which were devised by men hostage to their own desires to gain legitimacy and rule the country. For over five decades, we had strategic partnerships with our neighbours in the Arab world, but other than personal favours or dole-outs, nobody had the vision or commitment which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Foreign Office had. They took advantage of the thawing in relations and manoeuvered to sign an MoU worth $75 billion under which the UAE will invest in India in development of infrastructure, defence production and other areas.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, August 26th, 2015.
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