Daily Times

“Why must we make enemies out of them all?” exclaimed Sartaj Aziz, the advisor to the Prime Minister (PM) for foreign affairs when asked about Pakistan’s future policy towards non-state actors, and all hell broke loose. The statement came at a crucial time, when the PM himself was busy in forging stronger international ties through promises of doing more and the army chief was on an official visit to the US to share notes on the counterinsurgency campaign. Since then, the Foreign Office (FO) has gone into hyper-drive over damage limitation and the Pentagon has reiterated its concerns to the visiting army chief, but to no avail. The beauty of utterances is that once they have left the safe confines of your thoughts and have materialised into actual opinion, you cannot take them back. Anything you can really do afterwards is learn to live with the consequences.

However, step back a bit and think: why indeed? Why the brouhaha over Aziz’s statement? Some say that his statement marks a fundamental break from official state policy. But, if you look closely, you might be forced to consider the possibility that the PM’s advisor might be on to something here. After all, proxies have been used by one or more South Asian states in the past with devastating effect in their bids for dominance. In a time of costly military campaigns, inhospitable terrains, impending threats on other borders and division of labour, using proxies has proved to be both the zenith of bellicose genius and a large, wilful gulp from the suicidal chalice. That Pakistan’s foreign policy is largely shaped by security concerns communicated through the intelligence apparatus is no secret but the reason Mr Aziz’s statement has rubbed a few the wrong way is because for the first time in recent memory, a state official has admitted to as much. It is an open secret that when it comes to dealing with countries like India or the US, intelligence reports are given paramount importance, sometimes even to the detriment of the FO’s ability to make actual foreign strategy.

However, if someone was really concerned about predicting how Pakistan would proceed in the coming months, all they would have to do was follow foreign policy officials abroad; no, not Mr Aziz, but the real foreign policy players. And if you did, you would have realised that while a considerable amount of effort is being made to shift paradigms, old habits do die hard. The Pakistan army’s ongoing counterterrorism campaign in North Waziristan has been hailed as a success and it has now expanded into large portions of the territory. But while the initial victories have been promising, a drawn-out war looms large. Furthermore, the ever-present threat of a blowback means that we will need to develop eyes in the back of our heads to avert disaster. The sad truth is that until we are able to induce tolerance in our national discourse, for every fallen extremist, two more will rise up to join the ranks. Furthermore, hundreds of threats that have been thwarted do not make for catchy news headlines and, no matter how many security precautions are taken, it only takes one individual — and a couple of kilos of explosives — to rip families to smithereens. But even with this level of commitment and consensus, the allegations over supporting militant groups sympathetic to Pakistan just will not go away. The defence establishment has been insisting that all ties with the likes of the Haqqani group have been severed but only time will enable us to examine the veracity of such claims and see which side of history we end up on.

Of course, bilateral policy is not made in a vacuum, and other events heavily contribute towards the orientation of states as well. On an international level, the US now has to share critical space with Russia, a development that has had nostalgic souls harping on endlessly about the halcyon days of the Cold War. Whereas once the will of the US reigned supreme, today’s world is a different creature altogether. China has openly been increasing its influence eastwards towards the Pacific and harking back to the days of the — yes, you guessed it — Cold War. Russia under Vladimir Putin is also in full ‘resurgent mode’. Despite receiving a lot of flak over Ukraine, 2014 has been Putin’s year so far and a bold Russia is bound to be noticed by weaker regional states that are looking to hedge against risks both domestic and foreign.

In light of the above, both Pakistan and the US are selfishly rethinking their bonhomie. As a result, old orders have been shaken and new rapports are being forged. Iran, once the sworn enemy, is now almost in full détente with the US because of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threat. Similarly, Russia, once the target of Pakistan-trained fighters, now poses some very lucrative prospects from a military and strategic perspective for Pakistan, as demonstrated by the memorandum of understanding signed between the two. Ever since the decision to align with the US early on after independence, we have been neglecting Russia’s influence in the region. And with Russia looking to diversify its alliance portfolio beyond India after the latter’s geniality with the US, perhaps a beneficial corollary to warmer ties with Russia might be its insistence on putting a lid on the militant outfits present within Pakistan’s territory. This is not to say that the US was unclear over its demands from Pakistan but an ally not too concerned about freedom and transparency has its own ways to get things done. If this development does materialise, the apparent tilt in Pakistan’s foreign policy outlook would somehow benefit the country, for a change. The implications of stronger bonds with Russia on Pakistani society, however, will be a completely different story.

So, if Mr Aziz is correct in his assessment, what could be the possible domestic implications of allowing state-friendly extremists breathing room once more? Let us go back to the last time we pulled a stunt like this and see if we can dig out some lessons. Our involvement in the proxy US-USSR confrontation in the 1980s introduced us to the pecuniary benefits of smuggling drugs and exports ultimately found their way into the hands of Pakistani users as well, thus kick-starting an addiction epidemic. Similarly, weapons proliferation is another legacy of the Afghan jihad and there are places within Pakistan’s territory where you can buy everything from bullets to anti-aircraft rockets for a minuscule amount, tax exempted, of course. Additionally, Pakistan’s foray across the Durand Line also exacerbated anti-Pakistan sentiment in the territorially divided Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Last but not least, virtually limitless space given to the more extremist elements engendered monsters that we are still struggling to contain.

With such a track record, it is no wonder that regional neighbours and international playmakers are a bit skittish over Mr Aziz’s remarks. No one can be sure of what we will end up doing but if we do decide to bury our heads in the warm sands of ignorance once more, be prepared to see a lot more ethnic strife and sectarian violence, which would amount to the loss of more innocent lives. Of course, living in contemporary Pakistan, you might ask: how could things possibly become any worse? For the sake of our future generations, I hope we never find out the answer to this query. Once bitten, twice shy, goes the saying. But perhaps, for Pakistan, it should be something else entirely.

The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations