Daily Times

As Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi returns from Washington, the political climate that he lands himself into will be far different from the one that existed on his departure. How that factors into the strategic context of his planning with the Americans and the Afghans during the consultative meetings and whether the obtaining environment under which certain commitments may have been made as part of the tripartite process shall hold relevance any longer must bother him no end.
Whether he will now begin to harbour a possibility of leading Punjab under a revised political denomination and thus give up all that he may have wanted to achieve over time in straightening Pakistan’s foreign policy is moot and shall stay so till the drama plays out fully. In all this, Pakistan will once again continue to suffer for lack of attention to its most prime issues, lack of continuity and the absence of a sustaining domestic environment for all else to take its place in the hierarchy of resolving Pakistan’s persisting predicaments.
I wonder if the Americas Division of the Foreign Office, and for that matter the foreign minister’s personal staff had carried for him a brief on concerns and implications in hyphenating Pakistan as ‘AfPak’; or if all such references were shielded from his attention for not having a bona fide indigenous root from within the hallowed Ministry itself.
Was he able to tell his American hosts that such hyphenation is ill-conceived and shall push South Asia into the background despite the urgency to deal with concurrently emerging variables within the domestic political structures of the entire South Asian region? He would have certainly emphasised that environment, food, energy, water conservation, poverty and stabilisation of civil structures remain the crying issues that will need a consultative and cooperative regime of measures amongst the states, institutions and the people of South Asia.
‘AfPak’ will hardly let some of the region’s veritable supporters bring into focus in South Asia what might be the real underlying causes of increasing militarism and extreme social trends.
The foreign minister would have certainly iterated that regional stability rather than AfPak stability was a key to securing the region’s future; that the seeds of discontent in the region lie in the unresolved Kashmir dispute and psychological baggage of mutual animosity that the socio-political structures of India and Pakistan retain despite efforts on both sides by saner elements to bring about some maturity in perceptions.
AfPak can be better helped if only India were to desist from the strategy of double envelopment against Pakistan in Afghanistan, which is as maniacal and dangerous in consequence as was the theory of strategic depth; and it shall encourage only the persistence of reactionary counter-presence, further deepening instability and intractability.
The roots of the West’s obsession with instability in Pakistan and her nuclear credentials has more to do with a larger domain of intricate complexities in the Indo-Pakistan relationship; rather than live under a fear psychosis of a nexus between extremist elements and their access to nuclear material, it would be worthwhile to investigate and encourage pacification of lingering misgivings between the two; in its absence, and if left to their own machinations, both India and Pakistan will have only but an arduous, cascading and painfully slow process of maturing in their mutual interaction.
It needed to be clarified that it was not de-hyphenation per se that was a point of concern but an ill-perceived hyphenation that could result in less than salubrious consequences; that an unstable South Asia will be a far bigger pain than any that the modern world would have seen — a fact that many across the border have not only failed to appreciate but have shown haste in rejoicing at what they perceive as Pakistan’s demotion in its new definition.
Undermining all this shall be this newer twist of fate — the dilemma of a new political quagmire; yet another front while already under the threat of multi-dimensional envelopment. Common sense has always desired that if adversity surmounts and you happen to be in a hole, do not dig further. If you are exposed far too much and a number of your flanks are uncovered, do not open new ones; and it is better to consolidate your position that you are lucky to stand on. But what shall be the pleasure of routine existence! Audacity and foolhardiness are but not too distant cousins.
There are obvious voices on various networks probing the army’s probity and inclination to intervene in a difficult political equation. It amazes one no end to see such callous and deliberate insemination of what has all along been the scourge. A political system as a system of governance must answer the call of times for the nation. It shall have to be a test of the leadership that must be seen to govern and not falter every step of the way. In governance and direction, there cannot be another paradigm.
I had wanted to address the subject of governance and the 18th Amendment in this column, but events have dictated otherwise. As a starter, though, is it possible to divvy up the various areas of responsibility in governance and policy formulation directly under the so far surviving dichotomous centres of power of the president and the prime minister?
At times unintended favours can be gained through apparent failures, as the delay in bringing around the 17th amendment proffers an opportunity in difficult circumstances to share the load of governing Pakistan. Politics has always been about policy, power and governance, and — in more developed political societies — service. One never knew it to be a hobby and a pastime.

The writer is a retired air vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force and a former ambassador. He can be contacted at shahzad.a.chaudhry@gmail.com