Diplomacy’s
Choking Grip
By Ahmed Quraishi
Islamabad, Pakistan
When President Kennedy indulged in the dramatic,
backstage diplomacy during the Cuban Missile crisis,
he was criticized for what seemed like “appeasing”
the aggressive Soviets. His critics - both the
well-intentioned and the malicious - thought he
was ‘kneeling’ before the enemy. What
compounded his troubles is that he couldn’t
talk publicly about what he really was doing.
But decades later, we know he not only guarded
American interests, his moves made America stronger
and enhanced Washington’s global diplomatic
and military standing.
High stakes, back-channel diplomacy is nerve racking.
And no one is epitomizing it these days more than
Pakistan’s strongman Pervez Musharraf. His
opponents and critics are portraying him as a
sellout who “kneeled before India.”
And his supporters can’t speak as passionately
in his defense because in high-stakes diplomacy
not much can be revealed in public.
So what do you do when you want to explain what
you’re doing without revealing too much?
You have to talk. There’s no escaping that.
That’s the tough challenge Mr. Musharraf
accepted when he agreed to a televised townhall
meeting with a Pakistani audience broadcast on
27 April to explain how he wasn’t taking
a ‘U-turn’ on Kashmir.
And unless he’s a good actor too, he appeared
to be genuinely upset because he was being painted
as a leader who would sell out his nation’s
interests in Kashmir under some kind of a foreign
pressure, especially when, as a soldier, he’s
known to have proven his mettle not only in battle
but also possibly in the brave and superbly spectacular
Kargil operation.
There’s one thing common between the backstage
diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and the
current back-channel diplomacy that is attempting
to bring two nuclear powers to resolve an intractable
dispute. And that one thing is that both are high-risk,
decisive efforts with far reaching implications
for the future course of politics in a wide region
of the world.
As a nationalist Pakistani, I can’t expect
a Pakistani leader like Mr. Musharraf to compromise
on his nation’s interests in this back-channel
diplomacy.
For those who have sharp ears, Mr. Musharraf appears
to have dropped many important hints without revealing
any secrets. “When I show optimism,”
he told the TV audience, “I can’t
discuss some things, but we have to keep confidentiality
and move forward.”
This hint of something interesting taking place
behind the scenes echoed an earlier hint that
Mr. Musharraf dropped before he left for India.
In his interview with Reuters television on 14
April, he answered a question on the Indian catchphrase
of ‘no redrawing of Indian borders’
like this: “I know there is much more to
it than what is up front. We know what their people
are saying (…) everything is not said upfront.”
If the man who has fascinated many Indians as
a “commando-turned-statesman” really
succumbed to India, the available evidence tells
a different story.
In addition to the sacrifices of the valiant Kashmiris,
any compromise on Kashmir will also mean the desertification
of Pakistan. Our waters flow down from that Himalayan
region. Mr. Musharraf should know something about
this. In 1990, then Brigadier Musharraf is known
to have authored a seminal paper emphasizing this
point as part of a study course.
But most importantly, why would any Pakistani
leader think of compromising Pakistan’s
strong case on Kashmir? Mr. Musharraf has an interesting
perspective. It is the Indians, he says, who are
losing more in Kashmir compared to Pakistan. New
Delhi is losing money and troops there and - more
importantly - can’t sustain building the
image of an international player without demonstrating
generosity of spirit in its own neighborhood.
It’s easy to see how Pakistan’s consent
to allow divided Kashmiris to meet by opening
bus routes may have been misinterpreted as a Pakistani
concession. The reason is that it’s a CBM
and New Delhi is known to be more interested in
such theatrics than in talking substantially about
Kashmir.
Mr. Musharraf has dropped other hints as well
about a possible undeclared shift in the Indian
position on how to approach the Kashmir dispute.
He says the Indians have “accepted”
the Pakistani position that the Kashmir ceasefire
line can’t become a permanent border.
And then there’s the newfound “sincerity”
of the Indian leadership in seeking a final settlement
on Kashmir. Mr. Musharraf says he “can see
sincerity in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh”
because the Indian premier “understands
that atrocities are committed by the (Indian)
army” against the Kashmiris and that he
“understands” the need for demilitarization
in that area. The only problem is how to move
forward from here.
In a way, some of this criticism and skepticism
toward what the Pakistani president is doing is
a healthy check on a leader. But there’s
another aspect to it. There’s also a strange
sense of defeatism, self-doubt and self-loathing
within considerable sections of the Pakistani
intelligentsia. Many of our pundits are the first
to concede and raise the white flag and simply
can’t think of anything good about Pakistan
or about the nation’s ability to make its
presence felt in international politics.
Isn’t it amazing that, in the past three
to four years, we have read interesting and credible
writings by foreign researchers and writers defining
Pakistan’s rise to grace and its remarkable
ability and potential to play a positive role
beyond its borders, but we have never read or
seen any such intellectual product produced by
members of the Pakistani intelligentsia and opinion
makers? If anything, we are the first to celebrate
any momentary setback. A case in point: A self-styled
Pakistani nuclear expert volunteered to sound
the imminent demise of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal,
in a leading article in an international newspaper,
at the peak of last year’s controversy over
Mr. A.Q. Khan’s underground proliferation
scandal.
It’s a crisis of self-confidence within
our intelligentsia that surfaces whenever the
nation is involved in high stakes politicking
at home or abroad. And we are seeing it again
reflected on Islamabad’s recent skillful
diplomatic attempt to engage the Indians in resolving
the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistan didn’t surrender when it logically
could have done so in the early decades after
its Independence when it was weak and struggling.
And it certainly won’t now when it’s
on the rise.
The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist.
quraishi@furmaanrealpolitik.com.pk
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