Pakistanis seem uncomfortable with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India. The same pictures have run repeatedly on all the television channels. Clinton is animated and lively, her head thrown back in laughter as she announces the latest agreement with India with Indian Foreign Minister S M Krishna by her side. It also does not improve matters that the agreement in question paves the way for billions of dollars worth of weapons contracts, as India becomes one of the biggest spenders on arms.
As Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, research fellow at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, said, "Not one of the biggest, India is THE biggest spender on military hardware in the world right now. And a 34 percent increase in their defense budget does not send out the right signals to Pakistan."
Analysts have expressed their alarm, confusion and betrayal in response to the US-India End-Use Monitoring Agreement. They feel there is much to be threatened by as Pakistan's neighbor and perceived or projected (at this point, many Pakistanis acknowledge the enemy lies within) archenemy is seen as an emerging global power. The argument is that the Americans have been pressuring Pakistan to do more in the war against terrorism, but when it shows its commitment, the rewards are not just. Pakistan is at present engaged in an open-ended military operation against the Taliban that has left close to 3 million people displaced.
According to retired diplomat Zafar Hilaly, it makes no sense for American companies to be selling military equipment to India as it only serves to make Pakistan insecure, which works in nobody's interest - certainly not that of the United States. "As long as we're anxious about the Indians," he argues, "we'll keep our troops on the eastern border rather than bring them in to fight the Taliban in Waziristan or deploy them along the Balochistan border in case of spillover from the latest US offensive in Afghanistan."
Pakistan has objected to the expansion of American combat operations in neighboring Afghanistan. The New York Times describes noises of disapproval coming out of Islamabad as "creating new fissures in the alliance with Washington at a critical juncture when thousands of new American forces are arriving in the region."
The phrase 'new fissures' is indicative of Pakistan's love-hate relationship with the United States. Pakistan has complained bitterly of having been abandoned by its long-standing friend time and again through the course of history. Ironically, it was Hillary Clinton who made the surprising admission that the criticism was justified.
Hence the sense of betrayal, which is further compounded when Pakistan's requests for increased military aid are ignored. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani made the request to Richard C. Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, while he was on his fourth visit to Islamabad. While Mr Holbrooke applauded Islamabad on taking on the Pakistani Taliban over the past few months, there were no commitments forthcoming. According to a Washington Post report, "weapons requests have long been a staple of Pakistan's relationship with the United States, but some diplomats said concern has increased after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took steps this week to boost military sales to India."
Now in all of this, it must be said that the most significant damage may be to the resumption of the India-Pakistan peace process. For Pakistanis to think, which they appear to be according to the aforementioned article, that the agreement between Washington and New Delhi could lead to an arms race in the region is a bit delusional. The cash-strapped government of President Asif Ali Zardari is scarcely capable of spending billions of dollars on military equipment when his people are burning tires over power breakdowns.
However, after Sharm-al-Sheikh, where the two prime ministers met on the sidelines of the Non Aligned Movement Summit, when Indian hawks were accusing Manmohan Singh of selling out, the Pakistani media was full of praise for the statesman. There was hope of composite dialogue despite the fact that Pakistan decided to release Hafiz Saeed, the head of the Jamaat-ud-Daawa, formerly the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group believed by the Indians to be behind the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. Shortly before the Singh-Gillani meeting in Egypt, the Pakistan government declared it did not have the evidence to detain Saeed to which the Indian media reacted with displeasure. Even so the mood was optimistic between the neighboring countries, and it would be a real shame for that to go awry.
What is also unfortunate is that the monitoring agreement with India appears to have overshadowed the efforts made by the United States to help the refugees of the Swat military operation. With the Kerry-Lugar Bill that ensures $1.5 billion annual assistance for Pakistan over the next five years, and an additional $165 million to the previously pledged $330 million for the rehabilitation of the refugees, the Americans are the biggest contributors of aid in the face of this crisis. And yet, several Pakistanis see this as another betrayal.
This piece was first published in Dawn.com
This is part of HuffPost's Spotlight On Pakistan. Eyes & Ears and HuffPost World are building a network of people living in Pakistan who can help us understand what is happening there. These individuals will send us reports -- either snippets of information or full-length stories -- about how the political crisis affects life in Pakistan. This is an opportunity to have a continued conversation with Americans about what's happening in your country. If you would like to participate, please sign up here.
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I says...Go ahead. Make my day!
LOL :)
Really...you want to be rewarded to clean up the mess that you have created yourselves?Now please don't blame the US and the rest of the world for the mess that is Pakistan. And what commitment are you talking about? Why is Hafeez Saeed a free man?Why is Pakistan testing everyone's patience?
I see a sad ending for Pakistan.
Its Pak-Afghan. Remember that always!
There is also every reason for India to be on high alert with Pakistan, given the fragile nature of your governments over the last six decades. Thats the reason that India also wants to see Pakistan as a resilient democracy so that both the countries would have almost no reason to be aggressive with each other. Yet, it is quite worrying to note that most of Pakistani people prefer a more resilient army to a more resilient democracy. Reasons for this could be many but one of reasons that comes to mind is that your army/civil elite makes lot of money in arms purchase, for sure!
If Pakistan wants to stand in league with India the former needs to look within and work towards building strong economic ties with India. Economic ties would compel peoples on both sides to not throw stones on each other. But given your unwillingness for economic ties, and stand on Kashmir besides your proximity with China..
Make no mistake India and Pakistan will continue to be at loggerheads as long as the the powers to be keep playing us against each other. If Ms Clinton or anyone in the U.S administration is even slightly serious about defusing the jihadi problem then the root cause of that problem or what is being used as recruitment propaganda for these militant outfits needs to be solved once and for all.
The west keeps saying that Kashmir and Palestine cannot be linked to the war on terror but what they do not realize is the fact that only through the dissolution of these issues will the war on terror actually stop, a nuclear Pakistan keeps many a person awake at night across the sea, but the reason for it going nuclear escapes us all?
Stop fattening our khakis and do something for the people of south Asia Ms Clinton if you are slightly interested in its well being.
Clinton Ties to India May Complicate Obama Policy - China Daily
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-12/02/content_7259617_2.htm
Hillary cultivates Indian ties in lead up to Presidential run - Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC01Df03.html
Indian ties to Clinton Foundation - UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/19/hillary-clinton-charitable-fund-donations
Bill and Hillary and many links to India - NY Times website
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf
Vinod Gupta
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/politics/14gupta.html?pagewanted=print
Vinod Gupta, a very wealthy Indian American entrepreneur and activist is long time Clinton friend and benefactor. He was a major donor and fundraiser to the Clinton campaigns and foundation. He was a Lincoln Bedroom guest during the Clinton Administration, has vacationed with the Clintons, built a “Bill Clinton Science and Technology Center” and a “Hillary Rodham Clinton Mass Communication Center” in India, reportedly gave the Clintons $3 million in consulting contracts and stock options in his company.
http://www.infousa.com/VinGuptaCharitable.htm
All of our politicians should develop closer ties to this great and ancient country.
Pakistan has all the resources, the talented people and wherewithall to achieve a state of better self-sufficiency. It should shed being dependent on the United States-or anybody else.
The best thing for any country to do for itself-or indeed any individual-is to sacrifice to become independent. Yes, it means putting oneself through the fire, but the rewards are without bounds...
1.Resources-- meagre exports, no oil no gas.
2.People: one of the world's most backward education systems. Most educated people try to immigrate to the West at earliest opportunity.
3.Wherewithal-- too much Sharia.
the first cannot be changed but without improvement on the other no progress is possible.
As for India so much of what Pakistanis feel toward it is over-determined by not just decades of state propaganda but also resentment. Look at India...it is on its way to being a global power. Meanwhile, Pakistan has not realized any of its dreams. The economy is in ruins. Dynastic politics continue where the people keep turning up to vote the same ones who've swindled them in the past because there are no options.
As for the US, most Pakistanis understand that they can't survive without them. America is the dream. Americans bought us and we sold ourselves. We are completely reliant on them. But the money wasn't spent on development which could have changed so much for us and the Americans too. Americans keep asking Why do they hate us? This is why. Stop picking us up and throwing us away whenever you feel like it!
i.e. after we waste another $200 billion there and just before the Iran conquest.