These remarks were prepared for delivery at The American Muslim Alliance Foundation Policy Forum, January 10, 2010.
It is an honor for me to speak to you today and share the platform with an intellectual and friend, Shuja Nawas, for whom I hold the highest respect.
I would like to thank the AMA organizers and especially those of you who have come to join our discussion today.
Shuja and I have been asked to talk about a subject of great concern to all of us here today because of our ties to both Pakistan and the US.
On the surface, Americans see our relations with Pakistan as pretty straight forward, it fits a certain model we have of foreign relations that form the basis of the good ally for a number of reasons:
Since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, the US has supported the new democracy with over $50 billion in economic and military aid. We believe we have been reliable friends in times of Pakistan’s great need. For example, the US was the first and most generous humanitarian contributor to earthquake victims in 2005 and more recently to the refugees from Swat. Our promise is to be there well into the future. The Obama administration has offered one of the largest multilateral economic aid packages in our history, $1.5 billion dollars over 5 years. Importantly, the American public believes Pakistan and the US have every reason to form a close alliance because we are threatened by the common enemy of international terrorism.
The Pakistan army is valiantly battling the TTP, which by its own admission seeks to defeat the State of Pakistan. And, as we were reminded on Saturday with the broadcast of the film of the Jordanian doctor who was an Al Qaeda triple agent as he sat next to Hakimullah Mehsud that the Pakistan international terrorist group. In short, we place Pakistan in the column of friendly ally.
At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the people of Pakistan doesn’t see it the same way and have profoundly negative opinions of the United States. Last August a Gallup poll showed that nearly two thirds of the Pakistani population regard the US as an enemy. The public was less concerned about India and the Taliban than about American intentions in Pakistan. The conundrum even has a name. It is called the “trust deficit.” Americans are perplexed by the trust deficit -- we are also keenly aware of all the reasons we do not trust Pakistan.
Americans are deeply troubled by the role AQ Khan played in nuclear proliferation. We worry about the stability of Pakistan as the base for Al Qaeda. And, the US knows it cannot prevail in Afghanistan without the support of Pakistan, both to control the border and to protect our supply routes -- But we do not trust that we have 100% cooperation from Pakistan’s military establishment who continue to fight some extremist groups, while protecting others.
Having set the stage of a troubled but mutually dependent relationship -- The harder question is why? Why such distrust among historical allies who both need each other today? And a more difficult follow-up question is -- what could we do to place our relations on a stronger footing? These are the questions I will address today.
We don’t understand Pakistan because it cannot be understood from a framework of traditional diplomacy that starts with defining US interests and builds from there. We are doomed by an American-centric approach. Pakistanis make the same mistake.
The more I learn about Pakistan, the more I tend to believe that the only approach that makes sense is to base US policies not on our own national interests, but rather on the broader interests of the people of Pakistan. This is what real trust means. I realize this is a heretical statement from a former Ambassador. It breaks traditions.
But I believe in the longer term we have much to gain by focusing our diplomacy in ways that promote the human aspirations of a population – especially one that is the second largest Muslim country in the world, and growing at double the world average. It has challenges. Joshua Cooper Ramos used a good metaphor in his book The Age of the Unthinkable. He likened society to a cone of sand carefully built by adding one grain at a time. It was not possible to know by looking or counting the grains of sand, when adding the next grain would cause a mini avalanche. In fact, deep inside the cone there is inner chaos of unseen movements of sand that determine when the cone will shift.We must accept that we may not be seeing the most important things going on in Pakistan. In fact, when we look beyond the surface, deep within the sand pile to learn what is going on we can see that people in Pakistan have a very different take on the history of our relations than the American public. They don’t think the US has been a reliable friend. They believe the US abandoned Pakistan in the wars with India and did not support Islamabad in 1971 when the East seceded.
There is a conviction that we use and leave Pakistan. We used Pakistan as a Cold War ally when India was courted by the Soviets. We used Pakistan to evict the Soviets from Afghanistan and then we promptly cut off aid and military liaison ties as soon as the Cold War was over. Pakistanis believe our visa policies discriminate against them, that we do not respect Islam, and that we give trade advantages to other more powerful states like China, at the expense of Pakistan’s important textile industry. Too many people even believe the erroneous conspiracy theories that the September 11 terrorist attacks was part of an Israeli and CIA plot to discredit Islam, and the wildly untrue notion that there is an Israeli –Indian –US plot to seize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and break up the country. Clearly, the trust gap is real and a major impediment to bilateral cooperation.
Now I am getting to the major point of my remarks tonight. What can American diplomats do to improve understandings? To close the trust gap? We can begin by focusing on the people of Pakistan. I think Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton got it right on her last trip to Pakistan. From watching and reading about the way she organized her visit and conducted discussions with different groups of Pakistani people, it was clear to me that she genuinely empathized with the people. Specifically, she conveyed an interest in their culture, dress, food, and religion. She did not meet exclusively with officials behind closed doors, but in town meetings that lasted for a couple of hours with students, journalists, and businessmen. And she opened herself to dialogue and answered questions with hard truths. People may not have liked her answers but they loved her honesty.
Hillary Clinton has made a career out of her interest in helping women, children, education, and economic development. Her visit was wildly successful. She built trust. It is important to remember that our relationship is with the people of Pakistan. We respect the people of Pakistan for their accomplishments and for their deep commitment to democracy. Importantly, we admire and respect Islam.
The second building block to greater trust will come when we acknowledge the elephant in the room and work with India and Pakistan and their neighbors to encourage a negotiated end to the Kashmir conflict. I do not advocate that the US takes sides, but I do believe that a negotiated resolution of Kashmir is in both India and Pakistan’s interests. It is central to regional peace and key to our anti-terrorism and Afghan strategies. The Army is the most respected institution in Pakistan, and with good reason. But even the Army realizes that a sustained militarization of society is not in Pakistan’s long-term interests.The continued conflict hides larger issues such as water sharing. It restricts trade and hinders growth.
Finally, to build trust the United States must get away from the language of transactional diplomacy in which we measure our relations with Pakistan by the amount of aid we give. It is a false notion to think that we can input aid money and get an output of pro-American sentiment.
History tells a more complicated story. The US has provided $50 billion dollars to Pakistan since 1947, a large proportion was provided during the past 8 years of the Bush Administration. But because the people felt the bulk of these funds went to the military, anti-Americanism sentiment peaked. With every good intention, the Obama Administration tried to address this inequity with the Kerry Lugar Bill. We were stunned by the immediate, public rejection of the aid program. Ironically, the large aid bill was intended to build trust but instead boomeranged to cause greater public cynicism. The Army felt some of the language within the bill was a slap in the face. Common people were deeply wary that too much money would be diverted by government officials, who they believed were corrupt. The government resented the American aid mechanism that relies too heavily on NGOs and the US for the profit of companies.
In many ways, the reaction was justified. Quite rightly Pakistan said what few other countries have communicated, but many believe – that America must discard the worn-out Cold War notion that we can buy friends and support with our aid.
The greatness of America lies not in the largeness of our purse, but rather the values we represent. Our aid program in Pakistan ought not to be based on the notion that building schools, clinics or roads will lure people away from extremists; rather our aid should be an expression of values. Specifically, the value for justice Our nation has a long tradition of promoting social and legal justice. Everything we say, do, and give to Pakistan should be consistent with the American belief that the poor should have equal protection under the law and in the courts as the wealthy. We believe the foremost responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. American diplomacy and our assistance should support those in Pakistan who wish to strengthen and professionalize community police and courts so that the people of Pakistan feel safe in their village and cities.
Economic opportunity: as a capitalist nation, Americans believe that any man or woman should be able to work hard and make a good life. Our bilateral aid program in Pakistan should be geared toward job creation. Let there be no mistake, the fastest and surest route to job creation in Pakistan would be to reduce the exceptionally high tariffs we levy on Pakistan’s biggest export to the US – textiles.
We value education. The Clinton State Department is to be commended for prioritizing education with the Kerry Lugar funds. But we should understand that our education assistance is not meant to be an alternative for “Madrassa” or religious schools. Rather we must invest in equal, quality, and publicly accessible education so that it leads to jobs.
Governance: finally, it is a fundamental American value that the purpose of government is to protect and provide services to the people. Building effective, accountable government institutions will not occur simply by directing large sums of aid through government channels as is so widely feared in Pakistan. Our aid should reinforce the notion that democracy is not an elite parlor game, but a mechanism to meet the needs of the population.
The easy part is to analyze what must be done. The more difficult task is in implementation. I have spoken of the trust gap that bedevils our bilateral diplomatic relations. I have shared what I believe should be the key purposes of our aid program. Now let me conclude with a concrete proposal for the use of the Kerry Lugar funds in a way that would help bridge the trust gap. The idea would be to turn on its head the traditional USAID modus operendi. Instead of starting with a country strategy designed by AID experts and then let contracts to NGOs to implement the plan -- I suggest AID ask the people of Pakistan who know the culture and what they need to design the program.
It should begin with a national communication campaign in Pakistan that articulates what we hold most dear for our own citizens and express them as our priority goals for aid monies – namely justice, jobs, education and government services for people. We would then invite any person, group, and government entity in Pakistan or within the Pakistan/American community to submit a plan for a project to accomplish these goals. This is similar to Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” program at the Department of Education.
I believe this novel approach would have several key outcomes:
· It would identify new leaders by opening up the programs to any one with a good idea;
· It would encourage innovation. We would get solutions to problems we had not understood, but that Pakistanis live with everyday.
· It would forge buy-ins from communities by relying on the population for ideas, rather than American contractors.
· Finally, what better way to close the trust gap than by showing trust? This approach essentially conveys the notion that the US does not know it all.
In conclusion, I sense pressures are rapidly building in Pakistan for dramatic social change. There are movements within the sand pile that we do not see and will only know when the avalanche flattens the cone. Whether change will be directed by empathetic leaders in ways that give the people what they want and need – namely security, justice, jobs and hope– or change will get hijacked by extremist forces that will take Pakistan down a harsh path that cannot be known today.
The United States as a loyal and concerned friend of Pakistan must be open minded, flexible and unafraid of new ideas and emerging leaders. We must admit that we don’t know all the answers and be willing to experiment in our relationship. We must put our faith in people and place their interest first.
Assertions and opinions in this Transcript are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.
About this Transcript:
Assertions and opinions in this Transcript are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.