On Friday,
14th September 2018 I was among the audience who were invited by Institute of
Business Administration (IBA) Karachi to a talk led by Dr. Moeed Yusuf, Associate
Vice President, Asia Centre, United States Institute of Peace. The other two
worthy speakers were former Defence Secretary of Pakistan (Rtd) Lt. Gen. Tariq
Waseem Ghazi and former Chairman of Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority, Jamshed
Hashmi.
Dr. Yusuf
spoke about his latest book ‘Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: U.S.
Crisis Management in South Asia’, in which he studied environments where nuclear
weapons were present which changed the dynamics of any crisis. He also proposed
the theory of ‘brokering of peace’, and crisis management in the regional
nuclear environment of Pakistan and India.
Dr. Moeed said,
“My findings suggest that you will always have stronger third parties who want
to influence the crisis because they are worried that things may escalate to
the nuclear level. These third parties will show up on their own; for instance
the US exaggerates the risk of nuclear escalation because of the lesson it drew
from the Cold War which was that nuclear war, if it ever happens, will happen
not because countries deliberately want it, but despite them not wanting it.”
“It is not
that Pakistan and India want the third party,” he elaborated. “However, when
the third party shows up to offer mediation and help mitigate the crisis,
Pakistan and India recognize they do not have any dependable bilateral ties to
bank on. Also, both states then tend to force the third party to deliver
concessions rather than directly engage with the opponent. Both Pakistan and
India try to use the third party, in this instance the US, to get concessions.”
Tariq Waseem
Ghazi disagreed with this model. According to him, there is a general disregard
from India’s side to engage with Pakistan on a bilateral level as well as in
the presence of a third party, whether it be the UN, the US or China. “Indians
say everybody else is irrelevant and wish to solely dictate the terms of
engagement. In the last 10 years we have been trying to do exactly what Moeed
has been proposing for crisis resolution and conflict prevention, but no
proposal from us has been acceptable to India.”
Jamshed
Hashmi was of the opinion that the US tends to do more harm than good when
trying to deescalate crises between Pakistan and India. “The US will continue
to ‘broker’ conflicts and we have to accept that. However, nowhere during this
brokerage has the biggest point of contention between Pakistan and India —
Kashmir — ever been debated on or the crisis resolved.”
Having
listened to the worthy speakers, a question came to my mind, is US a
peacekeeper or a war monger? With reference to Pakistan I am witness to many
frustrating experiences with the US. Some of these include unwillingness of the
strongest super power to mediate in the resolution of Kashmir issue, which is often
termed flash point. The super power didn’t play any role in stopping East
Pakistan becoming Bangladesh. The US first used Pakistan along with Taliban to
fight USSR troops in Afghanistan and post 9/11 Pakistan was used against Taliban.
Over the years ‘do more’ manta continues. Now Afghans have been brain washed to
a level where they consider Pakistan a foe rather than a friend.
During the
cold war era, India was provided military hardware by the US to equip it to fight
against China. The US also facilitated India to attain the status of regional
super power. The program has been further accelerated after the commencement of
work on China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The relationship between Iran
and India are being supported to counter relationship between Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan. A closer look in the neighborhood shows proxy wars going on in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon for years.
Based on
Pakistan experience and ongoing US proxy wars in the region, one is forced to
arrive at a conclusion that US is not a peacekeeper but warmonger. Having said
this, I would like to thank Dr. Moeed for providing an opportunity to the newly
elected government of Pakistan to understand the paradigm shift in US foreign policy,
imposing itself as a peace broker on Pakistan and India. My suggestion to the
Indian government is also to engage with Pakistan directly, rather than asking
the US to mediate.
