Making A Difference

Who’s The Visitor Next Door?

In visiting India, Barack Obama will leave lots of Pakistanis feeling slighted. How is Islamabad coping?

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Who’s The Visitor Next Door?
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For Washington, it has always been a deft tightrope walk between India and Pakistan, which in their ardour for America often resemble two spoilt children engaged in fierce competition to win their father’s affection. Perhaps it was this jealousy between Islamabad and New Delhi that prompted President Barack Hussein Obama to casually drop in at the October 23 meeting of Pakistani and American officials engaged in the third Pak-US Strategic Dialogue in Washington. Quite gratuitously, Obama declared, “I am the first US president who has visited Pakistan before taking office. Next year, I will pay an exclusive visit to Pakistan and want to invite President (Asif Ali) Zardari to visit Washington.” The American president was referring to his college days, during which he had accepted a Pakistani friend’s offer to travel in Sindh, and also to his mother’s brief stint of voluntary work in the Punjab province. He recalled those days for the participants in the strategic dialogue meeting.

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Obama’s effusiveness was obviously guided by the awareness that his forthcoming visit to India had created some heartburn among Pakistanis, particularly among those who had read on the internet the Indian media’s interpretation of the exclusion of Pakistan from the president’s travel in Asia, which has been portrayed as a snub to Islamabad. In many ways, this heartburn is understandable—for Pakistan has paid in blood to contribute to America’s war on terror in Afghanistan and contiguous areas, and its government has courted obloquy in conducting military operations against its own people. To pay such a price for the promise of a presidential visit next year was rightly perceived as a lollipop.

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“Only when the US quits Afghanistan and Pakistan puts its house in order will a visit by the American president amount to anything.” Asad Durrani, Former intelligence chief 
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“The Pakistani army can help provide the US an honourable exit from Afghanistan. Obama’s future depends on Pakistan.” Mushahid Hussain, PML(Q) leader

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“America’s relationship with India is on another plane—trade, then the next strategic level. But with Pakistan it is limited to terrorism.” Tariq Fatemi, Former ambassador 
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“If India’s going in for strong ties with US, good luck! Obama will visit us next year? Who knows who will survive this war on terror?” Shireen Mazari, Editor, The Nation

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“If there were to be a complete shutdown in Jammu & Kashmir when Obama is visiting India, it will be a slap on his face.” Riaz Khokar, Former foreign secretary 

Asking the people to treat the lollipop as just that, one Mir Kamil wrote a letter to the editor of The News: “As the great poet said, ‘Dil ke behlane ko Ghalib yeh khayal achha hai’.” An SMS doing the rounds here mocks Obama severely: “Here’s a black American, born a Muslim, converted to Christianity, and refusing to visit the Sikh Golden Temple because he might be mistaken for a Muslim if he covered his head!”

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Perhaps this simmering anger prompted Obama to telephone Zardari, in an attempt to reassure him that his trip to India, billed as both historic and the longest, shouldn’t be perceived as neglecting Pakistan, that Indo-US relations didn’t affect America’s partnership with Pakistan. But former military intelligence chief Gen (retd) Asad Durrani told Outlook: “Actually, these types of visits are not welcome. We saw Bill Clinton drop by for a few hours. Then George Bush came calling to see for himself how committed we were to the war against terror.” With American drones bombing Pakistan and inflicting casualties, Obama’s visit wouldn’t have yielded any benefits, says Durrani, adding, “It’s only when the US leaves Afghanistan and Pakistan puts its house in order that a presidential visit would amount to anything.”

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Analysts feel that Obama is likely to take America’s relations with India to another level, beyond even what Clinton and Bush managed. Tariq Fatimi, a former ambassador, says, “America’s relations with India are on a completely different level. There is great emphasis on trade and investment and we see both sides taking the relationship to the next strategic level. With Pakistan,  in contrast, the emphasis is only on combating terrorism and its role in Afghanistan. India is seen as a global partner cooperating with the US in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Thirty years from now, during a China-US conflict, the US will be looking at India as an ally.”

But others like Pakistan Muslim League (Q) leader Mushahid Hussain differ. He says Islamabad holds too many cards to be ignored just like that. “Through its army, Pakistan can help provide a dignified, honourable exit for the US from Afghanistan. Obama’s political future is dependent on cooperation from Pakistan,” Hussain told Outlook. He says Pakistan is also deftly positioning itself for the years ahead, in which the US won’t be around in Afghanistan. “Despite America’s opposition, we signed on the ‘peace’ pipeline with Iran. With China, our relationship is more robust and resilient than ever, more so given the war of words orchestrated by Washington and New Delhi with Beijing.” In other words, a strategic rearrangement in the region could see Pakistan bind itself to China to counter growing Indo-US relations.

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Obama’s exclusion of Pakistan from his Asian trip has prompted many in Islamabad to play the Kashmir card. Already people are advocating that Jammu and Kashmir should observe a complete shutdown during Obama’s stay in India so as to drive home the message that his administration shouldn’t brush under the carpet the human rights violations in the Valley. Former foreign secretary Riaz Khokar says, “If there is a complete shut-down in Kashmir during Obama’s visit to India, it will be a slap on his face.” He also accused India of convincing the Obama administration to not include Pakistan in his itinerary.

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Pakistan has stepped on the Kashmir pedal. Some 4,000 children of Azad Kashmir (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for India) have written a letter to Obama saying they are the worst victims of the conflict. Mushahid Hussain thinks what is pivotal to Pakistan is whether Obama can muster the will to deliver on Kashmir as he had promised during his presidential election campaign. “This is important for two reasons,” Hussain says. “First, Kashmir is again on the boil, with an indigenous, Palestine-style intifidah spearheaded by stone-throwing, angry Muslim youth. Second, peace in the region can no longer be compartmentalised—that we seek stability in Kabul, while allowing Kashmir to burn.”

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But, really, why should Obama visit Pakistan when it is anyway doing his bidding, asks The Nation’s editor, Dr Shireen Mazari. “If India is going in for a strong partnership with the US, good luck to them. Obama’s visit to Pakistan next year? Who knows who survives this misguided war on terror?”

At least till now, the Pakistan army has refused to accede to America’s repeated demand for a military operation in North Waziristan, where Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are said to be holding out. Perhaps Obama will deign to visit Islamabad once it decides to flush out the militants from North Waziristan and kill hundreds of civilians in the process.

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