However, the ambassador, who was a member of the Parliament until her appointment as envoy to Washington, would not speak specifically about Islamabad’s position on Pakistan-US wide-ranging ties as it is the Parliament’s preregative to come out with a detailed advice after the completion of an ongoing review, undertaken in the aftermath of November 26 cross-border attacks on Mohmand border posts.
A re-think in Pakistan-US relations was needed for a number of very good reasons, she told a packed hall of the U.S. Institute of Peace located in front of the State Department building.
“Some of these (reasons) were structural, while some of the famous “trust deficit” gaps were informed by a profound cognitive, and even institutional, disconnect,” she said at the event, anchored by former U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Headley.
Many of the gaps can be mitigated, she felt, “if we step back, give pause and re-construct.”
“But on the strategic end, this relationship has been burdened with too many expectations, and invested with an inordinately high wattage of emotion,” she pointed out.
Ambassador Rehman referred to the state of strategic flux the region faces at a time of unprecedented challenges, and the responsibilities such transitions bring with it and noted that “this is too important and too sensitive a relationship to carry this volume and scale of unregulated hyperbole.”
The envoy said Pakistan is functioning as a democracy and can no longer make strategic decisions based on one phone call.
“We will of course seek to renew our important relationship with the US by reinvigorating it with new terms of engagement. We hope that by bringing greater clarity, coherence and operational coordination, we can move towards a partnership that is better hardwired for critical metrics of success, such as mutual respect and mutual benefit.
We clearly have converging goals in seeking stability in the ‘region, and hope that they can soon be pursued with greater vigor, openness and clarity.
“Pakistan can no longer make crucial strategic decisions based on one phone call, and I thank all US officials and other interlocutors who have worked so hard to welcome me to Washington and to exercise patience throughout this “strategic pause” in our bilateral engagement.”
At the same time, she sounded confident that the two sides would be able to carry forward the relationship in a mutually meaningful and beneficial way.
“The good news is that many of us on both sides think it is time that this relationship matured into a more consistent, stable and transparent equation, with weight given to mutual respect, but once again that would be the subject best reserved right now for our parliament to decide.”
“Our challenge in the days ahead is to not only re-set this relationship in seminal ways so that we avoid being caught in the cross-hairs of a tough conflict in a very tough neighbourhood, but also build on vital gains that can bring more light than heat to any given situation.
“Among other tangibles, we clearly need a series of codified protocols where episodes stay off the red line radius, and therefore not contingent on the infrastructure of crisis management.
The current rules of engagement, if you like, leave this vital relationship too vulnerable to the enemies of peace, as well as to our own gaps in communication.”
Ambassador Rehman informed the gathering of experts, think tank analysts and diplomats that she is not in Washington with a victim narrative but the fact remains that the Pakistani soldiers, police, people and leaders have sacrificed the most in the fight against terrorism since Islamabad joined the anti-terror effort following September 11, 2001 attacks.
“I would take this opportunity to say that the tragedy at Mohmand really
served as an end-line trigger that called for a fundamental re-set. It was indeed shocking for the Pakistani nation to see the flag-draped bodies of 24 soldiers martyred in the line of active duty on the international border with Afghanistan, at the hands of our allies. In the absence of an immediate apology, this did cause the Pakistan street to erupt with questions about the egregious asymmetry in the calculus of comparative sacrifice between our two nations in terms of blood and reasure.”
However, she said, the Mohmand incident was not the sole motive for the Pakistani call for a re-think as it happend on the heels of a long line of bilateral catastrophes in 2011.
Today, she said, in a democratic Pakistani the entire government speaks with one united voice vis-a-vis relations with the United States.
“As far as this bilateral equation is concerned, as with all national security challenges, we are now on a road where we speak as one united government, where the military defends our borders, and the civilian leadership stands up for its soldiers, just as strongly and clearly as your leadership does for its military in the United States.”
On the challenge of terrorism, she said, “this is not an existential or state identity crisis, in my view, neither is this a permanent condition.”
“No government, or even military, can take on such a toxic and lethal combination in one go,” she said and cited Pakistan’s massive operations against militants in Malakand region.
“The extremists find succor among terrorists to advance their agenda, and civil society and political majorities of the kind that Islamabad votes in need time and capacity to turn back this tide.”
Pakistan votes in progressive political parties by and large, which if empowered over time, can and must reverse the advances that the extremist idiom and militant muscle has made since Pakistan allied with the US against the war against Communism in Afghanistan, she added.
Pakistan, she stressed, has strong commitment to the effort against extremism, militancy or terrorism today.
“It is impossible to open all fronts at one time, especially given the conflict in Afghanistan constantly spilling over into Pakistan both twenty years ago, and once again today. So this is a capacity issue as much as a sequencing challenge, and we often feel we are fighting this long battle with one hand tied behind our backs.”
Today Pakistan’s internal terrorism challenge is mostly a function of its location as well as its capacity in the face of high numbered daily casualties, both civilian and military, she said.
Ambassador Rehman reiterated that the democratic government in Pakistan - led by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani - is committed to a vision of pluralism and protection of women, minorities and vlunerable segments in line with the vision of Quaid-i-Azam and martyred PPP leader and two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
“As part of our vision for a secure, plural, democratic and prosperous Pakistan, we are firmly committed to playing a constructive role in promoting peace and stability in our region.”
Islamabad is engaged in a diglaogue with its eastern neighbor India. Islamabad wants to enhance its talks with New Delhi to make it productive and result oriented, with the hope that the Kashmir dispute finds just and peaceful resolution.
Pakistan is also reaching out to Kabul on its Western border, where Pakistani Foreign Minister recently “met all political coalitions, in order to deepen trust and build mutual capacity for stresses the two countries continue to face, as civilian casualties from the conflict in Afghanistan reach their highest number in ten years.”
“At this point I want to clearly state that Pakistan will support a peace process that is Afghan-led and Afghan owned, in real-time practice, not just as a policy platitude. We do not consider Afghanistan our strategic backyard, as many claim we do, but we do have the highest stakes in Afghan stability since we simply cannot afford the blowback from either a civil war there again, nor any other kind of surge into Pakistan, with its long, porous border. Our motives in the region are driven by a legitimate anxiety about the security transition in a post-US drawdown timeline in Afghanistan, certainly not ambition,” she added as the U.S. and its NATO allies worked toward handing over security responsibility to Afghans to meet the 2014 pullout deadline.
