An Interview with Ahmed Quraishi

November 09, 2009

By The Diplomat

This isn’t the figment of anyone’s imagination–it has been verified by people on the ground and was raised by the Pakistani chief with General Stanley McCrystal a couple of weeks back. This story was headline news on major Pakistani news channels and in newspapers, so it’s surprising that so little time has been given over to such grievances, which provide fodder to skeptics in Pakistan who question US motives in Afghanistan.

And of course we have a standing complaint that weapons and money that are sustaining terrorists are coming from Afghanistan. And it’s not just the factor of Afghan warlords and drug money and so forth. It’s beyond that. And we feel little time is given to this grievance in the US media. US officials know about it, and often discuss the issue with Pakistani officials, but they never talk about this openly. So I find it very funny when Secretary Clinton comes over here and says ‘you have some questions about our role, and we have some grievances about yours, but we need to reach some common ground.’ Sure. But this entire thing that is going on in the Af-Pak region is a result of US policy. And eight years on, this project is falling apart and isn’t showing any signs of being nearer a conclusion than it was, say, five years ago. So serious questions are arising about why in Pakistan we continue to be part of a project that shows every signs of failing, if it has not already failed.

What would you like to see the US doing differently to improve its image?

Quraishi: Two things. One is that in terms of foreign policy, on its policy on Afghanistan, it needs to take its Pakistani ally along as it moves on. What has happened over the past eight years is that Pakistan was not taken along in US planning on Afghanistan. A government was set up in Kabul that was decidedly full of anti-Pakistan elements, elements that are antagonistic to Pakistan. Now when I say this I don’t mean that the Afghan government should be pro-Paksitan. But they should not be antagonistic. So the United States and the different stakeholders in policy in Afghanistan, including the intelligence community and the military, will have to trust Pakistan and take it along as an ally, and not treat it as someone to be looked upon with suspicion, or to be used for logistical help it needs but to then not trust it on the long-term questions of what kind of government should be in Kabul and whether the Pashtuns need to be isolated from such a government or not.

Number two, the United States needs to understand that it is counter productive to try and interfere in the domestic politics of Pakistan. Very few observers in the United States discuss a very interesting thing that they have been doing in Pakistan, which is to try and micromanage that country. The very government we have in Pakistan right now, the elected government in Islamabad, wouldn’t have been in place without a deal that was discussed and tailored and finalized at the US State Department with the active participation of diplomats from the United States and United Kingdom. And, of course, with the full backing of Vice President Cheney at that time. That deal resulted in tailoring the political set up that you currently see in Pakistan, and it dealt with such minute issues as who would be the coalition partner, which parties could work with the United States, and which ones could not.