Source: Dawn.com
SOMETIMES big decisions turn on simple questions. In the aftermath of 9/11, the question was a simple one: did we get it? Did our generals get that 9/11 was an epochal, seismic shift, that the old way of doing business had to be chucked out, replaced by a new pragmatism to fit new realities?
The generals didn’t get it. They thought 9/11 was a blip, one that required temporary adjustments and deflections, for which they would be rewarded handsomely, before eventually going back to business as usual.
No thought was given to long-term changes or course corrections, which made sense for a state which rarely has anything by way of strategy, statecraft here being limited to haphazardly responding to crises.
Ten years on, Pakistan is struggling mightily with the consequences of misreading 9/11 and what it meant for this country and the security choices before it.
Which is why debating the minutiae of the present round of accusations and recriminations between Pakistan and the US matters little. Has the CIA been handed a bunch of Pakistani visas as a result of an explicit understanding that no unilateral American operations will take place on Pakistani soil or was it more of a mumbled half-promise accompanied by severe arm-twisting?
Has Ghulam Nabi Fai been outed as a warning that if Pakistan continues to hamper American efforts to get what it wants most — eliminating terrorists who may threaten the US homeland and interests — then the US will undermine what Pakistan cares about the most — getting something out of Kashmir?
Doesn’t matter, really. Locked in a static worldview, the generals missed the flux of strategic opportunities, and threats, that 9/11 produced.
From resetting ties with the US in a way that would draw Pakistan on to the right side of world opinion to re-examining
Kashmir and the broader relations with India to looking internally and embarking on reforms that would alter the economic and security trajectory of the country — there was much that could have been done.