Manan Ahmed on the Politics of US “Hysteria” over Pakistan
AMY GOODMAN: Manan Ahmed, you’ve got the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington now. What do you think the US approach to both countries should be?
MANAN AHMED: I think for—I mean, one of the things that I thought the Obama administration had a huge misstep was to link Pakistan and Afghanistan together, or their AfPak strategy, which I think they’re trying to de-link again. I mean, fact of the matter is that, you know, Afghanistan, 35 million-plus population, ravaged by thirty-plus years of war, without any infrastructure to speak of, one sort of very little urban presences, versus Pakistan, 175 million people, megacities, you know, at least some tradition of governance, a very fierce critical media. These are not countries that—whose fates are sort of—can be lumped in one basket.
So I think that the first step needs to be to recognizing Pakistan’s own realities. You know, how do you operate within that country itself? And within that, I think the primary task has to be to support the civilian government of Asif Ali Zardari, not because—I mean, I personally am not a huge fan, but the fact is that that is the elected government by the people after a, you know, twelve-year gap in elections. And I think they need—they explicitly need support, because if we are to give them the political will to act in Swat, to act in Waziristan, to act in Baluchistan, if we are to give them the political standing to go to the people of Pakistan and say, “This is a hard war. This is a tough campaign. There are refugees in these major cities. We need to support those refugees, and we have to support the civilian populations. And then we need to fight—in real military terms, fight—those elements who are not negotiating and not talking to us.” And that takes a tremendous amount of political will on behalf of a government that like, as I said before, has problems with legitimacy.
So I think that’s where the media hype in the United States press becomes a huge drawback. And I think that’s where the Obama administration needs to step up and sort of convince both itself and the Pakistani people that they are really partners in this together and that they will support the civilian leadership and not, you know, start talking nostalgically about the return of another—yet another military dictator.
MANAN AHMED: I think for—I mean, one of the things that I thought the Obama administration had a huge misstep was to link Pakistan and Afghanistan together, or their AfPak strategy, which I think they’re trying to de-link again. I mean, fact of the matter is that, you know, Afghanistan, 35 million-plus population, ravaged by thirty-plus years of war, without any infrastructure to speak of, one sort of very little urban presences, versus Pakistan, 175 million people, megacities, you know, at least some tradition of governance, a very fierce critical media. These are not countries that—whose fates are sort of—can be lumped in one basket.
So I think that the first step needs to be to recognizing Pakistan’s own realities. You know, how do you operate within that country itself? And within that, I think the primary task has to be to support the civilian government of Asif Ali Zardari, not because—I mean, I personally am not a huge fan, but the fact is that that is the elected government by the people after a, you know, twelve-year gap in elections. And I think they need—they explicitly need support, because if we are to give them the political will to act in Swat, to act in Waziristan, to act in Baluchistan, if we are to give them the political standing to go to the people of Pakistan and say, “This is a hard war. This is a tough campaign. There are refugees in these major cities. We need to support those refugees, and we have to support the civilian populations. And then we need to fight—in real military terms, fight—those elements who are not negotiating and not talking to us.” And that takes a tremendous amount of political will on behalf of a government that like, as I said before, has problems with legitimacy.
So I think that’s where the media hype in the United States press becomes a huge drawback. And I think that’s where the Obama administration needs to step up and sort of convince both itself and the Pakistani people that they are really partners in this together and that they will support the civilian leadership and not, you know, start talking nostalgically about the return of another—yet another military dictator.
posted by temporal at 5/11/2009
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