Cultural Perspective Is Key to International Relations: An Interview with Former Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani

In your role as a diplomat and as a scholar, do you observe that President Obama’s foreign policy regarding Pakistan is misaligned with Pakistan’s true priorities?

It’s not just about President Obama and his foreign policy. This is about American foreign policy. In general, Americans find it very easy to deal with Europe because they have some history of dealing with Europe. They have now somehow managed to try and understand China a bit, again, because of the Pacific relationship that has been in understanding in the region. They have a very poor record of understanding all of the countries in between, whether it’s the Middle East or South Asia. For a long time, Pakistan was made part of American military alliances that were directed at the Middle East. Even just a careful look at the map and understanding of history will tell you that Pakistan is part of South Asia, having come out of India in 1947—then, having been part of the Middle East, since it’s a Muslim majority country. So it was assumed that’s where it belonged.

President Obama has wanted, of course, a less militaristic foreign policy. And so I was Ambassador when he was elected, and soon after election, he set as his priority a withdrawal from Iraq and a withdrawal from Afghanistan. And in the campaign, he had said in 2008 that all of America’s interests lead to the east of Afghanistan, which meant Pakistan, India, etc. Economic interests with India, strategic interests with Pakistan in the sense of containing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability, and so he really moved very quickly to try and find a way of getting out of Afghanistan.

There was no real way of doing that without understanding the dynamics of Pakistan’s politics. Pakistan had a newly elected civilian government but has a long tradition of military interference with politics. Pakistan civilians are weak, so they were looking for assistance in relation to the army, but the Obama administration became impatient and thought, if the army is the one that controls instruments of power, then let’s talk to the army directly. That weakened the civilians further, and so in many ways, President Obama really had no Pakistan policy, but he had withdrawal from Afghanistan policy, and the fact is that Pakistan is a very important country—200 million people, majority Muslim, a nuclear weapons power, and a country that has gone to war four times since 1947. It’s a country that, even when it has been an American ally, virtually has never done what America wanted it to do. The need for cultural understanding, political understanding, and recognition of the internal dynamic of Pakistan was necessary but was not always pursued.

How can foreign policy towards Pakistan be more culturally informed?

First of all, foreign policy has to be an understanding of two things: what do we want, and what does the other side want? If you do not know what you want, you’re confused. If you do not understand what the other side wants, again, you will make decisions that will not necessarily lead to the best outcomes.

In the case of Pakistan, Obama’s administration needed to understand that Pakistan is India-centric. It’s not the military that is not going to want to change that; it’s civilians who want to change that, but they are weak and will need a long period of time before they can change that. So in that sense, it may have been in America’s best interest to be less focused on India instead of making the Pakistani military feel that it is so important to American military strategy in Afghanistan that it will be able to drag America into India-Pakistan relations. The message should have been made clearer. It should have been that we want to get out of Afghanistan. We would like your help, and even if we don’t get your help, we will still do it. That message was not sufficiently given, by not understanding that any amount of persuasion and coaxing and giving of aid will not change the Pakistan military’s mind.

Pakistan inherited one third of British army. Most countries raise an army to match the threat to their security. Pakistan is one of those unique countries that was born with a large army and therefore had to find a threat that matched the size of the army. It has the sixth largest army in the world, but it also has one of the highest numbers of children out of school in the world, because after all, the army became the dominant institution and therefore dominated the resources and the decision making. Any policy aimed towards Pakistan should be trying to change that domination. The Obama administration just didn’t do it or couldn’t do it.

You mentioned radical Islam, and the relationship political Islam has with the government versus the true will of the people. What do you see playing out? Can you have a state religion while trying to incorporate modernization techniques with different powers?

Islam is a religion. Radical Islamism is a political ideology and should be understood as such. A lot of people make this mistake. They assume that radical Islam and Islam are the same thing, and because we can’t go against anyone’s religion, we have to be tolerant of radical Islamism. That’s not true. Radical Islamism is a totalitarian ideology, a modern idea; it actually came up in the last 100 years of Muslim decline.

Muslim decline has gone on for the past 400 years, but in the last 100 or 150 years, groups have emerged that say, “You know, we need to have a radical approach to reestablishing Islamic order as it existed under the Prophet.” Meaning to recreate the caliphate, that’s the best way for Muslims to succeed and also to end western domination. It’s all integrated if you think about it.

And the countries and governments that succeed in establishing political Islamic control should be isolated and sanctioned and marginalized like communist countries were, to be able to force change on them.

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