India enjoys veto power over Pakistan’s progress’

India enjoys veto power over Pakistan’s progress’

India enjoys veto power over Pakistan’s progress’ LAHORE, Aug 14: Pakistan should move away from the zero-sum security rivalry with India to be able to emerge as a successful, modern democratic society, says a distinguished American foreign policy expert. “It is vital for Pakistan to shift its strategic focus from a dead-end losing competition with India to a developmental competition,” Prof Walter Russel Mead emphasised in an interview with Dawn during his recent visit to Lahore. Pakistan can become an economically strong country if it realises the uselessness of confrontation with India, he said and held that Pakistan’s policy of confrontation with India means that it has given a veto power over its domestic and foreign policy to New Delhi. Prof Mead is a former Henry Kissinger senior fellow for United States foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a number of books. He was in Pakistan for two weeks to participate in the US embassy’s programme of international speakers. During his visit, he spent a lot of time with students and teachers from different universities, journalists, military officials, analysts and others. According to him, Pakistan’s struggle against India is also stopping its security establishment from completely severing its ties with extremist groups. “If you give up your relationship with these groups,” he argued,“the whole policy of confrontation with India becomes much more difficult to sustain.” He did not agree with the theory that the relationship between Pakistan and India could not improve without a solution to Kashmir. “To some degree it is a question for Pakistan to ask itself. To say that without a resolution to the Kashmir issue Pakistan cannot prosper is to say that India has a veto power over the future of Pakistan, that India must give permission before Pakistan can launch its projects of development. And I think Pakistan for its own sake needs to assume sovereignty over its future,” Prof Mead underlined. “Pakistan might see a creative new direction for itself if it could see the issue and assume sovereignty over its domestic and foreign policy.” “I think militarization of Pakistan’s development over the last 60 years is the core,” he continued. “The distortion of development priorities that comes from enormous military burden and uneven struggle against a much bigger neighbour means that Pakistan’s development is slower than that could be otherwise. It has not affected India due to its size. The questionable groups are used as a balancing weapon just to discover that these balancing groups exacerbate internal problems. Violence makes peaceful development much harder. Cost of confrontation for Pakistan keeps rising.” The expert pointed out that the US would like to see an agreed on solution over the future of Kashmir, which is also acceptable to its people. “But we neither can nor would impose a solution. We don’t have the ability or will. Some people in Pakistan have these unrealistic ideas about what the US government can accomplish.” Yet, he said, it is clear that India and Pakistan are closer to a common vision on the future of Kashmir today than they were 40 years ago. “And there are some interesting proposals put on the table by both sides. Some people say they have come way close to the solution. One hopes that the progress continues.” Asked about the recent American statements urging Pakistan to take action against Lashkar-i-Taiba and its allies, Prof Mead said: “I would expect the US to continue to raise this issue not because it is trying to be an agent of India here but because the US genuinely believes that any, even slight, cooperation between Pakistan’s security apparatus and this group is a threat to peace in the region.” But he candidly stated it is impossible for the US to ignore the rise of India. He quoted Henry Kissinger to describe the rise of India and China as “one of very rare historical event that would change the world”. “From the US point of view,” he elaborated, “the rise of India can be seen as fundamentally a benign force in the world. “The rise of India means the US doesn’t have to think so much about a war with China or a confrontation with China. With the rise of India you see a natural balance emerging in Asia with China, Japan and India. DAWN.COM | Lahore | ?India enjoys veto power over Pakistan?s progress?

You received three at this age; when I was of your age, I received nine bullets and look- today, I am the Commander in Chief of the Indian Army." - During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War when he met an injured soldier in army hospital with three bullet wounds - Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw