Although the United States has considered Pakistan its key ally in combating militancy and terror, especially in Afghanistan, Islamabad has always played the role of a backstabber. Pakistan has been using a significant portion of military hardware and funds it has been receiving from the United States towards funding terrorist outfits both inside Afghanistan as well as the South Asian region, including Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Indian states, including Jammu & Kashmir.
For these factors, most of the counterterrorism and geopolitical analysts – when discussing the various inconvenient friendships of convenience in which the United States is entangled, they say – by depending on Pakistan, the US has not only been committing blunders, but it also risks the entire region and the world towards notoriety of terrorism and militancy.
Pakistan has been consistently facing economic juggernauts since its creation in 1947, alongside a series of social challenges, domestic political instability, and continuous threats posed by its military establishment to democracy. Pakistani democracy is mostly seen as a system directly controlled by its mighty military establishment – including the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). While Pakistan is still facing acute economic hardship – which according to my assessment, is responsible for the country’s extreme focus on harbouring terrorism – most of its South Asian neighbours, including Bangladesh and India, as well as Asian neighbours such as China, are gradually achieving economic prosperity with upliftment in various sectors.
Pakistan’s economy is mainly based on agriculture. At the same time, it could not achieve the expected expansion in other spheres because of its rogue international policies alongside directionless and, at times, counterintuitive national-defence policies adopted by the ruling elites.
One of the major hurdles behind Pakistan’s inability to attain expected economic progress is the warmongering tendencies of its military establishment, which has fought four wars with India, including the 1971 liberation war in erstwhile East Pakistan, which had defeated Islamabad’s mighty military, thus paving the path to the emergence of Bangladesh. This country has attained tremendous socio-economic progress during the past 53 years. Pakistan has already become bankrupt and is considered by many nations worldwide as a failed or rogue state.
Meanwhile, due to reprobate state policies and its military establishment’s unimaginable ambition of remaining as pseudo rulers – its democratic institutions are greatly affected – while its judiciary, which is now considered comparatively independent – is also heading towards the opposite direction. The international community has never considered any democratic government in Pakistan to be free from the influence of its military establishment and intelligence agency. In contrast, even today, key figures in the country’s ruling government are deemed puppets.
It is important to mention here that due to Pakistan’s ideologies of maintaining its image as a radical Muslim nation with tremendous hatred towards India, Hindus, and every “non-Muslim” society and nation – including the United States Pakistani society has become favourable to Islamist militancy, particularly destructive acts targeting India, Hindu and the “non-Muslim” Western countries. Such notions are counterproductive and, to some extent, suicidal for any nation.
For Pakistani society and its state machinery’s sympathy and support towards Islamist militancy, outfits like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi receive institutional support from the Pakistani military through its intelligence agency – the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).
In my opinion, American policymakers now need to reboot their Pakistan policy and its decades-old support towards Islamabad, as such relations can only risk America’s interest in the region, as Pakistan has always been playing the role of a backstabber.
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