I don't know how many people in India or abroad would be admirers of Pakistan, but in a world where every major power is just dying to screw your sovereignty, I cannot help having a grudging admiration of the Islamic Republic. It feels good to see at least one nation clutching the balls of two big powers and screwing the rest of the world without a tinge of worry for the future. I sometimes feel amazed at how Pakistan has been able to lie in the same bed with two bitter rivals - US and China - at the same time! The puppet seems to have become the puppeteer! Nothing has been able to budge Pakistan from those two nations' favourites list. Not even 9/11. Pakistan has always received American aid and Chinese weapon systems. 9/11 just increased the flow.
If you want to learn realpolitik, become a Pakistani diplomat. I think they are the best diplomats in the world. I mean, just look at what all they have to defend - military dictatorship, nuclear bazaarisation, religious radicalism, promoting/harbouring terrorists, human rights violations, Taleban and Osama connections, honour killings and rapes and what not. And yet, they speak proudly and defend vociferously. This despite their constant flip-flops between causes - for taleban/against taleban; for democracy/against democracy; for the bomb/against the bomb; for India/against India. Lets call it their 'diploggression'.
Imran Khan recently proclaimed that Pakistan is a Banana Republic. Who do you blame? The Soviets for occupying Afghanistan? Or further back, the British for cleaving the subcontinent? Apparently, there is no place for scruples in international diplomacy. In a world where increasingly greed and myopia are veiled as realpolitik and passed off as pragmatism, a nation has to be on its constant guard so that it is not caught with it's pants down and gets buggered by sundry kings and king makers. There is no substitute for a national conscience. Pakistan seemingly doesn't have one. But then you can't blame her. Between a rock and a hard place, conscience seldom comes to your rescue.
But is Pakistan really a Banana Republic? How is it working? Isn't the General governing the nation well enough? Aren't the systems working? Isn't trade and economy booming in Pakistan? Isn't Pakistan making good use of the Americans and Chinese? Or is she still their stooge? Hasn't Pakistan developed better relations with India? She may not have a conscience, but doesn't she have ample judgment? Who is thinking this up? My question is, who is really controlling Pakistan these days? And herein lies the seed for my next article, my wackiest conspiracy theory.
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