Pakistan today faces immense problems of internal and external security. The end of the Cold War and the demise of the former USSR brought in its wake a host of innumerable complex and challenging problems to the entire region.
In this context, as President Asif Ali Zardari prepares to address the United Nations in New York it will be prudent to acknowledge that the august assembly of almost two hundred countries is the only available platform where world leaders gather to highlight the problems their respective countries face and discuss long-term sustainable solutions to them. The search for a viable system of sharing limited resources, the global population explosion and the yawning gap created by these two fundamental problems are some of the issues that are discussed at this forum. In these, the worst of times, when factors like the unequal sharing of earth’s resources and terrorism are constantly at play it becomes our collective duty of nations to try and play their part in achieving some of the objectives of the United Nations.
Pakistan does not exist in a vacuum and its own existence has been impacted by what has happened in at least one of its neighbours: Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion proved to be disastrous for the country. The Red Army was looked upon as an occupational force and it had to fight the Afghan resistance, which eventually came to be labelled as the mujahideen. America got involved and because Pakistan shared a long and porous border with Afghanistan, it too got involved. Subsequent events related to what happened inside Afghanistan brought untold suffering, death and destruction for Afghanis and also had an adverse impact on Pakistan and its relations with Kabul.
However, the Soviets eventually withdrew and in due course of time, some of those who were known as the mujahideen re-emerged and became the Taliban. Al Qaeda also had an organic relationship with the Taliban and owes its rise in a large part to the connections and linkages built when the Afghan war was being fought.
As time went by, these groups began to torment both Afghanistan and Pakistan and the situation is such now that they present a real and present danger to the latter’s very existence. Both countries however must realise that the only way they can fight the scourge of extremism and militancy is by cooperation and not by hurling accusations at each other (President Hamid Karzai, please take note). In this regard, there would be perhaps no better occasion and forum to make such an approach public than at the United Nations.
As far as the domestic formulation and implementation of such a policy is concerned, one hopes that the new government will be able to change things for the better – both in relations with Kabul and in the way that the militancy is being confronted within Pakistan’s borders. One example can be seen in its adoption of a participatory- and progress-orientated approach. The dispensation is trying to embark on a 3-Ds approach, as in dialogue, deterrence and development. And it seeks to do this with consensus, by bringing onboard all major political parties, including the opposition.
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