Petulant malevolence

Thirty years ago New Zealand had a prime minister called David Lange who was witty and sometimes caustic. Speaking at the dinner he hosted for retiring US ambassador H Monroe Browne, a rich political appointee whose chief distinction was ownership of a racehorse called Lacka Reason, he observed that his distinguished guest “must be the only ambassador in the world to own a horse named after his country’s foreign policy,” which sally went down like a lead balloon in humourless Washington.

But one wonders, now, whether there might be a whole stable of similarly-afflicted ambassadorial nags cantering round the mine-strewn paddocks of US diplomacy, such are the whims and whinnies of Washington’s approach to international affairs.

Pakistan desperately needs gas for power generation to help it out of its present economic hole, and the easiest and cheapest means to get gas is by a pipeline from Iran. The scheme is hot to trot, like a US ambassador’s horse. But the US threatens sanctions on Pakistan if construction of this lifeline continues. The mind reels over the arrogance and insensitivity of the policy, because Islamabad has recently had to obey the orders of the IMF and increase electricity and fuel price at a time the country is in dire straits.

Doesn’t Washington understand that it would be prudent, compassionate and civilised to try to support a precarious democratic government and its people in such a predicament? Doesn’t Washington realise that Pakistan is in a parlous condition and that US threats and sanctions will not only drive people further into misery but alienate them even more against the US?

No, it doesn’t. As the Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, said last week “If Pakistan moves forward with the pipeline it will be in clear violation of our Iran sanctions regime.” And the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman told the committee that “On Pakistan, we have had discussions [about the pipeline] and will continue with the Pakistani government. My own assessment is it’s not going anywhere anytime soon”, because Pakistan “certainly understands where we are and what our sanctions require should it proceed.”

It is well to bear in mind that before her entry to what, I suppose, might be called ‘diplomacy’, Ms Sherman was ‘vice-chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and a member of the Investment Committee of Albright Capital Management’.

The ‘Albright’ of these enterprises is former secretary of state Madeleine Albright who zealously enforced US sanctions on Iraq, concerning which an interviewer on the US 60 Minutes TV programme said to her that because of her actions, “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” (The UN had reported that sanctions had killed 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five.)

And Madeleine Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” Does her former employee Ms Sherman have the same pitiless attitude about the deaths of Iranian children as a result of US sanctions? And will Ms Sherman be equally heartless about the deaths of Pakistani children if Islamabad goes ahead with the pipeline and Washington imposes sanctions?

According to the State Department, Ms Sherman reaffirmed “our unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security” in its hysterical confrontation with Iran, but she isn’t going to affirm any commitment to Pakistan’s security, because the US is ruthlessly opposed to any country trading with Iran. It doesn’t matter to Washington that Iran’s President Rouhani has gone out of his way to attempt to engage the US in dialogue. His efforts have met with approval by most of the world, but at best in Washington by grudging, caveat-strewn sound-bites.

The usual anonymous US ‘senior administration official’, who lacks the courage to be identified (they’re pathetic, these people) said about Iran’s diplomacy that, “This is not something that we believe happens out of goodwill; we believe that Iran has an imperative to improve its economy, because every single economic indicator is negative for them. The only way that they can improve the economy is through achieving sanctions relief. So that’s the context that’s changed.”

And a Florida senator put the US position even more bluntly by saying: “It’s clear that sanctions imposed against the regime in Tehran by both the US and UN have weakened Iran’s economy and have measurably reduced the regime’s ability to acquire materials needed to complete its nuclear programme. Now is not the time to ease the pressure; it’s the time to deliver the crushing blow.” (To another half a million kids, maybe?)

Little wonder that Iran’s leader has said, “We are pessimistic towards the Americans and do not put any trust in them. The American government is untrustworthy, supercilious and unreasonable, and breaks its promises.”

So be warned, government of Pakistan, because if you try to improve the lot of the citizens who elected you by building a gas pipeline from Iran, or trading in any way with your convenient next-door neighbour, mighty America will in this instance actually keep its promise and hammer your country into economic devastation from it will never recover.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, “Pakistan needs gas very badly…there is an acute shortage of gas in Pakistan, so we have to import gas from somewhere.” How true. How sensible. And the pipe is already complete on the Iranian side, right up to the Balochistan border, but Pakistan needs to find 1.5 billion dollars to build the rest.

Washington could give it that without a twitch (it wastes a daily $300 million in Afghanistan), and would attract enormous gratitude from a nation that is staggering economically. But it will not do so, because it has a foreign policy of petulant malevolence. And the people of Pakistan suffer. It’s all about Lacka Reason.

The writer is a South Asian affairs analyst. Website: www.beecluff.com