Grad Student Moeed Yusuf Speaks Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Ph.D. Student speaks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on US Policy towards Pakistan. Moeed is part of the United States Institute of Peace. The following is a small part from his testimony, you can find the full version here.
Recalling Charles Dodgson’s 1865 novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” This is not an entirely unfair characterization of U.S. policy towards Pakistan or, for that matter, Islamabad’s outlook on Washington. The two countries have been partners for over a decade but the answer to “what they are ultimately after” remains ambiguous.
For the first six-plus years of the post-9/11 relationship, Pakistan was viewed squarely through the Afghanistan prism. The relationship was transactional and was tied to America’s engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s counter-terrorism cooperation. The revision towards a more broad-based partnership capable of reaching out to the Pakistani people, crystallized through the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, was a welcome one.
The Act, as I interpreted it, contained the necessary ingredients to make the Pakistan-U.S. relationship a lasting one. It was realistic in what it thought the much-enhanced civilian assistance could get Washington in return. No one claimed that the fresh assistance alone would be able to transform Pakistan or would be able to alter Pakistan’s India-centric strategic paradigm. But it would, one hoped, contribute to economic stability, improved governance, and strengthened civilian institutions. It was to begin to convey the message that the American government and people care about the well being of the ordinary Pakistani. The beauty of this vision was that it was clear that the U.S. had begun to think about Pakistan for Pakistan’s sake.
