Touqir Hussain is a former senior diplomat from Pakistan who has served as Ambassador to Brazil, Spain, and Japan. He also held senior positions in the Pakistani Foreign Office, including that of Additional Foreign Secretary, heading the bureaus of the Middle East and of the Americas and Europe. From 1996 to 1998, he was the Diplomatic Adviser to the Prime Minister. Additionally, he was a Senior Fellow at the US Institute of Peace in 2004–2005, and subsequently has been a Research Fellow at the George Washington University and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and the University of Virginia. Currently, he is Senior Pakistan Visiting Fellow at SAIS besides teaching at Georgetown.
Email: [email protected]
Web Page: http://touqirhussain.com/
Read the full article in The National Interest.
Originally posted November 2010
With Pakistan caught up in four wars during the past nine years — the Afghanistan war, the War on Terror, the insurgency in the tribal areas, and the wave of terrorism unleashed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) and the Punjabi Taliban in the rest of the country — it has often been said that the country is facing an existential threat. If this was a cliché before, it is no more so after the catastrophic floods. Pakistan had been living dangerously in the past, but the wars and floods threaten to wash away its future.
Secretary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan has been a serious attempt to use public diplomacy to help the troubled US Pakistan relations. Her reaching out to people with a mix of soft power and hard talk was refreshing. It is time to ‘clear the air’ she said. But a lot more work needs to be done in the realm of policy to bring about a meaningful change in the relationship. The problems between Pakistan and the United States, referred to as the “trust deficit” for want of a better word, are many and mask much complexity at the heart of policy and systemic issues on both sides.
Originally posted May 2008
Pakistan has come to reflect and affect many of the critical issues in South Asia that worry the US foreign policy establishment, the media, and the public. But US officials are crafting policy responses to deal with Pakistan that are focused excessively narrowly on a single issue — the war on terrorism. In addition to exacerbating Pakistan’s own problems, these efforts have undermined Pakistan’s capacity and political will to fight this war. As a consequence neither America’s nor Pakistan’s best interests are being served.
