Lesson From Pakistan: Foreign Policy Is Hard

When I teach American Foreign Policy this coming term I aim to stress one important point: foreign policy is hard.  When attempting to set the nation's policy toward the world the president and other decision makers are faced with so many variables and uncertainties that it baffles the mind.  This calls for humility when we give our own propositions or criticize others' proposals. 

This lesson is now demonstrated before us with the looming chaos that is Pakistan.  Here we have a nuclear power that serves as a home base for violent political movements and whose governing capacity is quickly whithering away.  What is the correct policy?  As Jay Reding points out, some of our presidential candidates are acting anything but humble, using the obstreperous situation in Pakistan for quick political gain.  Look how quick Hillary Clinton is to denounce Pervez Musharraf as lacking any credibility.  Hillary Clinton hopes to be president.  Pervez Musharraf may not only remain as Pakistani president into a Clinton presidency, he just may be the best option left on the table.  How is she going to work with a man who may be heading a dangerous nuclear state after she has, for short term political gain, labeled him as bereft of credibility?  Perhaps this is the kind of reaction that leads Peggy Noonan to list Sen Clinton among the presidential candidates who are not reasonable choices.    

Clinton is certainly moved by the fact that Musharraf is an ethically compromised leader with dictatorial tendencies.  What other options do we have?  The United States was backing Benazir Bhuto, but as Prof. Blanchard points out, she had her own history of corruption and her commitment to liberal ideals was limited.  But she spoke out against the violent Muslim extremists, and that made her a credible alternative.  Stanley Kurtz argues, though, that her support in Pakistan was in spite of her opposition to Islamism, not because of it.  The current alternative is Newaz Sharif, but he too is tied to corruption and, worse, has apparently been making deals with the Islamists to gain power.  This makes Musharraf look better except that he has been making deals with Islamists in order to maintain power.  Perhaps Bill Buckley is correct that the proper policy is one of neglect, but should things take a turn from serious to deadly serious the United States would surely be blamed for not actively engaging the Pakistanis and helping them toward peaceful democracy.  And will not the US be accused of ignoring the plight of the people of Pakistan, creating more hatred toward us?  But we are also told that nations cannot and should not be forced into democracy.    So if the United States gets intimately involved in midwifing a Pakistani democracy and things go badly we surely will take the blame for meddling in affairs of a foreign nation.  And will not the US be accused to interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, creating more hatred toward us?  Further, if we support elections in Pakistan the Islamists may take control and, as the saying goes, there will be one person, one vote, one time.  And we'll have an Islamist nuclear power.  But if we throw our support behind a dictator who will at least provide order and keep the Islamists out of power, we compromise our democratic principles as well as running the risk of creating more enmity toward ourselves.

The policy options toward Pakistan are all fraught with danger.  As with most foreign policy problems there are no simple solutions.  Those are not to be trusted who talk as if there are. 

The Pakistan situation teaches one more lesson.  The course of history can turn on a dime.  Who in 2000 could have guessed that fighting international terrorism would become the overwhelming task of the next president?  That subject certainly garnered little attention from either the candidates or the press.  We cannot predict with any accuracy what the prevailing issue of the next four years will be.  That is why prudent voters should assess not just the policy positions of candidates but their overall character and judgment.  The issues we debate today may not even be on the radar in 2012.  Events will intervene, so chose a candidate with the capacity to deal with the vagaries of history.