Dennis Kux identifies where the U.S went wrong in handling the South Asian region

ISLAMABAD: Granting India nuclear deal and asking Pakistan to shift its foreign policy nucleus from India-centric to militancy-focused was the biggest mistakes of US administration in handling South Asian region.

 This was the crux of Chatham House styled roundtable discussion by retired US Ambassador Dennis Kux that was organized by Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS) here on Thursday.

 The retired US diplomat, who is presently senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington DC, one of the most influential American think tanks, said that offering civilian nuclear deal to India was against the spirit of Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) as India was not the signatory to the pact.

Kux, who has also remained part of faculty at the Quid-i-Azam University’s American sponsored Centre for Area Studies candidly and frankly answered questions at the roundtable.

 Responding to typical Pakistani complaint of denying what was given to the Indians, he said, US offered a deal to India because it proven itself as a responsible student of the nuclear subject.

On the other hand, he said, Pakistan could not deny Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s episode. The former US diplomat said that US demanded Pakistan to shift the nucleus of its foreign policy from India to militancy–centric was an unnatural move from US administration
as Pakistan should not and cannot do this.

He told the audience that he has a pipe dream about Afghanistan that it should adopt the status of non-aligned and impartial state as Switzerland did in 18th century.

He compared prevailing Afghanistan situation with that in Switzerland at that time. He drew a lot of commonalities between the Swiss people and the Afghans at present.

For instance he mentioned widespread poverty, unemployment, and militancy were the apparent similarities. Even at that time Switzerland was blamed that it exported warriors like Afghanistan is confronting such controversies and allegations.

When Napoleon Bonaparte weakened, the Swiss decided to opt for a non-aligned and neutral where no country should interfere.

If you go by this dream the UN but not the US, should ensure the implementation of such a settlement for Afghanistan. When asked if it was US in this situation as weakened Napoleon that led the Swiss avail this option, he said, no it was not relevant.

But US economy is quite relevant he observed. People faced with economic cuts at every level were forming a powerful public opinion against spending in Afghanistan

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Posted by Hassan Ali on Nov 18 2011. Filed under Pakistan, Politics, South Asia, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry