US Aid To Pakistan To Fight Islamic State Will End Up Being Used Against India: Former Pak Diplomat

Sale of military hardware and reported talk of civil nuclear deal with Pakistani military by US will only add fuel to the existing tensions between India and Pakistan.

Former Pakistani diplomat to the US, Husain Haqqani said Tuesday that "The Obama administration's consideration of a nuclear deal with Pakistan, just like its decision a few months ago to sell almost USD 1 billion in US-made attack helicopters, missiles and other equipment to Pakistan will fuel conflict in South Asia without fulfilling the objective of helping the country fight Islamist extremists or limit its nuclear arsenal."

Haqqani has warned the congress that US’s plans of selling F-16s to Pakistan to fight the Islamic State and Islamic extremists would end up being used against India and not against terrorists.

In a prepared remark submitted ahead of a Congressional hearing on 'Civil Nuclear Cooperation with Pakistan: Prospects and Consequences to the Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs', Haqqani said Pakistan's failure to tackle its jihadist challenge is not the result of a lack of arms but reflects an absence of will.

"By aiding Pakistan over the years-- some USD 40 billion since 1950, according to the Congressional Research Service --the US has fed Pakistan's delusion of being India's regional military equal. Seeking security against a much larger neighbour is a rational objective but seeking parity with it on a constant basis is not," he said.

"Instead of discussing civil nuclear deals and selling more military equipment to Pakistan, US officials should convince Pakistan that its ambitions of rivalling India are akin to Belgium trying to rival France or Germany," Haqqani wrote.

Currently, director of South & Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, a top American think-tank, Haqqani said competition with India remains the overriding consideration in Pakistan's foreign and domestic policies.

Asserting that since the 1950s, US policy has ended up nurturing Pakistan's military and keeping alive its dream of parity with India, Haqqani told lawmakers that it is time, the US adopted a policy towards Pakistan that supports the aspirations of its people for a better standard of living instead of allowing its military and civilian hardliners in pursuing unwinnable competition with India.

"The US government has been giving the signal that Pakistan is too important for the US to ignore, which reinforces all of Pakistan's wrong policies. These are policies that both the US and a significant section of the Pakistani intelligentsia would like changed," Haqqani said.