"Pakistan is in a state of strategic drift, thanks to the confusion in government circles," Senator Sherry Rehman said in a statement on security challenges mounting in the region and beyond. "After the martyrdom of Pakistan's Major Ali Jawad Changezi in border shelling from Afghanistan, I hope the government has finally woken up from its policy slumber of three years to understand that this muddle-through is not going to get the country through multiple crises," she said.
"In Washington," said the PPP Vice President, "the government has still not appointed a local lobbyist after three years of an alarming slide in relations with the United States, always mistaking a cordial meeting for an uptick in ties, while other countries like India have four such companies formally in place, taking New Delhi's message relentlessly to Congress."
Rehman revealed that the PPP government not only had a full time lobbyist, but that after 2012 "sent a daily reminder to Congress of the price we pay on terrorism on our own, enumerated on Pakistan's flag via our lobbyists once we realised that there is need for Pakistan's sacrifices and narrative to be amplified, no matter what our resources."
The Senator said that they shut down bases that General Musharraf had granted to the US, but also took the relationship out of a disastrous precipice after our soldiers were martyred at Salala.
"It took a constant daily engagement and coordinated face-down of challenges from Islamabad to Washington, so I shudder to think who is doing this now. Who is convening the crucial regular meetings of the top civilian and military brass to co-ordinate our mission outputs and signal and manage change in Pakistan's policies?" questioned Rehman.
She said that President Zardari or PM Gilani did it every six weeks and no one would leave the meeting until they had pathways to equitable solutions acceptable to parliament as well as the Pakistani military, which was operationally active with American and ISAF forces across Pakistan's western border.
"The current government has left a leadership vacuum at the core of our policymaking infrastructure, with no Foreign Minister, and no empowered cabinet members other than two to steer this ship," Rehman said, admonishing the current civilian setup." -PR