6:21pm Tuesday 17th August 2010
By Mark Hendrick MP
The recent gaffe by David Cameron in India regarding Pakistan highlights both inexperience and opportunism as the hallmarks of this Prime Minister.
Inexperience, because history tells us that positive engagement and not confrontation changes behaviour in the world of diplomacy; and opportunism because playing to the gallery over Pakistan while in India indicates to the outside world that Prime Minister Cameron is more interested in headlines today rather than a positive result in the future.
The world must be looking at Britain with dismay.
It may have been the case in the past that Pakistan’s Intelligence Services (ISI) have meddled inside Afghanistan to the detriment of Allied Forces working to remove the Taliban.
However, it has been clear for some years that the Taliban are not only being confronted within Afghanistan, but are also being confronted by Pakistani Government forces in the north western provinces.
This has resulted in hundreds of Pakistani soldiers being killed and around 3500 Pakistani victims of terror.
The recent information provided by ‘Wikileaks’ is as much a commentary on how much the American Military and Afghan Intelligence have seen the ISI in the past, rather than a reflection of how the current Pakistani Government is trying to help tackle the Taliban in its own north west frontier provinces as well as providing intelligence to help our Allies in Afghanistan.
I am sure that Cameron’s attempt to try and accuse Pakistan of the ‘export of terror’ is not only bad judgement, but it will backfire in our relations with Pakistan.
It also plays into the hands of the bigots who would label British Pakistanis as potential terrorists. Both propositions are ludicrous at best but dangerous at worst.
David Cameron should nurture relations where they are good and promote better relations where they are not so good. Megaphone tactlessness is no substitute for quiet diplomacy.
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