E-Paper
Friendless and forsaken Pak looks to gain ground through lobbyists
WASHINGTON: Pakistan has decided to reverse an earlier decision and hire lobbyists once again to help it dig itself out of the deep hole it finds itself in the US,
WASHINGTON: Pakistan has decided to reverse an earlier decision and hire lobbyists once again to help it dig itself out of the deep hole it finds itself in the US, friendless and abandoned as a “duplicitous” ally that cannot be trusted.
The “top leadership” in Islamabad was going through a short-list of 10-12 applications from “top lobbying firms” that had shown an interest, according to a diplomat who spoke only on condition of anonymity, adding, a decision was likely soon.
Pakistan’s ties with the US have been in a free fall in recent years, with feelings bordering on hostility on Capitol Hill — which red-flagged the F-16 deal earlier — the administration and among experts of DC’s influential think-tanks.
And the ongoing visit of special envoys sent by PM Nawaz Sharif to present Pakistan’s case on Kashmir and India was not going too well either, with no meetings scheduled at the White House or on the Hill, with lawmakers away. After firing Locke Lord Strategies, its lobbying firm, in 2013, the Pakistan embassy here had soldiered on using its own diplomats to do the work of lobbyists. But that didn’t work out the way government would have wanted.
In fact, Michael Krepon, a long time Pakistan watcher at Stimson Center, a think tank, argued Pakistan needs more than a lobbyist now .“What it needs to do is acknowledge reality, change course with respect to violent extremists groups that take safe haven in Pakistan … That will help Pakistan more than a lobbying firm.” Pakistan believes it can do with all the help it can get. Locke Lord is believed to have played an instrumental role in the passage of the $7.5 billion aid package by congress in 2009, or so it claimed, according to reports.
Locke Lord also helped Pakistan deal with — or tried given the enormity of the challenge—the sense of shock and betrayal felt by Americans over the discovery and the of killing of Os am a bin Laden ina hide out not far from Islamabad in 2011. The firm was fired in 2013, a diplomat said ,“because of a combination of over-confidence —its diplomats can handle it by desire to save money ”.
