HUSAIN HAQQANI

Talks are not the same thing as agreements.

The United States initially poured money and arms into Pakistan in the hope of building a major fighting force that could assist in defending Asia against communism. Pakistan repeatedly failed to live up to its promises to provide troops for any of the wars the United States fought against communist forces, instead using American weapons in its wars with India.

India and Pakistan have to work out their difficulties … to take advantage of the century that is before them.

Throughout the Arab and Islamic world the feeling is that we are now in top gear for a war of civilizations, a clash of civilizations. Support for the United States is very low and there are no voices within the Muslim world, except for a very few.

You cannot fight a people who are fighting for an ideology with no ideas of your own.

I have always wondered why the Muslim world is in the eye of virtually every storm, in my lifetime at least?

From birth, Pakistan was saddled with a huge army it could not pay for and plenty of monsters to destroy.

In our tribal areas the literacy rate among women is 3%; among men, 17%; and there is no economy.

Religious scholars, marginalized by modernization, seek to assert their own relevance by insisting on orthodoxy.

The list of American grievances is long: Pakistan developed nuclear weapons while promising the United States that it would not; the United States helped arm and train Mujahideen against the Soviets during the 1980s, but Pakistan chose to keep these militants well armed and sufficiently funded even after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989; and, from the American perspective, Pakistan's crackdown on terrorist groups, particularly after 9/11, has been halfhearted at best.

Talks are not the same thing as agreements.

I have always wondered why the Muslim world is in the eye of virtually every storm, in my lifetime at least?

India and Pakistan have to work out their difficulties … to take advantage of the century that is before them.

You cannot fight a people who are fighting for an ideology with no ideas of your own.

In our tribal areas the literacy rate among women is 3%; among men, 17%; and there is no economy.

The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is not as easy as it appears in position papers – it is a rambunctious affair.

In Pakistan militancy has become an economy all of its own.

Religious scholars, marginalized by modernization, seek to assert their own relevance by insisting on orthodoxy.

From birth, Pakistan was saddled with a huge army it could not pay for and plenty of monsters to destroy.

The United States initially poured money and arms into Pakistan in the hope of building a major fighting force that could assist in defending Asia against communism. Pakistan repeatedly failed to live up to its promises to provide troops for any of the wars the United States fought against communist forces, instead using American weapons in its wars with India.

Three American presidents-Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson-have asked the question: What do we get from aiding Pakistan? Five-Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama-have wondered aloud whether Pakistan's leaders can be trusted to keep their word.

Throughout the Arab and Islamic world the feeling is that we are now in top gear for a war of civilizations, a clash of civilizations. Support for the United States is very low and there are no voices within the Muslim world, except for a very few.

The list of American grievances is long: Pakistan developed nuclear weapons while promising the United States that it would not; the United States helped arm and train Mujahideen against the Soviets during the 1980s, but Pakistan chose to keep these militants well armed and sufficiently funded even after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989; and, from the American perspective, Pakistan's crackdown on terrorist groups, particularly after 9/11, has been halfhearted at best.

The New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, cited Haqqani to make the argument that Guantánamo must be shut down. He wrote:“Husain Haqqani, a thoughtful Pakistani scholar now teaching at Boston University, remarked to me: 'When people like myself say American values must be emulated and America is a bastion of freedom, we get Guantánamo Bay thrown in our faces. When we talk about the America of Jefferson and Hamilton, people back home say to us: 'That is not the America we are dealing with. We are dealing with the America of imprisonment without trial.'