Its beyond words. I cant describe the feeling we will all have when the big smiles once we pull this off. We did something here in detroit that was not done anywhere else in the world and it literally saved the world from the axis powers. We did that right here. Up next on booktv after words with guests host Lisa Curtis Heritage Foundation asian senior fellow study. Husain haqqani and his latest book magnificent delusions pakistan, the United States and an epic history of misunderstanding. And its the Boston University professor shares his insight of the relationship between the two allies who says viewing each other with mutual distrust and incomprehension. This program lasts about an hour. Host delighted to be here with mr. Husain haqqani to talk about his book that was just released, magnificent delusions pakistan, the United States and an epic history of misunderstanding. Just delighted to be here with you today. Guest delighted to be with you. Host you serve as ambassador to the u. S. , pakistans ambassador to the u. S. From 2008 to 2011. You advised the late Benazir Bhutto and you are now professor at Austin University and the director of the south and central asia hudson institute. You write extensively for the new york times, the wall street journal and the National Tribune to name a few of the publication so you obviously have a very inside view of this relationship and i think just the title is strong of u. S. Policy toward pakistan and in your words if i may quote you say the u. S. Pakistan relationship, a tale of exaggerated expectations, broken promises and disastrous misunderstandings. I want to delve into what you mean by that a little later in the interview but first i want to ask you a simple question. What motivated you to write this book . Guest this book has been on my mind for many years. I was a College Student in 1979 when several of my colleagues i was in karachi in the south of pakistan but my colleagues as students in islamabad even in burn down the u. S. Consulate the holy shrine had been taken over by gunmen. I was somebody who said no, we cant do that. We have to wait. If we burn down the building we wont be able to unburned it the next day if we find out the americans are and because of that i was always sort of wondering, why do pakistanis have this kneejerk antiamericanism . From what i have read about the msi United States, what i had known about the United States was for whatever weaknesses and flaws in Foreign Policy and even domestic policy, it was saudis in my mind that i would someday try to analyze it. That course i became ambassador to the u. S. During the course soviet ambassador also and i was always concerned about how both sides, sometimes said things about Historic Events that were just plain wrong. So as soon as i finish being ambassador and you know the circumstances in which i was pushed out of that position, decided my First Priority should he into researching it. As you know i have gone from 1947 the very beginnings of how pakistan and the United States became allies. The thing that has always concerned me is why is this relationship dysfunctional . And why hasnt pakistan benefited from an alliance with the United States like other American Allies in the postSecond World War era have. I have been to south korea and japan. Japan was devastated in the second before but then i became a close american ally after the Second World War and look at where japan is economic way. Lee. South korea has prospered. All the station countries have done well. Why didnt pakistan do well . What did we do wrong . In the process i discovered he was not just pakistani leaders who have delusions about what they could get from United States and what their place in the sun was. American leaders also were delusional about what to expect from pakistan and hence the title of the book magnificent delusions. Host lets talk a little bit more about those american delusions because i found it very interesting you talked earlier in your book about george kennan, that he was somebody who maybe didnt have such delusions, that he could not see the value of pakistan to the United States and he in fact wanted to make clear to the pakistanis that they should not panic inflated hopes to the u. S. I think there was some contrast between what he thought and what somebody like John Foster Dulles when he was secretary of state in them mid1950s thought and he apparently did think the u. S. Had died pakistans loyalties that the u. S. Provide enough military aid to pakistan would develop the same strategic interest is the u. S. So what do you think accounts for these differences and has anything really changed . Do we still have the same debates going on . Guest we will get to what has changed and not change in a minute but lets go to the beginning. I came to the States Kennan came in 1958. He said you have Unrealistic Expectations. We have no interest in you fighting india. You have totally Unrealistic Expectations of what amounts of data you want from the u. S. The first request for aid was for 2 billion in 1947 a billion with a b and the United States could only give 10 million, a million within m so there is a huge disparagement. We must understand can of course was a foreignpolicy realist. He is most known for conceptualizing containment because he understood what the soviets wanted. The genius of kennan was in the longterm what did he say . He said look we need to understand what the soviets, what is russia about and what did the soviets want and how do they think . Unfortunately the United States was not that keen on getting involved in pakistan in the beginning and didnt have any pool of experts about pakistan and had few people who knew south asia but most of them were people who were enamored with gandhi and liked india and they actually found the idea of pakistan rather unrealistic. Many of them compared it to pakistan compared to Jefferson Davis by some people in the American Media but once pakistan was about to become a reality but british said to the americans that they should develop diplomatic relations. Pakistani as you know they are very hospitable people. Pakistans problems were imminent. Pakistan was about one third of British Military but only one third of britains resources. They would not have if vibrant economy and it didnt have the means to pay for its own military and pakistan was unsure about pakistans own future. They decided they would value the nation together by saying that pakistan is constantlconstantl y under threat from india so that meant they had to keep the military but who would pay for the military . Pakistans founder said pakistan can the soviet union and get assistance from the United States. The caveat was pakistan would not actually get involved in American Military plans. From the beginning of it was about getting the assistance on false pretenses. The band started interacting with military leaders and sold themselves to and he said our army will become your army. If europe will give us money and arms. People like dulles has a conversation with Walter Lippman in which he says we cant fight communism without them on our side and that is why a signed on pakistan. They are not pakistanis and dulles says if they are not pakistani their least muslim and a course they are not muslim either. There hindu. Lippman was a typical ignorant politician who didnt know the details between what he wanted which is allies against the soviet union. He was lining up allies in pakistan was ready to be an ally it thats enabled this relationship but in a few years eisenhower was president , eisenhower said you know what . Its a mistake to seek out allies and armed them with militaries when that military is never going to be available for us to fight a the enemy for which we are arming them. And it used the arms that provided the ability to fight communism to fight the indians. This is how the mistake was made the assumption that we have equipped it and armed it we will be able to make them change the focus. Bolus found out early on and still the thought if we aint gauged longterm and if we make good relationships between us now your question has anything changed . My fear after serving as ambassador is some of the same thought processes linger. There are people in the u. S. That think just a little bit more aid and youll be able to change the countrys perception of its national interests. People like me who few Pakistanis National interest differently. We think the prime relationship would be to get educate and build a prosperous country and to be a piece with its neighbors but that is not the view of pakistanis military euphemistically called in pakistan the establishment. Lets talk about of the military establishment has developed its worldview. You talk about an herb of the fact that pakistani leaders instead of basing Foreign Policy on facts that its based through this prism islam on nationalist identity. Could you talk a little bit about the evolution of this nationalist identity as you refer to it and what the strength of it and what has weakened it over time . I think you have talked in the beginning stages after pakistan was established the first leader who was referred to in pakistan had a different view. He saw the country anymore realistic light and of course islam would form part of the identity of the nation but its certainly be a democracy. What changed in those initial years in pakistan . Guest the independence of pakistan came rather suddenly. The idea pakistan, the muslims moved to the idea of having a separate country of their own. Nobody thought about the details. In fact in all my searches, and i have done another book before this on the relationship between pakistans military and religious groups and i have called it pakistan between us and military. In all of my research most people havent been able to find what was the plan for the country. If you want a new country should have a plan for it. It ended up being a country these pakistan until 1971. It had the majority but the elites came either from amongst migrants from india who moved to pakistan or from the Punjab Province of pakistan. The military was drawn primarily from the punjab so you have the potential for ethnic disagreement early on. Some certain ethnic groups did not believe with the notion. They thought if you no longer want to be a part of indy you should have your own. All these fears plus the potential of india trying to regain pakistan which wasnt a realistic potential. India very early said we dont want you back. We want to be friends of the few but we only that but the pakistani leaders thought keeping the security around will help overcome the ethnic tensions within the country. And so basically they just chose to make pakistan into morgan subnine state. Of course that created another problem. Pakistan would have had 23 nonmuslim minorities. Having 3 of your population that is not muslim does not make it easy to make it into a more religious or islamic state. You have to provide for a quarter of the people who are not. It resulted in a situation which 23 of the population of nonmuslim declined to 16 within two years. Now there are only 3 nonmuslims, a very small minority. First came the muslim is asian and then the islamization and then pakistans dysfunction was because the military did not have education. It didnt advocate enough to education in there for pakistans Economic Development was undermined. Of course american aid of 14 billion of aid since 1947, it has helped but it hasnt created the economic base that is needed for a country like pakistan. For example or two or three examples, pakistans exports as it ascended to gdp are half of what the exports are of other comparable sized emerging market countries. Pakistans taxes as a percentage of gdp are one third of the amount of taxes that are collected in other countries. Foreign investment in pakistan is one third of what it is in other comparable countries of pakistan just didnt have any common focus and early on there were the political shall we say, political vacuum after the death of the founder and khan who was assassinated was the other big leader. They there were too many politicians squabbling and then the military stepped in. The military stepped in and the military usually thinks in straight lines. They are not good for political thinking so the military then decided lets just settle. Lets not have an interminable interminable about pakistani nationalism. Lets decide what it is and teach it in the schools. They are teaching islamonationalist and pakistani schools. They taught that they could teach people something but not have consequences. Eventually what happened was the leaders that were emerging have been more and more islamist than the founding fathers. Host that brings us to the point that not only is there this islamonationalist foreignpolicy, there is also very high levels of antiamerican sentiment within the population. What your book points out in what is so interesting is that a lot of this is actually inspired by pakistans leadership in order to get convince or scare the americanamerican s into supporting them. In other words they may allow for fuel demonstrations that they can then argue that oh you have to support us otherwise we wont be able to control these antiamerican impulses as a society. This is something that is extremely frustrating. I think we saw you know the Obama Administration when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state can you fight about this, that she confronts the pakistanis on this and says to the Senior Leadership behind closed door meetings that, why are you putting articles in the newspaper . We know that you are fueling this antiamerican sentiment and she was particularly miffed because her efforts to push forward to carry the berman bill providing 7 billion in u. S. Civilian assistance to pakistan over at period for which was a huge deal getting a bill like that pass through congress. As soon as it was passed, you had a great deal of criticism that seemed to be coming from the Pakistani Military isi circles because they werent happy that the military aide was going to be conditioned. So what is this . Guest heres the thing. That is why the word misunderstanding in the title of my book. I call it magnificent delusions pakistan, the United States and an epic history of misunderstanding. The reason why i say that is the americans to too many things at face value. If theres a demonstration they say there might be people who are turning against us. There are many revelations in my book in which people find revelations and i delve into the declassified papers at the state department and the former president ial libraries, the Eisenhower Nixon libraries to find material. Host you were in a lot of these meetings. Guest towards the end when i was ambassador i was in a lot of the meetings and the reason i went towards these factoids was in these meetings our officials would say things which the american official would say no they are not true so both sides had a different ideas so then i decided i needed to investigate. Pakistan would say pakistanis are against United States because of the drone strikes. The drone strikes had been there only for a few years but the truth is the American Embassy was burned down in 1979. The earliest the most rations were in 1948 which was seven or eight months after the creation of pakistan so what is the truth . I have found actually the first time american officials complained to pakistan is because pakistan did not exist at that time was in 1946. When the Muslim League was still demanding the creation of pakistan and the assemblies to throw slurs at america and say the americans are becoming becoming the worlds new superpower superpower after the Second World War but they dont really care about the third world etc. Etc. Etc. So a an invest at the gate at the whole chain all the way to that first complaint. If fact of the matter is early on pakistans problem was getting attention. People in america did not know about this land and so, antiamerican demonstrations were away at getting attention. This countrys emerging and its leaders want to be our allies but his people are potentially hostile. Pakistan didnt have a strong communist party. There was no serious communist party so how do we attract american attention . America at that time remember was focused solely on the cold war. If you look into the u. S. And saved by the way we have a conflict of india and we need your help to fight them, the answer was what can i give . We cant help you. We had to find people with whom we had some shared interest and the way to attract that attention was as a Muslim Country that could possibly end up being the leader of the muslim world and there were implications for the middle east and have implications for the far East Malaysia and indonesia, you need to take it seriously and you want to take it seriously and you need to take it seriously in a military sense not just in terms of providing aid or technical assistance. Unfortunately, the wait has been done has created a dysf