Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani Delivers Remarks to the School of Advanced International Studies

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Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani Delivers Remarks to the School of Advanced International Studies

PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR HAQQANI DELIVERS REMARKS TO THE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

OCTOBER 15, 2008

SPEAKER: PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S. HUSAIN HAQQANI

[*] MODERATOR: Well, I want to thank you all for coming to what's going to be, I think, a very interesting presentation by a rather remarkable person who I have known for many years and I consider a friend. And he certainly has had a renowned career, which I'll say a few things about before I formally introduce him as the speaker to this event.

Ambassador Haqqani has had really a rather astounding career, and I'll just list a few of the things. And it's often difficult to know where to begin with a person who's had that kind of career.

He's been in diplomacy. He was Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka in the early 1990s. He's been in government. He served as an adviser to several prime ministers of Pakistan, and he was one of the most trusted advisers of the late Benazir Bhutto.

He's been in journalism. He was correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review, covering the war in Afghanistan. He's been an author. And I'm sure many of you have read the many articles that he's written, and he's written what I think is one of the best and certainly one of the most readable books on Pakistan, "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military."

He's been an academic. In fact, he is an academic. He's the director of the International Relations Program at Boston University and is co-chair of Hudson Institute's Project on the Future of the Muslim World.

Now, in addition, he was the first Pakistan professor at the New South Asia Program at SAIS. And I think it was the academic year 2002-2003. And he has remained one of our most vigorous supporters and patrons since that time.

Our program here at SAIS has tried to maintain a dynamic element regarding Pakistan. Every year, we have a professor who comes from Pakistan to teach. Last year, we had about 40 students enrolled in the class, and it was too big for SAIS's policy on class enrollment, and we had to cut it back to -- I think it was 25 students in the class.

And I suspect that this year we -- for the Pakistan class, we'll have an equal number, given the interest in Pakistan at this university and in Washington generally.

We've hosted three ambassadors early in their career as ambassador in Washington, D.C. And we're very pleased that Ambassador Haqqani is speaking to us early in his career as ambassador in Washington, D.C. And we're particularly pleased, because we consider him an alumnus and a patron of this school.

Ambassador Haqqani, I don't have to tell any of you, represents Pakistan at a particularly challenging period in that country's history. He's one of the handful of people I know who can talk about Pakistan's transition from military rule to democracy within a framework of ideas regarding the country's development.

This transition takes place at a time of -- of international economic turmoil, a resurgence of Taliban aggressiveness in Afghanistan, and radicalism in parts of Pakistan. For those of you who have watched the U.S. presidential debates, you know that the focus of both presidential candidates on foreign policy was very much on the issues of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and whoever wins the election will have Afghanistan and Pakistan at the -- I'd say at the very top of their international agenda.

And I'm sure that the ambassador is going to be a frequent guest of the White House and the future.

So I will now introduce Ambassador Haqqani to you.

(APPLAUSE)

HAQQANI: Thank you very much, Dr. Andersen, Walter. It has been a pleasure knowing you for many, many years.

HAQQANI: As you were reminding me when we walked in, the first time you actually met me at -- to receive me while coming out of my car was when you were at the State Department.

And I was, as I always have been, somebody voicing a somewhat different view of Pakistan than is fashionable, either in Islamabad or in Washington, D.C.

It's a -- it's an opportunity for me, above all, to try and bring to the discourse in Pakistan, the policy discourse in Pakistan and the...

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