The Rumi Forum presented "Pakistan: A time of Crisis" with Ambassador Wendy J. Chamberlin, President, Middle East Institute

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Ambassador Chamberlin begins with giving her perspective on 9/11 and how she interacted with president Mosharaf in that era. She believes “Mosharaf saw domestic terrorism as the number one obstacle to developing Pakistan; that Pakistan was the victim of internal terrorism, and he would never be able to break this terrorism as long as the Al-Qaeda problem and Afghanistan persisted”. Ambassador Chamebrlin then talks more about the relationship between Pakistan and USA right after 9/11.

On September 15, 2001, USA and Pakistan began a dialogue over terrorism. Pakistani president, Parvez Mosharaf, was careful not to make conditions although there were clearly understood to be conditions by USA. “It was a very productive exchange and negotiation that we got to yes very quickly,” Ambassador Chamberlin says.  For Pakistan, internal security was the major obstacle to attracting foreign investment and Pakistan needed foreign investment in order to develop the economy.  “At no time did they ever consider any other threat but India to be the existential threat against Pakistan. They never fully accepted that there was not Pakistan’s interest [having] a friendly government in Afghanistan ties to the Taliban,” she continues.

Ambassador Wendy J. Chamberlin is President of the Middle East Institute since March 2007. A 29-year veteran of the US Foreign Service, she was US Ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2002. During her tenure in Islamabad, she played a key role in Pakistan’s cooperation for the US-led campaign against al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. Chamberlin has extensive experience in counter-terrorism, having served as Director of Global Affairs and Counter-Terrorism at the National Security Council (1991-1993) and as Deputy in the Bureau of International Counter-Narcotics and Law Programs (1999-2001). As Assistant Administrator in the Asia-Near East Bureau for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2002 to 2004, Ambassador Chamberlin directed civilian reconstruction programs in Iraq and Afghanistan and development assistance programs in the Middle East and East Asia. Other assignments included US Ambassador to the Laos People’s Democratic Republic (1996-1999), Director of Press and Public Affairs for the Near East Bureau (1991-1993), Deputy Chief of Mission in the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur (1993-1996), Arab-Israeli Affairs (1982-1984) and other postings in Morocco, Pakistan, Malaysia, Laos and Zaire.

Moderator:

Shuja Nawaz , a native of Pakistan, is a political and strategic analyst and  writes for leading newspapers and The Huffington Post, and speaks on current topics before civic groups, at think tanks, and on radio and television worldwide.  He has worked with RAND, the United States Institute of Peace, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Atlantic Council, and other leading think tanks on projects dealing with Pakistan and the Middle East. In January 2009 he was made the first Director of the South Asia Center at The Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington DC. He was educated at Gordon College, Rawalpindi, where he obtained a BA in Economics and English Literature and the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University in New York, where he was a Cabot Fellow and won the Henry Taylor International Correspondent Award. He was also a member of the prize-winning team at Stanford University’s Publishing Program.  He was a newscaster and news and current affairs producer for Pakistan Television 1967-72 and covered the 1971 war with India on the Western Front.  He has worked for the New York Times, the World Health Organization, and has headed three separate divisions at the International Monetary Fund.  He was also a Director at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna 1999-2001, while on leave from the IMF.  Mr. Nawaz was the Managing Editor and then Editor of Finance & Development, the multilingual quarterly of the IMF and the World Bank and on the Editorial Advisory Board of the World Bank Research Observer. His latest book is Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within (Oxford University Press 2008). He is also the author of FATA: A Most Dangerous Place (CSIS, Washington DC January 2009).