Rohrabacher: The Pakistanis are ‘hard-core, two-faced enemies’

House Foreign Affairs Committee member Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has caused an uproar in Pakistan by introducing a congressional resolution calling for self-determination in the restive province of Baluchistan. But the 12-term California representative is unfazed by the criticism: If the Pakistanis don’t like it, that’s their problem, he told The Cable in an interview today.

"The purpose of the resolution was to create a much-needed dialogue about Pakistan and Baluchistan, and that’s what it’s done, so that’s very nice," he said. "It’s important to get over that phase where people are going ballistic and start getting serious discussion about an issue that’s been ignored but shouldn’t be ignored."

Rohrabacher said the Baluchistan issue and the human rights violations there have been ignored in Washington out of a fear of offending the Pakistani establishment, but that strategy isn’t working.

"It’s one of those issues that’s been ignored as to not upset the Pakistanis because they are fragile friends," he said. "Well, they’re not fragile friends, they are hard-core, two-faced enemies of the United States."

Rohrabacher isn’t shy about his anger with the Pakistani government, its attitude toward the United States, and its actions related to America’s war against the Taliban and al Qaeda. In fact, the discovery that Osama bin Laden was hiding for years in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad was direct motivation for his Baluchistan initiative, he said.

"What made me really determined to get involved to the point where I was willing to author resolutions like this was when Osama bin Laden was discovered in an area which made it clear that Pakistanis had for eight years taken billions in U.S. foreign aid while giving safe haven to the monster that slaughtered 3,000 Americans on 9/11," he said. "At that point I felt, no more walking on egg shells around Pakistan."

Baluchistan is the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces and is home to about 8 million people, many from the Baloch tribes, which have Persian and Kurdish origins. Nationalist movements there have fought the Pakistani government intermittently for independence over the past decades, with the most recent skirmishes in 2006.

There’s no love lost for Rohrabacher on the Pakistani side of the relationship, either. There were street protests against the resolution and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said, "This resolution violates our sovereignty and we condemn it." A visiting U.S. congressional delegation in Islamabad had to distance itself from Rohrabacher’s resolution.

"I can see why the prime minister of Pakistan wouldn’t fully understand why people in various countries — especially elected officials — are free to comment on any policies they see fit in any country they see fit," Rohrabacher said. "That’s what freedom is all about, but perhaps that’s why they don’t understand it."

One theory that became popular in the Pakistani press following Rohrabacher’s Feb. 8 hearing on the resolution was that Rohrabacher was working with the CIA to try to pressure Pakistan to allow U.S. intelligence agencies to put listening posts in Baluchistan aimed at Iran.

"Anyone who believes that is totally out of touch with reality," Rohrabacher responded. "I’ve had no discussions with anyone in the CIA about this whatsoever and my guess is that if I did, they would be doing somersaults trying to prevent me from doing this."

In fact, he didn’t even bother to confer with the Obama administration about the resolution at all, he said, and has not heard from any administration officials.

"It was my resolution and not theirs," he said of the administration. "Unlike our friends in Pakistan, they understand that in a democracy people elected to the legislative branch have the right to propose any legislation they want. I can see why the Pakistani government wouldn’t understand that."

Rohrabacher compared the struggle of the people of Baluchistan to the struggle of the American colonies against the British Empire. "Like in the United States, where we gave a declaration of independence, we have a right to a country separate from Great Britain. That’s what self-determination is," he said.

Beyond Baluchistan, Rohrabacher’s top priority is preventing Pakistan from influencing the Afghanistan reconciliation talks to the benefit of the Taliban. He promises to fight giving U.S. aid to Pakistan if that’s the case.

"The most important thing now is not to permit Pakistan to think they can do anything they want and there will never be any repercussions and they can side with any enemy of the West and still think we’re going to pour money into their pockets," he said. "That ain’t gonna happen."