LONG BEACH, CA - The Yadunandan Center for India Studies on Nov. 14 hosted Cameron Munter at California State University, Long Beach for a lecture on “U.S. – Pakistan Relations in 2014 and Beyond.” Ambassador Munter was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for nearly three decades before his retirement in fall 2012 and has the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award.
Munter was Ambassador to Pakistan from 2010-2012, guiding U.S.-Pakistani relations through a period of severe crisis, including the operation against Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad and the release of CIA agent Raymond Davis from prison in Pakistan. In his talk, the Ambassador discussed his role in these important events, and he vividly represented the increasing tension and deterioration in U.S.-Pakistani relations during this time.
In hypothesizing about the nature of U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of the proposed stand down of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2014, Munter was guardedly optimistic. He reminded his audience that support for the Pakistani Taliban was limited to a small percentage of the population, and that influence of Sufism in Pakistan was far greater than Islamic fundamentalism.
Munter was Ambassador to Pakistan from 2010-2012, guiding U.S.-Pakistani relations through a period of severe crisis, including the operation against Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad and the release of CIA agent Raymond Davis from prison in Pakistan. In his talk, the Ambassador discussed his role in these important events, and he vividly represented the increasing tension and deterioration in U.S.-Pakistani relations during this time.
In hypothesizing about the nature of U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of the proposed stand down of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2014, Munter was guardedly optimistic. He reminded his audience that support for the Pakistani Taliban was limited to a small percentage of the population, and that influence of Sufism in Pakistan was far greater than Islamic fundamentalism.
He made the case that a growing middle class and youth population in Pakistan would support —and directly benefit from—the economic and material development that would result from the opening of the Pakistani economy to global investment, particularly from India. Ambassador Munter’s talk generated extensive and tough questions from an audience approaching 300 people concerning Pakistan’s relationship with the United States and India. He argued that while in some instances the use of drones in Pakistan might be questioned, it must also be remembered that the civilian cost of these strikes is still far less than when conventional forces have been used against the Pakistani Taliban as was the case in the military offensives in the Swat Valley in 2009.
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