- And our muted response
Curiously, US president Donald Trump’s reiteration of his offer to mediate on Kashmir on Indian soil during his recently concluded visit was hailed as a diplomatic snub to Narendera Modi.
Predictably, the ruling PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) propaganda machine and captive media went ecstatic. Various spokespersons were claiming that this was another proof of success of Khan’s proactive diplomacy. Trump, who excels in hyperbole, brought further joy for the PTI supporters by claiming that the Pakistani prime minister was his friend and he was very fond of him.
But alas the euphoria was short-lived. Old allegations against Pakistan were repeated ad nauseam in the joint statement issued on the conclusion of Trump’s two-day visit.
Both countries denounced any use of terrorist proxies and strongly condemned cross- border terrorism in all its forms. No one can contest the veracity of this sacrosanct principal for the conduct of relations between states. But in the very next sentence of the joint statement the two leaders called on Pakistan that its territory is not used for terror attacks.
The usual suspects including the Haqqani Group, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) and Jaish-e-Muhammad were named as groups operating from Pakistani territory to launch attacks against India.
In his address to a one hundred thousand plus audience at the ‘Namaste Trump’ moot held in Ahmedabad, the US president did not mince his words in order to please his captive audience, chiefly Modi amongst them. To a cheering audience he declared that every nation has the right to control and secure its borders and both countries were committed to stop terrorists and fight their ideology.
Washington continues to engage Pakistan, a nuclear-powered country, for its own strategic and tactical goals. Right now, Trump is desperate to virtually quit and run from Afghanistan before his re-election in November.
In the very next sentence, he claimed that for this very reason his administration is working closely with Pakistan to stop terrorists working from its borders. Unfortunately, Trump’s candid remarks were hardly reported in the Pakistani media.
Interestingly, the Afghan Taliban with whom the US government signed an agreement yesterday after protracted negotiations, was not mentioned in the list of militants allegedly operating from Pakistani territory. It is no coincidence that the Haqqani group has suddenly become somewhat kosher for Washington.
The other day its deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani penned an article “What We, the Taliban, Want” in the New York Times, the authentic voice of the US foreign policy establishment.
It’s nothing personal. Prime Minister Khan is a great friend of Trump’s but the country he rules harbours India specific terrorists of all hues and colour according to the US president.
‘The more the things change the more they stay the same.’ The truism sums up the realities of Pakistan-US relations. Essentially, we remain frenemies where both sides tend to use each other for real or perceived advantage.
Washington continues to engage Pakistan, a nuclear-powered country, for its own strategic and tactical goals. Right now, Trump is desperate to virtually quit and run from Afghanistan before his re-election in November. In this transactional relationship it is using Islamabad’s links with the Afghan Taliban to extricate itself from the Afghan imbroglio as smoothly as possible.
If our leadership thinks otherwise it is suffering from an extreme form of naiveté. As a bulwark against a rising China, Washington co-opted New Delhi long before Trump assumed the presidency.
Despite outstanding trade issues, the US considers India as a big market for trade and investment.
Trump who is driven by his signature Islamophobia, eyes Pakistan with suspicion. Islamabad on the other hand is inextricably tied with its long standing and reliable ally China. Its deep-rooted strategic and economic ties with Beijing are well known.
Despite these ground realities, our successive ruling elite pine for close relations with Washington harking back to the cold war era. Times have inexorably changed in the meanwhile.
Admittedly, Islamabad needs to work closely with Washington primarily for its economic and strategic interests. The US would be happy to fulfil Pakistan’s defence needs to an extent, provided it had the cash up front.
Right now, an impoverished Pakistan with its foreign exchange reserves comprised mostly of borrowed dollars is in no position to dictate to the US. The threat of being put on the black list of FATF (Financial Action Task Force) is real in the context of president Trump’s latest fulminations.
To further complicate matters, Pakistan is engaged in a $6bn EFF (Extended Fund Facility) of the IMF (International Monetary Fund). But at the same time it is facing an existential threat on its eastern border.
Modi has taken on 200 million plus Indian Muslims through his controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), thus depriving them of their basic human rights. Furthermore, atrocities by the Indian security forces continue unabated in the occupied Kashmir.
In this context, a beleaguered Indian prime minister, supplanted by BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) is quite capable of launching a military misadventure against Pakistan. In his reckoning perhaps, an internally divided and economically distressed neighbour could be made to further bleed by being forced to mobilise to defend itself.
The chief spokesman of the Pakistan military, Major-General Babar Iftikhar has correctly stated that, “there is no space for war between two nuclear powers”. But we are dealing with a mad man in the form of Modi who can go to any limits to forward his myopic and self-serving Hindutva ideology.
While Trump was praising Modi for religious freedom, the Muslims of New Delhi were subjected to the worst kind of violence and arson by Hindu extremists resulting in the deaths of at least 40 people. Thousands lost all their material possessions while Trump was wining and dining in the same city.
It is axiomatic that these are not easy times for Pakistan. Hence it needs to pursue an aggressive diplomatic policy to deal with the emerging crisis.
Islamabad, through its foreign office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui, has finally expressed its alarm at the defence deal between India and the US. But our foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi continues to be enamoured by the fact that he was invited to the signing ceremony of the US- Taliban agreement amongst fifty other countries.
It is interesting to note however that reportedly the contents of the deal were not shared with Pakistan, the primary enabler and facilitator of the deal.
It’s time that in the domain of foreign relations as well as the domestic front, instead of living in self-delusion, Pakistan pursues well thought out policies based on ground realities rather than illusions.
