Trump’s Vitriolic Speech and Pakistan’s Diplomatic Punch

Donald Trump, perhaps the last president of a mighty and influential United States, has come up with a language and tone having no precedent in policy speeches delivered by American Presidents. His tone has confirmed that how a businessman is different from a seasoned politician in his tone and body language. While announcing his strategy on Afghanistan South Asia, his body language suggested that he was not behaving like a president but like an army general who dictates his troops on how to deal with the enemy and how to get success. Analyzing things from faraway America and with the help of few warmongering generals and advisors is much different from ground realities that exist thousands of kilometers away from his country.

In international relations, every state is a rational actor and each has the right to pursue its national interests, given the interests of other states are not jeopardized. Dictating other sovereign states is never as easy as it was in the earlier twentieth century. Blaming others for one’s own failure is no excuse. Donald Trump should have accepted USA’s defeat in the 16-year-long war in Afghanistan and should have opted for negotiations with Taliban and other militants, instead of chiding and undermining Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan. Pakistan has been categorically pointed out as being responsible for instability in Afghanistan without any allusion to its sacrifices made in the protracted Afghan conflict. “For its part, Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror,” he said.

Donald Trump tried to follow a stick-and-carrot policy for Pakistan. He suggested that Pakistan has been taking billions and billions of dollars for its ‘services’ against war on terror – former Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan termed these ‘billions of dollars’ only ‘peanuts’. If America has been paying billions and billions of dollars to Pakistan, it should not have denied international audit of American funding to the country. Pakistan has lost the lives of its over seventy thousand citizens in this meaningless war of others. More than a hundred billion dollars of infrastructure have been lost, but what Pakistan got in response? Only the demand of ‘Do More’? And, now the warnings of serious consequences for acting otherwise?

Most Pakistanis view the ‘War on Terror’ as a war of others and the one with no end, but the vested interests of some people in the ruling class, under the leadership of General (now retired) Pervez Musharraf, were eager in owning that war. Since the start of the war, no ruler in Pakistan has opposed American policies and its demands. They allowed the agents of Black Water, private contractors, officials of CIA and other agencies to operate in Pakistan. Memo-Gate Scandal, Raymond Davis episode, Abbotabad raid (Operation Geronimo), Salala Check Post attack, Dr Aafia Siddiqi issue and many other cases prove that the United States has never been sincere with Pakistan and it just worked for its own interests. It has been firing the bullets using Pakistan’s shoulder — though Pakistan accepted it happily. More than seventeen thousand attacks have been carried out in Afghanistan by the US forces from their bases in Pakistan. During this period, Pakistani rulers also violated principles of international law just for pleasing their American lords and handed over the Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan during Taliban regime, Mullah Abdus Salam Zaeef, to America – he was then detained at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp. One can recall the scenes of violent attacks on mosques, Eid congregations, funeral prayers besides explosions in marketplaces, roads, target killings, one of the hugest internal displacements in modern human history along with atrocities faced by these displaced persons, influx of refugees from Afghanistan, economic losses and, last but not least, the sacrifices made by our armed forces in winning the war of America. But during this whole period, our sacrifices have not been acknowledged. 

Nevertheless, the stand taken by the incumbent government is commendable and is never too late to come back to the starting point. The recent moves by the government of Pakistan to gain the support of regional countries against the warnings of President Trump, and to acknowledge the sacrifices made by Pakistan in war on terror, is a commendable beginning. The statements of Pakistan Foreign Office and ISPR are encouraging. The cabinet decisions under Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi present some ray of hope for Pakistani nation to come out of the senseless and endless war. The trips of foreign minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to China, Turkey and Iran to win their support was the need of the hour. In response, all these countries pledged their all-out support to, and applauded the services of, Pakistan for bringing peace and harmony to this part of the world.

Our foreign policy is now seeing a paradigm shift. Pakistan’s diplomatic move to gain the support of other states is a kind of diplomatic punch to Trump’s militaristic approach and will work in the near future. Pakistan has its own national interests and, like any other state in the comity of nations, does have the right to pursue those. It needs just commitment, national consensus, leadership, clear goals, vision and consistency. Iran and North Korea were the countries in the bad books of the United States and were termed ‘axis of evil’ but the US could not target them due to courageous and valiant leadership of both these nations. They faced economic sanctions and many other problems but stayed unmoved by any such rhetoric. Today, the US is on its knees to persuade Iran and North Korea for negotiations.

At the start of War on Terror, Pakistan was under military rule but now a democratic setup is in place that enjoys full public support and legitimacy in taking any bold step in case the US resorts to committing a blunder. The government needs to continue its efforts, on all diplomatic and other forums, for making the US acknowledge Pakistan’s sacrifices and ground realities. China and Russia, two of the five veto powers in the United Nations Security Council, have pledged to support Pakistan and this support should be used as a leverage against the US. Trump’s offer to India to play a bigger role in Afghanistan is a direct attack on Pakistan’s stakes. India’s presence and a role in Afghanistan will possibly bring more instability and chaos to an already devastated country.

The response of Afghanistan’s government to Trump’s new policy is hilarious; as Ashraf Ghani and others are very excited. However, they have failed to realize that the war will be privatized now and contractors will be hired from among the Afghans to target their own countrymen. Afghanistan will now see more destruction as Trump has rejected any further nation-building role in Afghanistan. He wants to win the war through whatever means he can. Afghanistan, instead of celebrating and pointing fingers at Pakistan, should come up with a policy to join hands with Pakistan and other regional states to pave the way for withdrawal of NATO and US forces and bringing an end to this war.

While concluding, Trump is on the way of not only destroying the roots of democratic values of America, but also of losing its key strategic partners. As they say every cloud has a silver lining; Pakistan has got the opportunity to come up with a clear-cut approach and a firm response to this nonsensical policy. Pakistan should opt for policy of having bilateral relations with the US on the basis of equality, friendship, reciprocity and trade.