One would think that those who led Pakistan unto anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad in the 1980s must be turning in their graves. That was a huge blunder that keeps showing its ugly face, as it did a few days ago. Pakistan played host to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who was here to “reset” ties; and some dim-witted saw the move a game-changer in the Pak-US bilateral relations which for quite some time are sliding downhill, picking speed as the CPEC begins to yield its positive results. Pompeo was here, on way to India, to see if the United States could hurt the growing Pak-China comradeship, but we thought his visit was an indicator of Washington’s desire to mend fences with Pakistan now that it has a new government committed to changing everything it inherited. Only a week before the visit, the US government had blocked reimbursement of CSF tranche, maliciously describing it as ‘aid’, banned in pursuance of President Trump’s anti-Pakistan South Asia strategy. Within hours of his visit here, he along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was in New Delhi, where the two sides agreed to cooperatively undertake moves aimed at undermining the viability of the CPEC. They blamed Pakistan for the Mumbai carnage and also held Islamabad responsible for the US-led coalition forces’ failure to check Afghan Taliban move to capture more territory. Pompeo didn’t have a joint presser with his host in Pakistan, and we had to do it on our own. In India, there were extensive talks followed by a joint presser, and what the two sides narrated tends to state that be there the ‘Naya Pakistan’ or the ‘Purana Pakistan’ the United States would follow its stated position, and that is this massive shift in the United States’ geo-strategic policy for this region.
Diplomatic nicety takes the backseat when realpolitik enters and informs everybody that the United States wants India to become its proxy in the Indian Ocean, where China is seen to be digging its feet. China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, both on ground and sea, is essentially infrastructural and an economic-based programme, bereft of any move or mission to capture territory and establish colonies – as was the Ming era’s Three-Jewel Eunuch Admiral Zeng He’s seventh voyage to the Indian Ocean. Leading a seven-ship armada with 30,000 soldiers on it, he could capture any city or occupy any country in the Indian Ocean. But he did not, leaving the message that the Ming dynasty had no territorial ambitions. Since his departure some 600 years ago, China did not return to the Indian Ocean. President Xi’s Belt and Road initiative is not different in any way from what the Ming emperors practiced. If India is projecting it in negative light it is only to win over the American support for its own ambition to be the regional hegemon.
India’s hostility against Pakistan is not new, but it is really disappointing that the US team played into its hands, by unabashedly endorsing the New Delhi’s unending anti-Pakistan harangue. It is true that liberal-democratic Americanism received a setback as Pompeo did not utter a single word at the joint presser about the ongoing massacre of freedom fighters in Indian-Held Kashmir. As diplomatic norms would have it, the joint pressers are confined to bilateral relations and how to improve them, unlike the New Delhi joint presser where Pakistan was the main target for everything that has gone wrong in Afghanistan. And how gullible we in Pakistan and some in India – despite having some idea as to what is the Chanakyan dictate – were who thought that Narendra Modi’s message to Prime Minister Imran Khan on his inauguration had opened a “political window” between the two South Asian neighbours. That was a deception as the massacre in IHK goes on. Only a few days ago, the Indian troops killed seven Kashmiri protestors. But, as President Trump learnt firsthand following his spate sound and fury against North Korea, the only way forward was talks. Here in South Asia too, the only way forward is talks. The onus is on the Indian prime minister to walk the talk; and he would find Pakistan waiting at the doorstep. Washington too should concede the fact that winning the war in Afghanistan, as its generals have been trying all these years, is an unrealizable option. Shifting blame for its failure on Pakistan is a reflection of a defeated mindset. No other country is more interested and committed to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan than Pakistan.
