Rogue Pakistan Trumped
At last, Pakistan has come face to face with a man, who’s not a regular career politician, not a politically correct careful communicator, not a political appeaser and certainly not a green horn in dealing with rogues. Pakistan has come face to face with the first American President Donald Trump who calls a spade a spade, and a rogue a rogue with an inimitable ease. He has no marbles in his mouth, when it comes to speaking his mind. He is walking the talk on his governance agenda ‘America First.’
Pakistan is truly trumped. This time around, it’s no more rhetorical statements belted out like earlier Presidents without any follow-up action. Right after the stern warning by President Trump on the 1st of January 2018, USA has blocked the $1.5 billion ongoing aid to Pakistan with immediate effect. America has at last woken up from its 70-year slumber in reference to its association with Pakistan.
I always believed US foreign policy in South Asia, especially in the Indian sub-continent, needed a massive tweak by successive administrations after the Cold War period. After disintegration of USSR, there was hardly any need for USA to continue its symbiotic relationship with a rogue nation like Pakistan. In fact, a nation’s foreign policy also reflects its own core national values.
A large functional democracy like USA which propagates freedom, civil rights, democracy and tolerance, should not for any possible reason go to bed with a nation like Pakistan. A nation bereft of any respectable values. President Trump must recuse USA at the earliest from the unholy and deviant association it had for seven decades with Pakistan. In my analysis, I consider US relationship with Pakistan a historic foreign policy failure of America.
Knowingly or unknowingly USA has funded, groomed, supported and promoted unprecedented terror, training, weaponising, and indoctrination of fundamental Islamic terror through its association with Pakistan for decades. A nation which does not respect its mother land from which it took birth in 1947, a nation which spews venom with no logical basis for over 70 years on its parent nation, a nation which has never stood on its own feet since its birth and has been begging other nations for its survival throughout its life, can neither be trusted nor partnered with. American association with Pakistan, though, has historic reasons like cold war era, India- Russia friendship, Afghan occupation by USSR, 9/11 war on terror, etc…none of these reasons has ever added up to any advantage to USA. Pakistan has only cheated and betrayed its friend every time USA trusted it.
President Obama was a wimp, like many other US Presidents who preceded him. Even after finding the most wanted and notorious terrorist of the century in Pakistan, with visible support of the regular army of Pakistan in a close proximity to its military academy, Obama only gifted this unreliable betrayer of a nation a few more millions of dollars in military aid. President Obama has actually rewarded Pakistan for its open and horrendous betrayal.
It’s a shame that earlier US administrations have stooped very low to appease a rogue nation like Pakistan after it stood so thoroughly exposed, openly betraying USA and hiding a terrorist who killed thousands of Americans. 9/11 attack was the only largest attack on mainland USA, after the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan. Especially, the political correctness and Islamic appeasement of President Obama was so extreme that his administration has not even publicly admonished Pakistan after US ‘Operation Geronimo’ eliminating Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
For regular folks in USA, foreign policy might not be a subject of great interest. However, when a flawed foreign policy draws terror attacks, loss of valuable life, loss of public and private property, wastage of billions of tax payer dollars, it should become a subject of popular interest. There has to be strong public opinion against USA continuing its illegitimate and unholy nexus with Pakistan in the immediate future.
Pakistan has harmed the world like none else. The world is fighting a bitter religious war unleashed by fundamental elements of Islam. All these forces emanated from outfits which were recruited, trained, incubated and weaponised on Pakistan soil. Almost all the terrorists in the world would have someday been schooled in one of the many terror groups emanating from the largest terror manufacturing assembly line of the world, in Pakistan. This rogue nation undoubtedly is the only breeding ground for all terror in the world.
President Trump should terminate the non-NATO ally status accorded to Pakistan along with suspension of all aid and trade with this nation. If USA were to methodically examine and audit the use of military and civil aid given by its successive regimes to Pakistan for over decades, it will clearly understand how Pakistan has been waging wars in the world through different non-state actors and faces. Pakistan has built a terror conglomerate with hundreds of vertical organisations across the world, through a spoke and hub model.
Pakistan is the nation which has proliferated nuclear technologies to many countries, whom USA considers as its enemies. It’s about time USA wakes up from the deep slumber and contains this failed state which is acting as an offshore operational headquarters for all terror organisations of the world.
India certainly has much to do both tactically and strategically. With USA recognising and isolating Pakistan, India will certainly be able to defang this poisonous snake in its backyard, over a period of time. There is no other nation, which would have paid a heavier price than India in reference to terrorism. India’s brave soldiers on the border, innocent citizens, women and children have been bleeding for 70 years because of incessant terror emanating from across the border. India has spent billions of rupees protecting its long porous borders with Pakistan, which otherwise could have been spent on alleviating poverty and infrastructural growth, for its people.
Pakistan is neither a republic, nor a nation. It’s a mega terror enterprise run by a private militia under the garb of military-dominated democracy. This nation cannot be reformed or transformed; it can only be fought, defeated and annexed to India eventually, for its nationals were once Indians.
President Trump can eliminate ISIS and other major terror organisations during his regime, if he starts off by freezing Pakistan’s terror export to the world. Stringent sanctions, breaking the hold of rogue military on civil administration, isolation of this nation from the world, and assigning an enemy status are a few initiatives which can yield positive results, not just for USA but for the entire world.