Whatever else you may say or feel about US President Donald Trump’s in-your-face style of diplomacy, his clarity, realism, and even understanding of most foreign policy issues are far superior to that of his more “intellectually-inclined” predecessors. On Pakistan and its perfidious policy on combating and confronting Islamic terrorism, Trump has been upfront in calling out the “lies and deceit” of Pakistanis, who have short-changed the Americans not just after 9/11, but even before that epochal event.
For more than a decade, the Americans have known that they are being had by the Pakistanis, but apart from pleading, pressuring and persuading Pakistan to “do more”, the Americans did nothing to get Pakistan to comply by using the punitive tools at their command. If the statements emanating out of Washington are anything to go by, this pusillanimous policy could now be changing under the Trump administration.
Part of the problem with the US’ Pakistan policy has been that the Americans no longer understand the limits or even the potency of their power. While the awe-inspiring and fearsome military power that the US can bring to bear is certainly an important instrument available in its foreign policy toolbox, it isn’t the only one. In fact, there are enormous financial, economic, diplomatic and political leverages that can come into play before the US resorts to the military option. For some strange reason, Americans seem to have neglected, nay degraded, their immense power and influence against countries like Pakistan.
Despite the enormous power differential between Pakistan and the US, the Pakistanis were able to play the Americans simply because they were confident that while the Americans can bark, they will never bite. If ever the Americans talked tough, the Pakistanis would respond with a show of defiance, daring the Americans to show what they are made off. The Pakistani bluff would work because the Americans didn’t want to push things with Pakistan over the edge. In a strange sort of way, there is a similarity in the US and Indian approach to Pakistan. Both countries have faced Pakistani betrayal, deception and treachery, and yet both retained a touching but inexplicable faith that a day will come when Pakistan will suddenly see the light, improve its behaviour and become a partner in peace. As a result, both countries desisted from taking the harsh steps that they needed to take.
While India continues to harbour the fond, foolish and fatuous hope of improving relations with Pakistan, the US under Trump seems to have had an epiphany that soft-peddling on Pakistan’s perfidy isn’t working and won’t work. Since August last when Trump announced his South Asia policy, the message he and his administration have consistently delivered is that Pakistan needs to deliver on US demands on terrorism. But the Pakistanis have ignored all the warnings. After all, if the Pakistanis could backstab the US when it was an undisputed sole superpower without any consequences, there was no reason why it should fall in line now when the US is regarded by many Pakistanis as a superpower in retreat.
As the thinking goes in Pakistan, they can cock a snook at a ‘declining’ power like the US with the support of rising powers like Russia, Iran and China. This is the new axis – the acronym PRICs appropriately describes it – that Pakistan thinks will change the international power structure, especially since the US has become globally isolated after the decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem.
The only problem with this delusion of the Pakistanis is that it ignores the reality of US power. The New Year tweet of Trump only hints at stopping the economic and military assistance that the US gives Pakistan. As far as the Pakistanis are concerned, they can live without this aid. It will hurt some, but isn’t going to bring them to their knees. In any case, they feel that Trump is so mercurial that his tweet need not necessarily become a policy. If so, then Trump’s words will prove to be an empty threat, not very different from the sort of threats or warnings his predecessors made. But if this tweet is going to become policy, then stopping the aid will have to be only the very first sign that the US is going to tighten the screws on Pakistan until it buckles.
Turning off the aid tap will almost certainly not be the magic bullet that will knock some sense into the Pakistanis. At best, the aid-cut can be a signal of worse to come. If the Pakistanis respond to this move by their standard show of defiance, the next step will have to be at the level of the Multilateral Financial Institutions like IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The US, along with its allies, can stop all funding to Pakistan, which in the next few months is likely to go back for a bailout to the IMF.
Alongside, the US can use its enormous financial clout to prevent Pakistan from accessing international financial markets to raise money to keep the economy afloat. There are signs that the Financial Action Task Force is leaning hard on Pakistan to stop all terror funding and money laundering. Pakistan knows that if it doesn’t comply, business transactions with the outside world will become extremely difficult. The next stage could be imposing trade sanctions, followed by financial and economic sanctions. At the political level, withdrawal of the Major Non-NATO ally status will have a major impact on the Pakistan armed forces and the military supplies and spares they receive from the US. There is also the possibility of imposing travel sanctions.
The Pakistanis would be foolish to think that if the US goes down the road outlined above, China will step in and rescue them. Unlike the Pakistanis who clearly think that protecting their terror proxies is more important than saving their relationship with the US, the Chinese are smart enough and sensible to know which side their bread is buttered. They are not going to jeopardise their $500-billion trade and economic relationship with the US for the sake of their $15-billion trade with Pakistan. After the US imposed financial sanctions on Iran, neither the Russians nor the Chinese were ready to break the sanctions regime. Therefore, to think that China will bust the US sanctions on Pakistan is really to expect the moon.
Of course, at the risk of being repetitive, the future trajectory of US-Pakistan relations will be decided by three things: one, whether or not Trump walks his talk; two, if he does walk his talk, then will he backtrack once the aid tack doesn’t work or will he go up the escalation ladder; three, if he escalates, how will Pakistan respond? Will Pakistan buckle under or will it get its back up? If it is the latter, then will Pakistan block the US’ ground and air lines of communication to Afghanistan? If it does, then how does the US provision its troops in Afghanistan and maintain the momentum of the war effort in that country? There are yet no clear answers to any of these critical questions.
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