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.
