You know Trump: he’s the man who, immediately after being elected US President, decided to telephone prime minister Nawaz Sharif to say Pakistan is “a fantastic country, fantastic place” and “amazing with tremendous opportunities.” He ended with the jovial request to, “Please convey to the Pakistani people that they are amazing and all Pakistanis I have known are exceptional people.”
It is unlikely that Mr Trump knows any Pakistanis, but it seemed his attitude to Pakistan was positive. And so it continued until New Year’s Day 2018 when Trump tweeted, “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”
He meant that the Pakistan army, which has seen 6,687 soldiers killed fighting terrorists since 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan, is helping terrorists based in Pakistan.
If minefields had been planted at appropriate places along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, on both sides, as proposed by Pakistan, and patrolled aggressively by both armies, nobody could claim that illegal crossings would have been easy
When Trump tweeted his message, Pakistan had ended a year in which it suffered 3,001 civilian deaths from terrorism, and 676 of its soldiers were killed in fighting against terrorists, while 1,702 terrorists were killed. It was quite a year, but not as bad as 2009, for example, at the height of the US “surge” in Afghanistan, when almost a thousand Pakistani soldiers were killed while conducting operations against terrorists in their strongholds in the Tribal Areas.
In 2009, Afghanistan’s President Karzai said there was “an urgent need” for direct negotiations with the Taliban and made it clear that the US government opposed any such approach. Meanwhile, there was indeed increased movement of terrorists between the countries, made less difficult for them because the Afghan government refused to permit the erection of any sort of border barrier.
Eleven years ago, Carlotta Gall of the New York Times wrote that the Afghan President “voiced strong opposition on [December 28, 2006] to Pakistan’s announcement that it would lay mines and erect fences along its border with Afghanistan. He said the moves would only hurt the people living in the region and would not stem cross-border terrorism.”
This was nonsense, because if minefields had been planted at appropriate places along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, on both sides, as proposed by Pakistan, and patrolled aggressively by both armies, nobody could claim that illegal crossings would have been easy. If the Afghan army had been ordered to cooperate with their opposite numbers across the border, and if there had been coordinated surveillance and foot patrols—as wanted by the Pakistan Army—then it would have been very difficult indeed for insurgents to cross in either direction. The US did not approve Pakistan’s proposal for fencing and minefields and did not supply any assistance for the project. So the barrier was not erected.
Trump was supported by Senator Rand Paul who tweeted, “I’m introducing a bill to end aid to Pakistan in the coming days. My bill will take the money that would have gone to Pakistan and put it in an infrastructure fund to build roads and bridges here at home.” Trump tweeted “Good idea, Rand!” but at the same time a White House official said, “I just want to be clear that it’s been suspended. Nothing has been reappropriated. We’re hopeful that we can lift the suspension and the aid will be able to go forward.” So what is the real policy? Nobody knows.
This leaves Pakistan with some problems. It can live without the US money, of course, although there’s no doubt it has been most useful and much appreciated, but eventually the air force will have difficulty in continuing to operate its F-16 aircraft because the US will probably refuse to sell it replacement parts. Orders for US attack helicopters may also be affected. But the US is not the only source of defence equipment, and there is little doubt that China, Russia and Turkey will move to plug any gaps. And there are other factors that Washington would do well to contemplate.
One most positive effect of Trump’s offensive tweet has been to unite Pakistanis. Irrespective of political leanings they have joined in strong rejection of US policy. Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said bluntly that the US “carried out 57,800 attacks on Afghanistan from our bases. Your forces were supplied arms and explosives through our soil. Thousands of our civilians and soldiers became victims of the war initiated by you.” And his sentiments were echoed by Imran Khan, who said, “Despite Pakistan clearing up North Waziristan, still half of Afghanistan is in Taliban hands. So, who is responsible for this? To make Pakistan the scapegoat of a failed strategy in Afghanistan is not just a travesty of justice, it is deeply insulting and humiliating.”
Quite so. And this is probably going to be the way ahead for Pakistan. To my certain knowledge, Pakistan has provided intelligence about potential terrorist-related activities in America (and the UK). So why should they continue such cooperation? And as the New York Times pointed out on January 5, the US “has always relied on Pakistani air and ground routes for supplies to the troops in Afghanistan.” So why should Pakistan continue to offer such facilities? It could cut them off in a moment.
Trump failed to understand that insulting North Korea’s leader would result in such strong reaction to his immature jibes. His anti-Iran diatribes are entirely counter-productive. And he’s playing the same tune again. Trump’s Pakistan policy is insultingly confrontational and should be regarded with the silent contempt it deserves.
(A version of this article appeared in the Strategic Culture Foundation journal.)
The writer is a British and Australian army veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan. He has written several books on the Pakistan army