Pakistan and Trump: Ready for a bargain? | IE | Oct 10 2017
The Obama and Bush administrations were aware but unwilling to acknowledge that the Pakistan army had undermined America in Afghanistan. The Trump administration has stated the truth and wants to mount pressure on Pakistan to alter its course in Afghanistan.
Breaking from the well-trodden path, the Trump administration is trying “one last time” to get the Pakistan army’s cooperation. It is opening up a negotiation this time with a variety of threats — new sanctions, withdrawing Pakistan’s status as a “major non-NATO ally”, declaring Islamabad as a state sponsor of terrorism and urging India to play a larger role in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s initial reaction to Trump’s new regional policy — made in a speech at the end of August — was anger and outrage. It also rejected Trump’s demand that Pakistan should immediately shut down the terror sanctuaries on its soil. Islamabad also ostentatiously cancelled talks with US officials last month. After the bluster, comes the inevitable dialogue. Pakistan is now ready to talk to the Trump administration following high-level meetings in recent weeks. Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi met US Vice President Mike Pence on the margins of the UNGA last month and the foreign minister, Khawaja Asif, was in Washington last week.
It is one thing for Pakistan to posture for the benefit of domestic audiences and entirely another to to deliberately choose confrontation with the United States. As the US and Pakistan begin negotiations, India will inevitably be part of the discussion — call it “re-hyphenation” or what you will. After all, India and Pakistan have multiple problems, and Islamabad has never stopped trying to mobilise the great powers to blunt India’s natural preponderance in the region. In its conversation with US officials, Pakistan is likely to insist on a big say in shaping the future political order in Kabul, object to any role for India in Afghanistan and would want the US to get Delhi to talk Kashmir to Islamabad.
India, therefore, has a real interest in these talks, for they involve the future of the South Asian regional order — including Islamabad’s relations with Kabul and Delhi, the Pakistan army’s dominance over the domestic polity and Rawalpindi’s use of terror as an instrument of regional policy. Instead of worrying about “re-hyphenation”, India should focus on shaping the outcomes from the US-Pak negotiations. Whatever the eventual give and take between Washington and Rawalpindi, Delhi has enough room to respond with vigour and confidence to a potentially historic shift in the Subcontinent’s geopolitics.
Breaking from the well-trodden path, the Trump administration is trying “one last time” to get the Pakistan army’s cooperation. It is opening up a negotiation this time with a variety of threats — new sanctions, withdrawing Pakistan’s status as a “major non-NATO ally”, declaring Islamabad as a state sponsor of terrorism and urging India to play a larger role in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s initial reaction to Trump’s new regional policy — made in a speech at the end of August — was anger and outrage. It also rejected Trump’s demand that Pakistan should immediately shut down the terror sanctuaries on its soil. Islamabad also ostentatiously cancelled talks with US officials last month. After the bluster, comes the inevitable dialogue. Pakistan is now ready to talk to the Trump administration following high-level meetings in recent weeks. Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi met US Vice President Mike Pence on the margins of the UNGA last month and the foreign minister, Khawaja Asif, was in Washington last week.
It is one thing for Pakistan to posture for the benefit of domestic audiences and entirely another to to deliberately choose confrontation with the United States. As the US and Pakistan begin negotiations, India will inevitably be part of the discussion — call it “re-hyphenation” or what you will. After all, India and Pakistan have multiple problems, and Islamabad has never stopped trying to mobilise the great powers to blunt India’s natural preponderance in the region. In its conversation with US officials, Pakistan is likely to insist on a big say in shaping the future political order in Kabul, object to any role for India in Afghanistan and would want the US to get Delhi to talk Kashmir to Islamabad.
India, therefore, has a real interest in these talks, for they involve the future of the South Asian regional order — including Islamabad’s relations with Kabul and Delhi, the Pakistan army’s dominance over the domestic polity and Rawalpindi’s use of terror as an instrument of regional policy. Instead of worrying about “re-hyphenation”, India should focus on shaping the outcomes from the US-Pak negotiations. Whatever the eventual give and take between Washington and Rawalpindi, Delhi has enough room to respond with vigour and confidence to a potentially historic shift in the Subcontinent’s geopolitics.
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