[DAWN] AN uncharacteristically stern response by the National Security Committee to US President Donald Trump...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
’s so-called South Asia strategy is a worrying indication of the strategic chasm between Pakistain and the US. With words and phrases such as "outrightly rejected", "scapegoat", "grave challenge", "Afghan war cannot be fought in Pakistain" and "India cannot be a net provider of security" sprinkled across the statement, the NSC has conveyed its unhappiness, perhaps even alarm, at the Trump strategy. Nominally headed by the prime minister, the overwhelming military presence at yesterday’s meeting suggests that the statement is a true reflection of the national security apparatus’s grave concerns. Pakistain’s concerns over the Trump strategy are unsurprising; the strategy has almost universally been declared to be unrealistic and flawed.
From the NSC response, two key concerns of Pakistain can be gleaned. First, the Trump strategy appears to be an endorsement of perpetual war in Afghanistan, when it has long been clear that only "a politically negotiated outcome", in the NSC’s words, can work. Second, the so-called South Asia strategy puts the onus on Pakistain to act without offering to address any of this country’s regional security concerns. Specifically, the Trump administration’s silence on anti-Pakistain Lion of Islam sanctuaries in eastern Afghanistan and its encouragement of India to play a greater role in Afghanistan amount to a puzzling disregard of Pakistain’s concerns. Why is Pakistain expected to act first to advance other powers’ interests and only then its own? Merely labelling something a South Asia strategy does not automatically make it so. Indeed, it is Pakistain that appears to be seeking a true regional solution with its articulation of specific concerns, while the US approach amounts to something akin to a minus-Pakistain formula for peace. Because the US approach is wildly unrealistic, it is also dangerous.
Nevertheless, Pakistain must strive to avoid a strategic collision with the world’s only superpower. The US president’s obvious discomfort with a U-turn from his campaign pledge to extricate the US from Afghanistan presents an opportunity. A true regional approach to the Afghan question necessarily includes Iran, China and Russia, countries that Mr Trump all but ignored in his strategy. For Pakistain, the challenge will be to pull together the diplomatic heft of those countries to cobble together a reasonable alternative to America’s latest approach. Regional ought to mean regional -- a path to peace that allows Afghanistan peace and stability and balances the interests of outside powers in the immediate vicinity. Surely, helping develop a regional consensus and encouraging the US to reconsider its own flawed approach is a better alternative than the dismal possibility of endless war in Afghanistan and the severing of even a transactional relationship between Pakistain and the US.