Trilateral summit
The Americans, one assumes, wouldn’t be all too pleased. Nor would the Saudis. The Afghan and Pakistani presidents sitting together was all well and good but the presence of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would have rankled.
Well, tough luck. The Americans will up and leave – as they have done before – but the region stays put. And mending fences with neighbours is never a bad idea. If we can strive for peace with the traditional nemesis India, how do we argue against good relations with Iran and Afghanistan?
When the Iranian president spoke out against “foreign interference” in Afghanistan – also an irony, it has to be mentioned – Washington’s apprehensions would have no doubt been piqued.
Sovereignty might be a concept thrown around a little more than it should be these days but it does exist and we shouldn’t shy away from pointing out any infringements. All states have the right to seek out better relations with other states and other states – allies they might well be – have to respect that.
In addition to ideology, the cold rationale of economic interests also figures in the whole calculus. Pakistan is an energy insecure country. Report after report by foreign trade analysts confirm that the biggest problem Pakistan’s manufacturing sector faces is a shortage of energy, which leads to a significant loss of employment opportunities as well. The US would like the TAPI power deal to take care of that. But the IPI pipeline is also an attractive proposition. It is up to the government of Pakistan to decide which project (or, perhaps both of them) we should sign up for.
The trilateral summit was, at the end of the day, about Afghanistan. It was about the post-American situation in the country. For that, Pakistan is expected to exercise the leverage at its disposal in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. The Pakistani foreign minister huffed and puffed, when speaking about how little they could promise on that front but no one doubts, really, how things will actually play out. All may not be too hunky dory with the Iranians in the future because of that. A tripwire here, a tripwire there.
