And Pakistan’s options
His critics rightly label him as Islamophobic, misogynistic and unorthodox in perusing his domestic as well as foreign agenda
The enigmatic Donald Trump is the 45th president of USA, and one of the least popular entering the office. According to the polls just 40 percent of Americans approved of Mr Trump’s performance heading into the highest political office in the world.
But they are the same polls that clearly that predicted the Democratic candidate Ms Hillary Clinton would defeat her opponent by a wide margin. But Trump, confounding everyone, won the coveted prize by convincingly beating Clinton in electoral votes.
Trump, an outsider, literally extracted victory from the jaws of defeat. The world has had it if he follows in letter and spirit the same policies that he espoused so enthusiastically on the campaign trail.
His critics rightly label him as Islamophobic, misogynistic and unorthodox in perusing his domestic as well as foreign agenda. There is only a hint of pragmatism in his utterances. Now that he is president we will soon know where he stands on most issues that affect the world.
Trump won the election on a narrow plank of negativity by exploiting insecurities of the disaffected white middle class Americans who were sick and tired of Obama’s liberalism. In the charged environment it was easy for Trump to blame globalisation for loss of jobs in certain vital sectors of the US economy.
It is another matter that Obama not only reduced unemployment during his eight years, he also salvaged the US economy from the 2008 recession. Despite some setbacks and gains in the realm of foreign policy, he has left the US economy in fairly good shape.
But in politics who reads the fine print? If a demagogue by appealing to the lowest common denominator can win hands down in the richest and one of the better educated countries in the world God help third world countries (Pakistan inclusive) from the magic wands of fanatics and firebrands.
As is quite evident from the team that Trump has collected around him, the American people will get exactly what they voted for in November. His senior advisor is New York property tycoon Jared Kushner, who is married to his daughter Ivanka. Jewish, and an avowed supporter of Israel, he is a big campaigner for shifting the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that has been resisted by the US so far.
But the icing on the cake is the president’s chief of staff Steve Bannon who headed the right wing Breitbet News and is an active protagonist of the extreme ‘alt right’ movement. Mr Trump’s choice for secretary of state Rex Tillerson has no experience of foreign policy.
He is the former CEO of Exxon Mobil the largest oil company in the world. Tillerson is very close to the Russian president Vladimir Putin, not a bad thing in itself.
Another member of the Trump team with whom Pakistan will be doing business with is his national security advisor is Michael Flynn. The former army lieutenant general has served as director of DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) before he fell out with president Obama for not aggressively fighting Islamic militancy.
There are other members of Trump’s freshly minted team known for their hard-line views on foreign policy and national security. As president elect he has already declared his intention to abandon the one-China policy in place since 1972. Predictably China has sharply reacted to this U-turn clearly stating that one-China policy was clearly non-negotiable.
Similarly Trump believes that the nuclear deal with Iran closed by his predecessor though arduous negotiations should be scrapped. It is easier said than done, as it is not a bilateral deal with the US. Britain, France, Russia and China –plus Germany are a party to it. In any case Tehran while reacting to Trump’s fulminations has plainly stated that if the deal is trashed it will simply resume its nuclear program.
All this is music to the ears of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose relations with Washington were so strained that he was virtually not on speaking terms with Barack Obama. Now he has a strong lobby in Washington, the president downwards committed to the Zionist state.
Trump’s good relations with Russia will bring some benefits in the Middle East and possibly for Pakistan too
Having a comfortable majority in both the Houses of the Congress there is nothing to deter Trump and his team from perusing a protectionist economic agenda at home and aggressive foreign policy abroad. On the very day of his inauguration a Republican member of the US Congress announced the imminent demise of the Iran nuclear deal.
Pakistan will be affected by the seminal change of guards in Washington. The outgoing Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Jalil Abbas Jilani, has put a positive gloss on Trump’s presidency by claiming that the president elect told him that he expected strong relations with Pakistan. This seems more of an expression of a forlorn hope than the actual ground realities.
Not that relations with the US were easy under the Obama administration. Only a few days back the White House press secretary put it quite succulently that “the US had an extraordinarily complicated relationship particularly when it comes to national security with Pakistan.” According to the spokesperson President Obama, just before leaving office, expressed the hope that the next administration would enhance security in Pakistan and make America safer too,
“Making America safe” is the code word for Islamabad doing more to rein in the jihadists operating and harboured in its territories. This ‘do more’ mantra will gain more traction under a Trump administration. Our estranged neighbours India and Afghanistan in unison have already started aggressively blaming Pakistan for their woes.
That is why Islamabad and Rawalpindi will have to be more focused in sorting out members of proscribed organisations perusing their jihadist agendas. Significant pressure on Pakistan to be an honest broker in talks with the Afghan Taliban will be ramped up.
Some analysts are worried that Trump will tilt too heavily towards India. This is nothing new. Even under the Obama administration New Delhi was wined and dined by the president at the expense of Pakistan.
Nonetheless, Islamabad should make concerted efforts to start with a clean state. Admittedly under the circumstances, it is going to be an uphill task.
Trump has shown some pragmatism and realpolitik about dealing with the trouble spots in the Middle East. He is dead right in saying that Middle East despots should have been left alone by the Washington’s national security establishment.
The US has lost out both in Iraq and Libya thanks to its military interventions. Similarly Syria is in a mess owing to Obama’s obsession with getting rid of Bashar al Assad by supporting the rebels and strengthening al Qaeda and ISIS in the process.
Trump’s good relations with Russia will bring some benefits in the Middle East and possibly for Pakistan too. However all this could be negated if the new US administration pursues rabidly pro-Israel policies.
One thing is certain. The new US president will keep us entertained with his highly acerbic tweets and sarcastic pronouncements bordering on profanity.
