Trump’s tweet

• We should ignore it

Just when we think we may have hit rock bottom in our relations with America, the Trump Administration, nay, Trump himself, has the ingenious ability to dig holes in the rocks also. In an unprecedentedly harsh and offensive tweet the US President Donald Trump has said: “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!”

The statement has hurt the sensibilities and emotions of tens of millions of Pakistanis. Nothing could be more demeaning than to accuse Pakistan of deception and deceit when it has borne immeasurable costs in blood and treasure to fight this war that had nothing to do with Pakistan. Hence, this is a preposterous charge not worthy of any serious reflection. But what can justifiably be asked is what has triggered this fit of rage?

It is not clear from any source what has prompted Trump to choose this as his first tweet of 2018. In an editorial, Washington Post has also surmised that the tweet was simply an impulsive gesture. Curiously, rather than secretaries of state and defense following up on the matter, it is White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the daughter of Sikh immigrants, Nikki Haley, US permanent representative in UN, who have doubled down on the president’s allegations. Sanders said Pakistan was not fulfilling its obligations and demanded it to do more; warning that very soon additional demands from Pakistan shall be announced. Haley, while she had nothing to do with the subject, accused Pakistan of playing double games with America for many years. ‘They work with us at times, and they also harbour the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan’. The proximity of the two women with the president suggests that the two secretaries are not behind this affair. It reflects more Trump’s frustration and anger at the continuing deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan, particularly when he’s been forced to risk a move against his gut feelings, which was that Afghan war was a lost cause.

Trump was never effusive toward Pakistan, except last October, after the release of the Canadian couple, when he declared his administration was starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders

Trump was never effusive toward Pakistan, except last October, after the release of the Canadian couple, when he declared his administration was starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders. During the election campaign, his remarks on Pakistan were fairly limited. At one point in the campaign, he said that he would let India deal with Pakistan. His contempt for Pakistan was evident in another tweet back in 2012: “When will Pakistan apologise to us for providing safe sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden for 6 years?! Some ‘ally’”.

However, on Afghanistan he had a lot more to say. He had long held the view that the Afghan war was a folly and the business of ‘nation building’ was a fool’s errand. He lamented that billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money were wasted in a senseless war in Afghanistan. The most elaborate statement in this regard was a video message he gave in support of the presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, on 3 February 2012 where in a fairly loud and grim voice he thundered:

‘Afghanistan is a total and complete disaster, what are we doing, we have all of those horrible events taking place over there, we can’t even run our own country, we don’t build our schools, our highways, we don’t build anything anymore. What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with our leadership? Now we have Afghanistan where a man loses his mind and goes around on a killing spree and the world hates us for that. What’s going on? Money should be spent in our country, to rebuild our country, that would also reduce, by the way, our debt of $16 trillion. Let’s get with it, get out of Afghanistan. We have wasted billions and billions of dollars and most importantly thousands of lives, not to mention those young men and women who come home and they really have problems. Let’s go, let’s get with it, we need to have leaders that know what they are doing”.

Ellen Mitchel, in a report published in The Hill of 1-1-2018, writes that President Trump is changing gears on Afghanistan… as he abandons ‘nation building’ and sends more troops to stabilise it. She also says military experts are of the view that there is no quick fix. She further writes: “Military commanders have certainly played a part in this change, as they’ve given the impression that massive territory losses amounted to a ‘stalemate’ which could be readily reversed.

She quotes Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, which advocates for a diplomacy-heavy foreign policy: “He’s putting a Donald Trump spin on the previous administration’s Afghanistan strategy, slightly fewer troops but more bombing. It is completely impossible to think 15,000 troops will tip a war in favour of the United States when previous presidents were unable to do so with a force of 100,000. To turn the page on Afghanistan’s issues, which include rampant government corruption and an oppressive political system, would require a kind of diplomatic effort that seems non-existent in the Trump administration. The question of Afghanistan in 2018 is, are we going to learn [from] the failures of the past? We’re seeing a complete failure for having any sort of regional framework. We keep making the same mistakes and nothing really changes, unfortunately”.

On Ellen’s report, Jason Ditz of Antiwar.com has also commented: “Commanders have even tried to spin the situation as already improving since the escalation was announced. Yet the reality is that the US military has been bullish on the Afghan War for a solid 16 years now, predicting an imminent turnaround pretty much at every time in the entire occupation, despite any decisive changes on the ground ever happening”.

The recent reports on ISIS activities in Afghanistan are also worrisome; rather than finding ground to work together on this common threat, Trump has found it convenient to vent his frustrations on Pakistan. Indeed, the visits of his secretaries of state and defense were quite business like where the two sides stated their respective positions without inhibitions. They, however, agreed to continue to work together to find ways to cooperate.

Pakistan’s National Security Committee meeting chaired by the prime minister issued a straightforward and mature response to the Trump tweet. It has sent a clear message that while Pakistan would not be intimidated by such blunt and uncouth messages, it would remain on course in its cooperation with the US led coalition. The fact that this is the course agreed with the operational force of the US is evident from a brief conversation that the Washington Post had with the Commander of CENTCOM, General Joseph Votel. Asked what was being done to seek cooperation from Pakistan on the Haqqani Network, the General said: ‘What we are trying to do is talk to Pakistan about this, and not try to communicate through public messaging’.