- Kh Asif’s footprint
First, the scramble to avoid the ‘grey list’ axe at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting left a little to be desired, to say the least. Suddenly the government found the will, and the necessary presidential decree, for a policy about turn on Jamaatud Dawa and its charity wing. And it got assurances from the usual all-weather friends, China and – perhaps after the mysterious troop sendoff? – Saudi Arabia, for diplomatic support. And second, the foreign minister’s foot-in-mouth tweet – as the foreign press is increasingly referring to it — betrayed not just unpreparedness but also an unprofessional attitude, embarrassing us and leaving much egg on faces of friends that supported us.
Should Islamabad be surprised, then, that neither Beijing nor Riyadh stood for us once Washington was able to organise a second vote – which reflects US determination to see the matter through? Turkish support is always appreciated but, considering its internal dynamics, Ankara could well be worried about a similar squeeze affecting it sometime in the future. It is, after all, playing the same cross-border proxy-war games – that inevitably require large sums moving mysteriously across the global financial system – that got Pakistan into this fix over the last three decades.
Going by the foreign office, though, it seems we have yet to realise that cross-country friendship is ‘larger than mountains and deeper than oceans’ only as long as mutual interests are served. The government continues to blame Indian influence and political motives behind Pakistan’s isolation even as trusted partners begin to distance themselves from a policy we simply refuse to budge out of. And Miftah Ismail is outright wrong in dismissing the impact of a possible FATF grey listing. A country drowned in debt and facing its largest fiscal deficit in history just cannot afford the isolation such sanctions would bring. Unable to float bonds or borrow heavily, the government would eventually drain the common man more for its own functioning. A faulty policy and an unprepared foreign minister might just have triggered, however indirectly, not just political marginalisation but also a deeper deficit and high inflation in the not too distant future.