A bout of patriotic tumescence has ensued after Imran Khan’s interview with the CNN after Trump’s speech “against” Pakistan. Not much of a surprise there; the government was maintaining radio silence after Trump’s thing and Imran Khan swooped in on that space.
But what further sweetened that particular deal for him was the fact that his talking points were all delightfully populist. And simplistic. Again, this being Imran Khan, no surprises there.
Not to begrudge a politician saying something calculatedly populist, but it was downright irresponsible, especially at a time when there is a gathering consensus against Pakistan on this front. You would be surprised what even the Chinese say behind closed doors, as former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri said on live television recently.
Khan’s interview, broadly speaking, can be divided into three categories. One: the Taliban leadership is not in Pakistan; if the likes of Zalmay Khalilzad are so confident that they are, then why don’t they share this information with the Pakistani authorities? Two: that the Haqqani network, the bete noire of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, numbered only three thousand; how were they proving to be such a big problem for 150,000 of the soldiers of the mightiest military force in the world? Three: if the “stick” here is pulling back American aid, then we are better off without it.
Let’s take these apart, one by one. First of all, when he asks why the Afghans are not telling us where the Taliban leadership supposedly is. Well, President Ashraf Ghani himself, what to speak of a diplomat, told Pakistani journalists that he can give them addresses of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan! Was it political rhetoric on Ghani’s part? Perhaps, but only as far as the addresses are concerned. Because the premier’s foreign affairs advisor (with minister status) Sartaj Aziz has already admitted that the Taliban leadership is present in Pakistan. The Murree talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban is further testament to that. That should have been the end of discussion on that topic.
The fact that the Afghan Taliban leadership is present in Pakistan is not the stuff of tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists because the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has expressedly, officially, unequivocally said as much. To say that they are present in Pakistan when the coalition forces want negotiations and to furiously deny that they are in other contexts, is sheer shamelessness.
Second, the numbers of the Afghan militants present in Pakistan. This is asymmetric warfare. Those whose job is to “Clear, Hold and Build” is much tougher than those whose job it is to destroy. A small number can be quite the gadfly. After a failed attempt on Margaret Thatcher, a spokesperson for the IRA said that the British authorities got lucky this time, but they have to be lucky all the time, while the IRA have to be lucky only once.
By that account, let us look at the Pakistan Army’s attempts to clear the Khyber Agency of the Lashkar-e-Islami. The ragtag militia, which isn’t even a part of the Taliban, just an affiliate, has been so tough for the army to clear that we have had a host of military operations by the Frontier Corps. Operation Darralum. Operation Bia Darralum. Operation Khwakh Ba De Sham. Operation Sirat-ul-Mustaqeem. Khyber One. Khyber Two. Khyber Three and now, Khyber Four. They still can’t clear the area. So what, exactly, is Imran Khan implying about the Pakistan Army with that same logic?
Third, the foreign aid. The proportion of foreign aid in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Annual Development Plan (ADP) for the fiscal budget 2017-18 stands at 39%. Not surprisingly, out of this, the USAID is the single biggest donor (grants, not loans). Following that, is the UK’s DFID. Thought the UK doesn’t have as blunt a person as Donald Trump in charge, they do share his views.
Many of these projects originated on the PTI government’s watch. And those that didn’t, could still have been redirected. Though there are many projects built as a result of American largesse, one in particular stands out: the newly constructed bathrooms at Peshawar’s bus terminal. Perhaps the supporters of the party can bask in the warm, fuzzy feelings of their leader’s “ghairat” while they are relieving themselves in said washrooms.
The PTI’s boffin-in-chief, the terribly overrated Asad Umer, said on a live TV show recently that he felt like slapping Donald Trump after his speech. Since there is no way he can do so, perhaps, by way of catharsis, he could scratch on the wall of one of the stalls of the bus stand’s bathrooms, “Donald Trump di paenn nu!”
Postscript: Whenever our alleged duplicity in the war on terror is brought up, we bring up, in response, the number of Pakistanis who have died in this war. We don’t realise that it is specifically that number that the west keeps reminding us as well. Both Donald Trump and General Nicholson pointed out the sacrifices of the 80,000 Pakistanis we have lost in these very speeches.
The fact that we have lost these many people is their argument, not ours.
