Daily Times

Pakistan informed the US of its decision to buy discounted oil from Russia late last year; expecting retaliation and backlash. Instead, the US was shockingly accepting, partly due to the optics of attacking a cash-strapped country whose survival hangs delicately in the balance as it scrambles to meet its needs. It isn’t wise to kick someone when they’re already down and Washington recognises this.

But this only partly explains why the US has shown little resistance to Russia’s designs in South Asia. Even with an overwhelming global coalition sanctioning Russian oil, there’s little to stop buyers outside the EU such as India and China from purchasing Russian crude and processing it in their own refineries to make fuel. In the rest of the world, the drive to punish Russia for violating the American-mandated international order is markedly absent.

Many countries, such as India and Turkey, have remained altogether non-committal while others such as ours have turned to Russia to satisfy needs that cannot be reasonably met anywhere else. Even Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, has spurned Washington’s request to pump more oil to ease price increases following the imposition of Western sanctions.

With so much of the world flagrantly ignoring Washington’s plans for Moscow, there’s little to do but begrudgingly accept that Western attempts to isolate Russia have largely failed. Like Pakistan, many other countries are finally prioritising their national interests over their desire to appease Washington, ensuring that they are able to protect the benefits that they derive from their relationship with Moscow.

Pakistan’s unwillingness to reflexively support the US in this conflict is a strategic move designed to protect its soil. It also reflects the greater climate of resentment in the Global South towards the US’ use of the dollar to apply sanctions on other countries with no consequences. Pakistan has experienced US sanctions itself and knows this is not an easy position to be in. Clearly, Washington has a bad habit of assuming that with enough pressure, other countries will simply line up behind the US and blindly support its plans. But not this time-too much is at stake. *