Daily Times

A lot of people acted surprised, offended and upset, but nothing in that tweet was surprising at all. The talking heads have been beating around the bush for last 72 hours (as these lines are being written), regurgitating the same old.

The panic, the anxiety and a surge of emotions is coming from the usual quarters demanding the national honor and respect must be held at the highest level. Very dispassionately speaking, I am still unsure why there was such a reaction. The US-Pakistan relationship has always been transactional and need based. In a transactional relationship, if certain goals that were defined, are not being met, such reactions are expected.

The reason for the disappointment lies in the misunderstanding of the nature of relationship. On the Pakistani end, it is misconstrued as “friendship”, whereas on the US side, it is more of an assistance. An “aid” is hired for the task of assisting, an “aid” is not a friend, that you hang out with.

There is so much noise, about one tweet of the President, as if it is the final policy of the US. Granted, Mr. Trump has been a man of his words, but still, it is not the end of the world.

It was just a few months ago, that the former Prime Minister picked up the phone and congratulated then President-Elect Trump. The country has an elected Prime Minister now, who can do the same. Pick up the phone and initiate a good old peer to peer chat. From his actions, you can deduce that President Trump is an unconventional President. Considering his business background, he is very relationship oriented and very sharp and calculated. Pakistan’s current Prime Minister is US educated and well-rounded, so for him to strike a conversation with President Trump, should not be a major impediment.

What the folks at home must understand is that it is a different era, and a different approach is required. If it means involving the Saudis and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the Kingdom, that effort should be made.

What has been gathered so far on cable and in print media by various pundits is to call it quits and give the US a befitting response. What most learned folks suggesting all this are merely peddling is, a knee jerk rhetorical reaction. What most of these analysts, defense or otherwise, are ignoring is a very basic fact. A long-term relationship, that spans over almost six plus decades, cannot be cut overnight. This will have a disastrous fall out.

The proponents of such an action, debate from the angle of Chinese alignment and since Pakistan now has Chinese backing, it can easily wither away from the US. This would be tantamount to picking sides, when the country had gained its independence. The world is no longer in the 1950’s and a lot more interdependent. Hence, from that standpoint, look at the American and Chinese trade partnership. United States is heavily dependent on China, for flooding US retail stores with its consumer products.  By the way, it is the same China, that US regards as its adversary, in what is being labeled now, as the Indo-Pacific region.

The nature of the relationship has been misunderstood by both sides. On the Pakistani end, it is misconstrued as “friendship”, whereas on the US side, it is actually assistance offered for certain, specific reasons

The engagement that was done a few months back by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and his counterpart in the US, was considered fruitful and candid. What the policymakers at home, ought to analyze is what went wrong or did it even go wrong at all, or was there any progress on the bullet points or take-aways.

The tube circus has tried to blame the US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), and Nikki Haley for this mess, as she holds Indian heritage, and of course India is being blamed for conspiring through her. This is quite juvenile and simplistic assessment to say the least. Ms. Haley, may hold Indian descent, but she was born in the United States, much like my children. She is committed to this country as, it is the soil that she has a connection with. Like many dedicated career women, she may be eyeing a slot in the State Department, and her Indian descent is only a coincidence. Rest assured, she cannot form any strategic policy of the US towards an entire region.

Getting back to the engagement aspect, the point is not where the aid was spent. The well intentioned Foreign Minister, has suggested in his tweet that any reputable accounting firm of the world, can be employed to audit the use of funds. The Foreign Minister needs to be reminded of his conversation with the Asia Society a few months back. He had responded to a thorny question admitting the  fact and had sought some time to sort certain sticky issues. If an ordinary person like yours truly can pick on this, hopefully the brains in Islamabad and Rawalpindi can do the same.

The writer is a Pakistani-US mortgage banker. He can bereached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets @dasghar

Published in Daily Times, January 6^th 2018.