Daily Times

Quoting Emerson in his fourth inaugural address in 1945, Roosevelt stated, “The only way to have a friend is to be one”, reiterating his premise of establishing a new international order that he proposed to be built on personal trust. Roosevelt was of the opinion that lasting peace can’t be achieved if international relations are based on suspicion, mistrust and fear. However, it seems today that there are no friends, only interests. The dynamics of Roosevelt have eroded in a slapstick manner, reducing diplomacy to mere drollery.

Trump’s election to the oval office has turned the White House into a reality TV studio. Rigorous policy discourse has been reduced to a Tweet, noticeably providing a larger audience to the extremes. The US president’s temptation to cater and reflect to the demands of its followers or twitterati; digitally reflected multitude, essentially overrides the required judgment to chart a complex and intricate course in harmony with the purposes of lasting impact. Unfortunately the distinction between knowledge, information and wisdom is weakened. TS Eliot in his ‘Choruses from The Rock’ rightly captured Trump’s presidency show, reflecting upon inhibiting the acquisition of knowledge by surfeit of information, pushing wisdom even further away:

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

In the foreign policy world, facts that are hardly self-explanatory; their analyses, significance and interpretation depends on their broader context and relevance. In order for information and facts to be truly useful, if not just thought through as to be ‘looked up’, must be relevantly placed within the context of experience and history to emerge as actual knowledge. ‘A society is unfortunate if its leaders can occasionally rise to the level of wisdom’, rightly said Kissinger.

A self-absorbed, obsessive and impulsive Trump described himself as a ‘genius’ and ‘a very stable genius at that’, cut off Pakistan’s civil-military aid via Tweet and accused the country of ‘lies and deceit’. Adding more fury to that, he regurgitated the hackneyed mantra of ‘Do more’ and tired tropes of harbouring and providing safe havens for terrorist organisations and wasting billions of American taxpayers greenback; exemplifies Trump’s recalcitrant posture to the time tested diplomatic norms.

Pakistan’s location has immense geo-strategic value. The US has much to lose if it suspends aid abruptly. The partnership between the two countries has been quite fruitful in combating terrorism thus far

Simultaneous threats recurring from Defence Secretary James Mattis, on his visit to Afghanistan while speaking to American troops, celebrated valour and contribution of American forces and promising additional troops and authority on the ground and putting Pakistan on notice, resulted in recrimination from the ISPR and Foreign Office. The Twitterati would never have envisioned a hegemon directing its policy to its ally, stirring a Stanely Kubrik-esque scenario a reality as a result of ill-thought out tweets.

Pakistan and United states have historically been in an impugned relationship which has been a function of global strategic dynamics, cooperation between Islamabad and Washington diluted after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1990. Multiple economic sanctions followed during 90’s in the form of Pressler and Symington amendments.

9/11 paved a way for the both sides to redraw their dynamics which witnessed an upswing throughout a decade long war on terror. However 2011 underscored another upheaval due to chronological events of Raymond Davis and Osama bin laden and consequently Salala post debacle which marked the lowest ebb of US-Pakistan relationship.

Pakistan-US reengagement was conceived when the country’s civil-military leadership accepted Clinton’s ‘apology’ and quid pro quo. In a formal meeting in Washington in September 2012, Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar and Hillary Clinton, mutually agreed to work on a focused agenda of working together to build “on an architecture of cooperation which will take these relations to be sustainable, to be predictable, and most importantly, to be viewed by both the publics — the Americans and Pakistanis — to be pursuing their national interests; to be a relation(ship) which is based on mutual respect, which is based on mutual understanding, and which is seen to be pursuing the national goals and objectives of each country.”

This perfidious path has been an unfortunate factor in this imbalanced relationship, which yet again begs for a reset; shaped up during Obama administration but marred by the change of administration in the White House.

An amount of US$440 to $500 million in counterinsurgency training and equipment for Pakistan was suspended, including US$300 million in planned FY2011 Coalition Support Fund reimbursements, but later as a result of Reset 2012, Pakistan received US$1.1 billion to it for its counter-insurgency operations against the militants operating on the border with Afghanistan that the US owed.

It is pertinent in a strategic context for both the countries to renew the convergence of their interests; in combating terrorist outfits, posing threats to the region through cooperation. Pakistan with a pivotal geo-political location has intrinsic strategic value and it has been mooring in a multipolar world.

United States has much to lose following an abrupt policy of suspending aid which has been fruitful in routing out the menace of terrorism, and a lot to gain through partnership. However new US national security strategy characterise an ‘imperialist’ and ‘cold war’ mentality. Its time Washington trust and respect its allies before an ‘overload’ explodes the possibility of conciliation. Foreign policy in its physiognomy grapples with grave danger, it risks being reduced to series of slogans; manifested to capture immediate approbation. If Trump continues to deprive American policy of its context and foresight, required on terms compatible with their historical character, its relations on international stage will suffer concomitant distortions.

Faraz Saeed is philosophically a neo-liberal and Aristotelian; He holds a BSc honours degree in Economics and Political science from the Lahore School of Economics. He is a freelance writer and political thinker. He can be reached at farazsaeed1@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, January 14^th 2018.