Daily Times

The glob trotting politicians need to learn a lesson or two from Harry S. Truman the 33rd president of the United States who implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the Western European economy, and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO. He said “Tact is the ability to step on a man’s toes without messing up the shine on his shoes”. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi show casing his bravado around the globe, threatening his neighboring countries vis a vis military muscle and surgical strikes has been caught overstepping the diplomatic maxim, since only this time he messed up the entire shoe.

In a consistent attempt to pursue his vision of “Akhand Bharat” and appease his domestic Hindutva voter bank amid failures on socio-economic fronts, Mr Modi and the Indian diplomats were taken by surprise when Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan reminded the world how the RSS assassinated Gandhi, which helps the international community understand why Modi would stand by and let RSS terrorists carry out a bloody pogrom against Muslims in 2002 in the western state of Gujrat during his time as Chief Minister there, as well as why he has no compunctions about imprisoning the 8 million mostly Muslim people of the Kashmir valley in their own homes for over 50 days already.

Modi’s attempt to corner and isolate Pakistan backfired when Khan’s words echoed the United Nations general assembly as the premier said that India did not respond to Pakistan’s overtures following Modi’s re-election as prime minister and soon it was discovered that India was trying to push Pakistan into the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to bankrupt the country.

“That’s when we realised that there was an agenda and that agenda became obvious on the 5th of August when India went against 11 United Nations Security Council resolutions which say that Kashmir is a disputed territory and the people of Kashmir have the right of self-determination,”.

On May 3, former Indian Finance Minister ArunJaitley (late) said India will ask the FATF to put Pakistan on a blacklist of countries that fail to meet international standards in stopping financial crime. A 37-nation FATF plenary held its first meeting on Pakistan in February 2018 where China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia opposed the United States-led move to place Pakistan on the watch list. But the US pushed for an unprecedented second discussion on Pakistan, held on February 22 last year.

By then, Washington had convinced Riyadh to give up its support to Pakistan in return for a full FATF membership. This left only two – China and Turkey – in the Pakistan camp, one less than the required number of three members to stall a move. At this stage, the Chinese informed Islamabad that they were opting out as they did not want to “lose face by supporting a move that’s doomed to fail”.

Amid all the failures on diplomatic fronts and lost faith in the friends, Pakistan was alone in the fight to defend itself from going down the pot hole. It was imminent for Pakistan to launch an aggressive diplomatic effort to secure ample support to come out of the grey list or prevent itself from falling into the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Prime Minister Khan in his aggressive diplomatic move stalled India’s nefarious plans by exposing the ulterior motives behind her FATF move. The UN general assembly gathering and avid diplomacy in New York showcased winners and losers amid absurd subterfuge diplomacy. Indian Prime Minister In his “Howdy, Modi” speech obliquely criticized Pakistan and accused it of harboring terrorists, then assured the crowd that Trump was committed to fighting terrorism. However, later the US president Donald Trump expressed he was surprised and said, “I didn’t know I was going to hear that statement, I would say. I heard a very aggressive statement yesterday,” though he didn’t specify which of the Indian prime minister’s remarks he was referring to-it was explicitly clear though since he refused to endorse India’s repeated assertion that their Western neighbour was a hub of terrorism.

Modi’s Texas rally -hailed as an Indian diplomatic win came down as an embarrassment when Donald Trump plied Khan with accolades the very next day. The US president not only praised the Pakistani leader but also endorsed Pakistan’s fight to eradicate terrorism -major diplomatic win to get US support on FATF. Trump praised Imran Khan for being a “great leader”, a “good man” and a “good athlete”. “I had heard they have made great progress (in fighting terrorism) and under this leader, I think he is a great leader, I think he wants to make great progress”.

Pakistan may have suffered diplomatic hiccups in the past but this time it seems the country is on the right track-exhausting the conspiracy faculties of the adversaries and setting its own house in order. After demonstration of strong ‘political commitment’ for moving against proscribed outfits, the upcoming plenary meeting of FATF in October will decide the fate of Pakistan on possibility of exclusion or keeping on grey list for extended period. Pakistan may have inched closer to a win at FATF however, India has to bite dust with consistent diplomatic and economic failures on domestic and international fronts. Winston Churchill once said “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.” Amid surging hostility with India, Khan may have pulled off exactly what the former British Prime Minister said.