The cat is out of the bag and now firmly among the pigeons. Pakistan is being set up as the fall guy in Afghanistan. That much was always expected. Though more startling are the current murmurings calling for this country to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism. Earlier this week, American digital media outlet The Hill ran one such article. Lazy journalism tends to pull the rabbit out of the hat from the get-go. Thus, came repeated and baseless anti-Semitism accusations levelled against the current government. As if the deliberate conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism isn’t itself an age-old trope. Nevertheless, the real crux of the article, which is seemingly doing the White House’s bidding — remains scapegoating Pakistan for American military misadventurism in Afghanistan. Predictably, there is the usual chatter of how Islamabad is playing a double game next-door; the US arming of the mujahideen against the Soviets all but forgotten. Also conveniently overlooked is how all this could have been avoided had Washington agreed to the Taliban handing over Bin Laden to a third country. Thus, it was the Americans who put war on the table. Leaving it there for 20 years. The US has previous form on this front. For no one and their cat has forgotten how the US left Pakistan to deal with the Afghan spillover while it went ahead and waged a war of aggression on Iraq. Had this not happened — there would likely have been no Al Qaeda in Iraq; no ISIS. Wherever the US has engaged in military interventions in the Muslim world, it has left chaos in its wake. From Afghanistan. To Iraq. To Yemen. To Libya. To Syria. It is unfathomable that George W Bush was the last US president to visit Pakistan. That Biden has not ventured here, despite talk of exiting Afghanistan as early as next month, is tremendously reckless. And reminds of the objectionable Washington Times cartoon of yesteryear that portrayed Pakistan as a dog that the US soldier trained to do his dirty work. And while the real bête noire of The Hill piece is China — Pakistan is once more chastised for wanting to see both Afghanistan and Iran welcomed into the CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) fold. Manufactured fears warn of a region falling into the Taliban and China’s orbit. Whereas, in reality, more neighbouring countries will be invested in a secure and stable Afghanistan. Quite literally. And that is not a bad thing. After all, Europe, in the aftermath of WWII, found economic integration to be the best guarantor of peace; the EU starting out life as an economic bloc. Only immense American hubris suggests that this model cannot be replicated here without western involvement. The biggest takeaway from The Hill ‘reprimand’ is that the US is expecting civil war to erupt. And is doing absolutely nothing about it. This is state-sponsored terrorism by another name. Wham. Bam. Thank you. Ma’am. *