Atlas begins to stir

The gloves are not quite off just yet but the laces are loosened and it may not be long before Uncle Sam decides to go bare-knuckle with Pakistan. There have been ever deeper rumblings from within the Trump administration regarding its position on Pakistan and Afghanistan. The words have got ever more blunt, the sentences ever shorter. On Friday 14^th July the US House of Representatives passed a $696 billion defence policy bill that exceeded the sum asked for by the president, breaking through the caps on national defence spending that had stood for many years. Within the bill, which was adopted decisively by 344 to 81 votes, was the stinger for Pakistan.

Restrictions are to be tightened on US assistance to Pakistan; and a similar song was sung late on Thursday when the State and Foreign Operations bill was sent by congressional panel to the full house for voting and it too suggests increasing restrictions on US civil and military assistance to Pakistan.

It may be argued that this is all just the nuts and bolts of a fractious relationship getting a tweak, not, as the Americans would put it — a big deal. The reasons behind the tweaking are not new either — Pakistan has to rein in the Haqqani network that it (allegedly) supports as well as (allegedly) giving succor to various groups of a diverse Taliban that operate in Afghanistan. There is also the not insignificant matter of support (again allegedly) given to groups fighting in Indian Occupied Kashmir. All of this activity is long denied by Pakistan with varying degrees of weary exasperation.

Trump is not Obama. Tillerson is not Clinton either. American policy regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan is still evolving, but there is a commitment to peace that is framed within an American vision and if Pakistan in some way blurs or taints that vision then the gloves really are going to come off — no matter how unrealistic or impractical the American solutions may be. There has been nothing close to a negotiated settlement for 20 years. There still is not. Just how much America and Pakistan mean to one another may be close to a reveal.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2017.

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