Why not an Af-Pak wall, Mr President?

US President Donald Trump’s speech laying out military plans for Af-Pak contradicts the main promise of his elections platform. “My original instinct was to pull out. And historically, I like following my instincts.” Why did he have to be counter-historical? First, his establishment has convinced him that the longest war in American history has to be fought out to protect American honour. What stands in the way, the strategists concluded, is the 20-odd US-designated foreign terrorist organisations active in the region. Most dangerous, the nuclear-armed Pakistan provides safe havens to them. America’s interest is to stop the resurgence of safe havens. So the most important pillar of the new strategy is “to change the approach in how to deal with Pakistan. We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.” Pakistan “has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists.” America cannot keep on “paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting.” That, he said, “will have to change. And that will change immediately. No partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target US service members and officials.”



If the diagnosis of the problem — the cross-border movement of terrorists — is correct, Mr Trump did not have to go against his original instinct. Another of his famous instincts is that such movements can be controlled by building a wall. His 2016 election campaign was anchored in the construction of an impenetrable border wall along the US-Mexican border. The wall would “dismantle cartels, keeping illegal weapons and cash from flowing out of America and into Mexico.” A tweet on June 16, 2015 also claimed that the wall would stop Mexican criminals, drug dealers and rapists from entering America. Relevant to the point being made here, it would put an end to the entry of terrorists into America. As Mr Trump tweeted on November 19, 2015: “Eight Syrians were just caught on the southern border trying to get into the US. Islamic State maybe? I told you so. WE NEED A BIG & BEAUTIFUL WALL!” He was only reiterating an earlier tweet of October 8, 2014: “The fight against ISIS starts at our border. At least 10 IS militants have been caught crossing the Mexico border. Build a wall!”



So Mr Trump, follow your original instinct. Build an Af-Pak wall. And we believe your tweet of June 6, 2015: “Nobody can build a wall like Trump!” Pakistan’s foreign minister has already urged you to help build a fence. But you will tell him, as you did to Jeb Bush. “It’s not a fence, Jeb, it’s a WALL, and there’s a BIG difference!” It will save American lives. You won’t have to fight a war in a theatre that historically has been the graveyard of superpowers. And who better than you to know that it will be cost effective. It is only 2,430 km; yours is 3,142 km. It will cost much less than the troops surge. You don’t have to pay billions of dollars to the ungrateful Pakistanis. But please don’t ask Afghans and Pakistanis to pay for it. Pakistan can perhaps forgo the accumulated arrears of the Coalition Support Fund, but Afghans are too poor to pay. There will be future savings, though. After the wall, you won’t have to pay a secure Afghanistan as many billions as you do now. Follow the original instinct, Mr President and outsmart the establishment.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2017.

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