The hug that went awry

A tweet by Donald Trump on 13 October put a cat among the Bharatiya Janata Party pigeons. He said in his message: “Starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders. I want to thank them for their cooperation on many fronts.” This was the last thing the present Indian dispensation, which has invested enormously in ingratiating itself before the United States and getting it to turn nasty towards Pakistan. Quite apart from such a swing in the pendulum upsetting traditional ally Russia, the fixation over Pakistan is a foreign policy unbecoming of India, which has largely since independence espoused a noble, Nehruvian vision on international affairs.

Asked to comment on the tweet, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while visiting Washington said: “It’s not necessary for us to react to that.” The right answer would have been: India has no problems with relations improving between two third parties. It is petty and spiteful to be otherwise. But it is not in a BJP leader’s DNA to rise above his ingrained hatred of Pakistan.

Trump’s tweet drove home what should always have been taken into account. His unreliability and unprincipled style of functioning. Secondly, it was a folly to think the US would so easily turn hostile towards Pakistan. Not only does Washington still desperately need Pakistan for its Afghan mission, but Islamabad is a past master at running circles around the White House and the State Department; and at an operational level, Rawalpindi continues to be much closer to the Pentagon than the Indian defence establishment.

Pakistan’s closest ally today is China. At the same time, it wishes to retain its proximity to the US. This has suffered as a result of the policies adopted by presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama. The foundation of a friendlier US attitude towards India was laid by the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbot dialogue. This was built upon by a silent but sagacious Manmohan Singh. If the ties didn’t go further it was because India was unwilling to make concessions beyond a point, including accepting liability for US-made nuclear power plants. On the contrary, Modi was, including converting India into a bulwark against Chinese expansionism. To protect one’s territorial integrity is one thing – and perfectly legitimate too; to poke one’s nose into an area beyond one’s capabilities amounts to flexing non-existent muscle.

Success as a domestic propagandist has rendered Modi delusional. He suffers from a major misconception about himself and what his superficial actions can achieve internationally, not to mention his misguided perception of the world. He perceived Donald Trump to be soulmate. (The pro-Modi Hindu Republican Coalition invested $1.1 million in his campaign.) He rushed to Washington with unseemly haste to obsequiously hug a man with whom one would be wise to maintain a distance. He naively thought such toadying would swing the United States diametrically in favour of India and against Pakistan.

The US-Pakistan relationship has been rocky but resilient for 70 years. It’s structured on the anti-India British prime minister, Winston Churchill’s great game to thwart the Soviet Union’s passage to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea and the oil-rich Gulf region. It was the Conservative leader’s view – which his successor, Clement Attlee of the Labour party implemented – an India under Jawaharlal Nehru would provide that incursion to Moscow. Thus the partition of India and institution of a pro-West Pakistan, which became a member of South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) military alliances and remains a partner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Indeed, Islamabad brokered a breakthrough in US-China relations to the detriment of the Soviet Union.

The litany of deliberate oversights on the part of Washington to Pakistan’s advantage are of criminal proportion. It knew full well a significant portion of arms given to the latter’s army for supply to the Afghan mujahideen were instead utilised to destabilise the Kashmir Valley. It turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. It was cognizant of being double crossed in Afghanistan; but it was either helpless or unwilling to crack down. It needs Pakistan to bring peace to Afghanistan. Besides, Pakistan is probably privy to too many inconvenient secrets for the US to abruptly abandon it.

Trump’s recent pronouncements against Pakistan certainly put pressure on the government there. It therefore devised a strategy. Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif made the right noises by describing the Haqqani Network and Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba as liabilities. The first reference in particular warmed Washington’s heart. So, when in the same breath he criticised the US’s “harsh” policy towards Pakistan, it sounded as if there was a legitimate complaint. Finally, its good offices in rescuing a Canadian couple and their child from the hands of the Afghan Taliban softened an inconsistent Trump.

In other words, Pakistan has bought time while it contemplates its next move. To cut the Afghan Taliban adrift - which is what Washington wants - would be a monumental step. How can the army avert this and yet keep the US onside?

Meanwhile, the bear-hug has boomeranged badly for the pracharak. His ideological moorings make it impossible for him to conceive of a mature Pakistan policy. With Trump now leading him up the garden path, what next?