After hurling threats through tweets and diplomatic channels of unspecified actions and reiterating its hackneyed demand of ‘do more’, the United States has at last stopped all ‘military aids’ to Pakistan. There is a lesson for the Pakistani leadership to always take the national interest supreme in decision-making and in all circumstances. It is the lesson for the nation to learn from the past mistakes and devise future course of action keeping view the national pride, self-respect and dignity and learn to live with honour. It is the insult for military dictator Pervez Musharraf who fell to his knees only on one phone call from Washington. The years of cooperation with a super power ended in fiasco which began to think the economy and security of Pakistan depends on their aid. The United States has been using Pakistani sea ports, airports, highways and roads for logistic supplies to Afghanistan for the last two decades and wants all the facilities free of cost. It is not the mistake of the United States, but the leaders in this country who pushed Pakistan into the war on terror and incurred over 100 billion dollars losses in monetary terms and rendered the sacrifices of over 50,000 innocent citizens.
The United States has injected billions of dollars in Afghan war and its victory against a few groups of Taliban is far from any realization. The power of the sole super power of the world is waning, but Taliban are as strong as they were in the start of the war. A few thousands Taliban have engaged hundreds of thousands of the US troops and are inflicting heavy damages and losses not only on the US military, but also its economy and dignity. It is easy to enter Afghanistan, but difficult to leave it in a dignified manner.
The new US administration now wants to scapegoat Pakistan to put all blames of its failures on it for face-saving. The threatening tone of Trump belies diplomatic norms and fair understanding of international relations. Pakistan is not Afghanistan and its economy does not depend on the US aid. The economy of Pakistan is resilient and can survive on its own without any foreign help. If the United States wants to protect its troops from death and destruction, it should seek Pakistan’s cooperation in a friendly manner and should avoid the course of confrontation. If God forbade Pakistan collapses, India will also collapse and the US will also be broken into pieces.
