On The Need For overhauling US policy towards Pakistan.

Since it’s last federal election in 2018, Pakistan has been engulfed in a myriad of socio-economic challenges and debates that are widely believed to play a key role in determining the trajectory that the country would take in the 21st century.

Of acute importance here is the debate about re-aligning the country’s foreign policy in ways in which it is reflective of the changing world order, while simultaneously serving the needs of the Pakistani people very well.

During the Cold War years, Pakistan was a member of all major western military pacts covering the Asian region.

While being part of those treaties helped Pakistan economically and militarily during the 1950s, 1960s and 1980s, the US had left Pakistan out as a pariah state as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Pakistan was left to deal with the crisis in Afghanistan (after the Soviet pull out).

The country’s economy was also now saddled with the additional burden of providing succour to an additional estimated three million Afghan refugees.

In the early 1990s, the US slapped on the country hefty military and economic sanctions in order to slow down the nuclear programme that was aggressively being pursued by the military establishment based in Rawalpindi.

The sanctions were put in place under the Pressler Amendment that was passed by the Congress.

The amendment required the US president to certify that countries like Pakistan were not developing nuclear weapons, before any American aid and investment could be doled out to the receiving country.

Even after 9/11 and through to this day, successive American administrations have made it clear to their Pakistani counterparts that the US views it’s relationship with Pakistan mainly as a logistics and security based relationship.

Members of the Bush and Obama administrations had made it amply clear that they did not have any appetite for wider economic relations.

Pakistan’s consistent demands to have it’s world class IT and textile products more market access in the United States and to have better access to high end American technologies has constantly been given a cold shoulder by the Americans.

Hence, the country has had to look forward to other traditional allies in the Middle East, Australia and China, all of whom has responded positively.

Pakistan’s textile exports to the European Union have remained remarkably healthy, while simultaneously, European companies such as Telenor have invested heavily in Pakistan’s telecom and financial technology sectors as well.

China’s help in rejuvenating the country’s aging power generation and distribution networks as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has alleviated power outages across most of the country.

Pakistan only warmed up to the Chinese rapprochement once the country’s establishment was clear that the need to diversify the country’s foreign and economic policies was the need of the hour.

This sentiment was quite recently echoed by army chief General Bajwa at a recent security summit in Islamabad.

While addressing US concerns raised by a questioning American reporter, Mr Bajwa remarked that despite enjoying good strategic relations with the US, the latter would always block military procurements involving US technology in order to appease Pakistan’s traditional rival, India.

General Bajwa echoed the views of the Pakistani people when he used that public platform to invite major American corporations to invest in Pakistan.

America’s general reluctance to broker positive negotiations between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, has generally made Pakistan drift closer towards allies such as Turkey and China.

This general hard headedness has also drawn Pakistan closer to Russia.

Pakistan’s warm water sea port in the city of Gawadar have always appealed highly to Russian governments and businesses.

Similarly, Russian assistance and strong infrastructure development would help Pakistan in addressing critical energy shortages that could otherwise have a crippling impact on the country’s economy in the years to come.

America’s general reluctance to treat Pakistan and India on the same scale is another major issue that has not gone down well with many Pakistanis.

Whilst Pakistan sacrificed more than 80,000 lives of its own citizens and soldiers during the War on Terror, India has gotten a free pass from Washington despite the growing anti-Muslim polarisation that is growing in that country.

US pressures on Pakistan have been quite vociferous regarding Pakistan’s policy on Afghanistan, among many other things.

However, Washington has steadfastly refused to utter any criticism of India under it’s Hindu hardline leadership of Prime Minister Modi.

The general American silence on atrocities committed by the Indian armed forces in Occupied Jammu And Kashmir and the growing number of anti-Muslim mob lynchings and hate speech in India has not gone unnoticed.

America’s general drift towards attempting to make India it’s number one Asian ally vis a vis China is a policy bound to fail and this well understood amongst the policy makers in Pakistan.

It needs to be remembered that without adequate Pakistani support, the United States would not have been able to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

After all, it was the Pakistani military and the the intelligence agencies that worked with the CIA and the Reagan administration to train the fighting Afghan mujahideen.

Similarly, it should also not be forgotten that it was the Trump administration that effectively wanted to engage the Pakistani military and the government in order to carve out an exit startegy for US and NATO forces from Afghanistan.

All major things, including the Afghan evacuation finally took place under the leadership of President Biden.

As the post-pandemic new world order is still taking shape, alienating Pakistan could prove to be detrimental to US interests in Asia and beyond.

Time and again, Pakistan has done more than it’s fair share in order to keep the bilateral relationship straight.

The ball is now firmly in the American court and it is about time that the Biden administration, with the help of the Congress and the corporate sector shall radically overhaul US policy on Pakistan.

The new policy should surely put trade, economics and access to high quality education and scientific knowledge at the forefront of strong policy making.

It should be noted that the absence of these key elements shall only make Pakistan drift more closer to Russia and China, something that would not be in America’s best interests and it can be avoided.

The writer is an International Relations graduate from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.