Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan with Donald Trump, White House, Washington, July 21, 2019
Co-published with The Conversation:
At times, the press conference was surreal.
While visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan looked on, Donald Trump spent several minutes berating — one journalist counted six lies in 90 seconds — the Trump-Russia investigation and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He said he could “kill 10 million people” in Afghanistan to “win a war within a week”, but had decided not to. He said he could be the mediator to solve the decades-long Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India.
At times, Imran glanced at Trump with a look of resignation at the performance. But, generally, the Prime Minister said nothing as Trump leapt to answer questions directed at his guest. He carefully kept his hands in front of him, all fingers touching in a sign of steadiness and a bridging of the moment.
For this was Imran’s moment, after 11 months in office, to bring Islamabad out of the cold with the Trump Administration and US agencies.
Afghans reacted with shock at Trump’s blithe assertion that he could wipe out one-quarter of the population. Diplomats shook their heads at his self-confidence that, saying little more than “it’s a beautiful place”, he could sort Kashmir. But Imran was looking at his place on the political centre-stage and the $300 million in aid cancelled by the US military last autumn.
His official visit appears to go exceptionally well, with warm greetings from key figures like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Trump had responded well to flattery. And Imran had established Pakistan’s key place in Afghanistan, not as the oft-alleged “supporter of terrorism” but as the broker of a settlement.
Imran’s Great Game: Afghanistan, Kashmir, and a Personal Relationship
The first interaction between Imran and Trump was a frosty Twitter altercation, after the US delivered its slap in the face with the aid suspension.
Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2018
But circumstances changed when Trump wrote a letter to Imran requesting Islamabad’s help to bring Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. Pakistani officials have developed a constructive partnership with the Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad as he and the Taliban have held multiple rounds of negotiations in Qatar. In the latest phase, representatives of the Afghan Government have participated.
This positive engagement was made possible only by a re-calibration and alignment of the strategic goals of both sides in Afghanistan. For the first time, a US Administration has recognized that it cannot effectively stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. Washington now accepts that the eventual resolution of the conflict will only come from a political process that includes the Taliban. The US is the rationale of the Pakistanis — supported by regional actors like Iran, Russia, and China — that the Taliban must be part of the government.
Trump has played his part with his simple mantra that US troops must be brought home. In his appearance with Imran, he said the US must not be the region’s policeman, looking instead to partners to settle conflicts.
For Pakistan, the icing on the cake was Trump bringing the K-word before the press. When Khan raised Kashmir, Trump not only jumped to claim his mediation prowess but said a similar request had been made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
Delhi swiftly and sharply denied the claim. However, its position of Kashmir as a bilateral issue, not requiring any external third-party mediation, has been shaken.
Then there was Imran’s peronsal victory, as Trump declared Pakistan a great country and its Prime Minister a great leader. While rebuilding links with agencies, Imran was also capitalizing on the special circumstance of playing politics from the top through the appeal to Trump’s ego.
Both US Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of Trump’s, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman connected Khan with Trump. The former, impressed by his first meeting with Imran, speculated that he and Trump had similar personalities and would get along well. The latter built extremely cordial ties with Imran — as the Pakistani Prime Minister defied the informal boycott of the Crown Prince after October’s murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi — and is close to Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser Jared Kushner, leading to the White House invitation for an Imran visit.
Afghanistan now becomes the catalytic issue to test the Pakistani-US rapprochement. And then, if that is resolved, comes the test of personalities and politics: can there be a renewed US-Pakistani strategic partnership, both for regional security and to help Imran ride out the economic challenges within his country?
Main learnings from this meeting: i) it confirms that Trump’s strategy has changed ,deleting the Indian option (supporting a link from Afghanistan to Chahbahar through India) .Instead, opting for subcontracting the Afghan file to Pakistan.This reveals what has been subsequently confirmed : a full american surrender to talibans under the pseudo power sharing negociations while abandoning the unfortunate weak afghan government. Talibans never negociate : they keep what they control, they try to catch the rest.
This goal has been confirmed by subsequent US statement: troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2020.
The sole reason : Trump has only one priority : be reelected. indeed, Khan’s Pakistan that was up to now a pariah supporting terrorism ( see last FATF june statement) has jumped onto this golden opportunity and will pocket urgently needed credits.As said in this post, Saudi Arabia is pushing hard in order to strenghten its already great influence and financial involvement in Pakistan.Riyad needs to reinforce its partnership with Pakistan based on financial saudi support in exchange of pakistanese miilitary cooperation in the Yemen conflict and probable nuclear hidden alliance (with Trump’s blessing).
At the end of the day, Trump seeks to get rid of the Afghan nightmare and Talibans may win a decisive conflict.Future is not yet written, but some steps have already be completed. The net outcome may be a major disaster as Trump is unable to take account of consequences of immediate actions.Long or medium term is a non-issue for someone who doent’ thing to what may happen after next november. Pandora’s boxes may be open,he does not care. Iran is extremely concerned by this scenario while not much communicating on this. Limited statements on needs to involve regional powers, call for improving Islamabad/Tehran’s cooperation are only symptoms of a genuine deep perplexity.India’s behaviour is not deprived of ambiguity, contradictions which raise several question marks.In particular, why has Indian parliament cancelled most credits intended to support Chahbahar ‘s developments?Official reasons are only very poorly convincing. This issues need to be revisited by analysts.