Pakistan's predicament

Karachi, January 3, 2017

After US President Donald Trump's tweet on the first day of New Year 2018, the US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on the following day (Tuesday) that the United States was withholding $255 million in aid to Pakistan because of its failure to cooperate fully in America’s fight against terrorism. It also added that more economic and military sanctions against Pakistan are in the pipeline and to be announced within 48 hours.

Pakistan actively took part in the 1979 US mission to oust the former USSR from Afghanistan. Then after Geneva Accord in 1988, Pakistan was abandoned and faced US sanctions in the form of the famous Pressler Amendment (to the US Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961). It stated that no military or technology equipment was to be provided to Pakistan unless the US president certified that Pakistan did not “possess” a nuclear explosive device and that the assistance provided by America would “reduce significantly the risk that Pakistan will possess a nuclear explosive device”.

Those sanctions were further tightened and multiplied in 1998 when Pakistan test-fired nuclear bombs in May 28.

Then suddenly Pakistan acquired importance after the 9/11 incidents in 2001 under the so-called "War on Terror" as Pakistan offered itself as a front-line state. Pakistan received huge foreign exchange in form of US Dollars as compensation for providing many airports for NATO force's airstrikes and use of its roads for supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Then in 2012, suddenly the US finds Osama Bin Laden was in Abbottabad and killed him, thus relationships between US and Pakistan become stressed as Pakistan termed the action as an intrusion in its sovereignty. Pakistan put behind bars Dr. Shakeel Afridi who allegedly supported the USA through a fake Polio campaign to verify the DNA test of the fugitive terrorist head of Al-Qaeda hiding in Abbottabad.

The US-Pakistan relationship further deteriorated after the withdrawal of the NATO forces by end of 2014 and since then Pakistan is again facing US sanctions. The USA withheld the due money to be paid as reimbursement under Coalition Support Fund and now the US says Pakistan had double-crossed. It can be implied that the US is a very innocent and novice state, which remained a fool (as admitted by General Trump in his famous New Year tweet) for years and continued supplying money to Pakistan without any realization.

Although, it is really very difficult to predict the next move of Pakistan to register its reaction as the key National Security Committee with representations from both the federal cabinet and Army has asked to defer the reaction of Pakistan to US President Trump's tweet, the US is aggressively threatening to Pakistan of further economic sanctions. Now the joint session of the Parliament would issue a reaction to Trump's tweet as it has been convened on Thursday. The NSC decision is appreciated by Pakistanis on the social media and in the newspapers. Dawn wrote an editorial on Wednesday appreciating the decision. It stated: "Yet, a hostile, threatening comment by a US president cannot simply be ignored, and Pakistan’s political and military leaderships did the right thing by meeting to discuss a joint civil-military response."