“I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”
- Martin Luther King
US President Barack Obama made headlines when he told in an interview he had been to Pakistan during the ‘80s. Obama’s mother was an employee of the Asian Development and visited Pakistan to work on a project. The incumbent US president said he came to Pakistan to see his mother. During his three-week stay in Pakistan, Obama learnt to cook ‘Keema and Dal’ from his friends’ mothers.
Obama’s likes and dislikes, however, do not reflect in his policies towards Pakistan. It was under the watchful eye of the Obama administration that notorious Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was gunned down in Abbottabad. In May this year, Taliban leader Mullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in Balochistan.
Mansour’s death occurred at a time when the Quadrilateral Coordination Group, which consists of Pakistan, US, China and Afghanistan, was brokering peace talks between Ashraf Ghani-led Afghan government and the Taliban. US Secretary of State of State John Kerry said that Mansour was a ‘threat’ to the peace effort.
The point is, Obama’s ‘soft corner’ for Pakistan didn’t prevent his administration from ordering numerous drone strikes in the country. It didn’t stop the Department of State from asking Islamabad to ‘do more against terrorism’. It didn’t prevent Washington from signing key defence agreements with India in 2016.
But, now a Donald is about to take over the White House. And he sure knows how to get what he wants, when he wants because he’s a ‘celebrity with riches’. The man whose decision to contest the US presidential election was taken as nothing more than a joke is now the president-elect of the United States. (Talk about Karma)
But what does that mean for Pakistan?
Trump has mentioned time and again that he’ll mediate the Kashmir issue between Pakistan and India. He has also bragged about his ‘love’ for Pakistan at a TV event. The US president-elect, however, has also pledged to suspend immigration from a number of Muslim countries, including Pakistan. Islamabad sees Trump win as a possible policy shift in US-Pakistan relations given Trump’s business ties to India. A Trump adviser has even claimed that the US president-elect will be ‘best friends’ with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Trump is still two months away from his formal recognition as the President of the United States. The inauguration ceremony will take place in January 2017. In the meantime, Islamabad should start framing a flexible and transparent foreign policy. It should also make the most out of the opportunity by appointing a full-time foreign minister because Trump is a ‘hot-head’.
To those still figuring out Trump roots in Pakistan, I have no words. According to a local news channel, Trump was born Dawood Ibrahim Khan in North Waziristan. Bravo! Trump proved to the world that he is no joke. The time is high to take the Donald seriously or “You’re Fired!”