Trump’s doctrine threat to peace

When two strongest democracies in the world elected Donald Trump as US president and Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister, peace became the first casualty and their lethal combination along with Israel only added to the miseries of millions of peace-lovers across the world.

While one was expecting New Year greetings, Donald Trump dropped a ‘New Year bomb’, on Pakistan. Surprisingly, the world’s only super power’s foreign policy these days is being run through Twitter, and no one can beat US President Donald Trump in this mad race of social media. You can trigger war through one tweet but, not peace.

Let us first sympathise with the American people, who themselves got the biggest surprised when he was elected as the president, defeated a much more mature and experienced Hillary Clinton.

The world’s most liberal democracy had never voted a woman to the White House while Pakistan become the first Muslim country, which elected woman as a prime minister, not once but twice. She was the late Benazir Bhutto. Many thought Ms Clinton would become the first woman in the US to get elected as president. So, which country has more moderate approach when it comes to electing its president or prime minister?

Freedom of the Press became the first casualty under Trump, whose war with the media, started much before he got elected and has not ended yet. He calls the US media ‘fake news’.Even on the moral ground, he faced criticism over his attitude, and his approach towards women, is no secret to the world and the Americans themselves are not sure how to deal with this most amazing president.

Many thought he would be unpredictable but, in the last one year, he proved to be the most predictable president of the United States, and that too on a fast pace. His policies, unfortunately, has endangered the world peace.For instance, when the world rejected Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, he refused to respect the UN and 146 countries.

On the contrary, his government created history by threatening all those who opposed the US policy with a threat to teach them a lesson. Trump’s tweet or threat should be taken as the first step towards that policy.

What else one can expect from Trump doctrine except for hate, distrust and insult to the huge sacrifices of the people of Pakistan.This is what he said in what looks like a New Year message to Pakistanis. “The United States has foolishly given 33 billion dollars in aid in over the last 15 years and they have given us nothing, but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They gave safe havens to terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more.”

Trump’s response of ‘No more’ came days after we said, ‘No more’ after years of ‘Do more’ rhetoric. We certainly had committed many mistakes and the biggest one was our decades old policy on Afghanistan.

Mr Trump must know that Pakistan was a moderate country before US injected extremism in our policies and asked us to fight its war in 1980, in Afghanistan against Soviet invasion.In return, Pakistan got five million Afghan refugees, gun and drug culture, beside the menace of terrorism and extremism. Thousands of foreign ‘Mujahideen’ including Arabs were sent to Pakistan to fight the US war. Osama bin Laden was one of them, which years later became the world’s most wanted man and mastermind of 9/11.

Pakistanis, not Americans, are fools that they trusted the US and became an American ally, soon after the birth of Pakistan. In pursuance of the US policy, the left wing politics in Pakistan was crushed through a ban on Communist Party of Pakistan in 1950s and later on a ban on National Awami Party (NAP) in the 1970s.

Now, what should be our response? Pakistan’s response should not be as foolish as that of Trump as despite our own weaknesses, we are a responsible nation and the support we got in the United Nation recently provide an ample proof. So, when the world supported us, the US opposed us.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called a meeting of the National Security Committee on Tuesday, in which both civil and military leadership discussed the prevailing situation in the aftermath of Trump’s warning. The government and the opposition are also on one page on this issue of utmost importance.

But, we also have our own problems and it is high time to change our decades old doctrine on Afghanistan. Within the country, rising extremism and terrorism has threatened country’s foundations and we need a foreign policy based on live and let live. Pakistan should neither become proxy nor need any proxy.

The US has a history of doing adventures like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from Iraq to Syria, from Afghanistan to Libya. Humans hardly matter for them when it comes to their interests.They have the history of doing this around the world. How could we forget 1977 and 1979? The US made our elected prime minister a ‘horrible example’, because he had refused to toe the American line. We were naive that we waited for 7th fleet to arrive during 1971 war.

Our response should be candid and well drafted as there is no ‘Donald Trump’ in Pakistan. We just need to place on record straight: what price we had paid, not only in the last 15 years, but in the last 30 years or to be more specific since the day we decided to become an American ally in the 1950s.

It is most shameful that the US president did not acknowledge huge sacrifices Pakistan has given as a nation, not in the last 15 years but in the last 40 years and beyond.It is a matter of history that the US always supported military dictatorships in Pakistan, whether it is Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Ziaul Haq or General (retd) Pervez Musharraf.

People of Pakistan have not yet forgotten its alleged role in overthrowing Pakistan’s elected prime minister, the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a year after he was threatened with a warning of making him a ‘horrible example’, if Pakistan did not abandon its nuclear programme, which he refused and was hanged.

If the US could support the UN resolution against North Korea, Iraq or against Iran, why it backed out and opposed resolution of its decision on Jerusalem.Surely, the world has changed after 9/11, one of the worst terrorist attacks, which killed over 3,000 innocent people, mostly Americans. But, there was a Pakistani by the name of ‘Hamdani’, who gave his life in rescue operations and saved many lives.

In the 15 years of war, many Pakistani youngsters gave their lives in defeating terrorism. You don’t give or compare death toll in war because every human life is precious, but if the US president insists and calls American foolish in giving 35 billion dollars to Pakistan, please let us know as to how many Americans lost their lives in these years.

Our fight against terrorism and extremism must continue as we cannot afford rise of non-state actors, and we must remain alert over the possible drone strikes in settled areas. Pakistan can face economic sanctions or even drone strikes.Pakistan has come a long way to make the country more responsible and peaceful, but the threat of terrorism is not over yet.

It is just world’s bad luck that when it is looking for peace, two biggest democracies have elected people like Donald Trump in US and Narendra Modi in India.The writer is a senior columnist and analyst of Geo, The News and Jang. Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO