An ode to a terrific guy

Legal eye

The readout of the first ever Trump-Sharif phone conversation released by the Prime Minister’s Office is surreal – to put it mildly. Could President-elect Trump have told Nawaz Sharif that “you have a very good reputation… You are a terrific guy… You are doing amazing work which is visible in every way…”?

We know by now that Trump can say almost anything. He is not known for precise and careful selection of words and adjectives, which has required him and his aides to spend a lot of time explaining what he said and what he actually meant.

As Pakistanis we are less concerned with the traits of US president-elect and more with those of our own PM. Those familiar with diplomacy and how bilateral conversations at the level of heads of government are handled are flabbergasted by this verbatim release of Trump’s ‘praise’ for NS. The concerns are twofold: a) the process: why did PID release this readout, and not our Foreign Office whose job it is to manage such matters?; and b) the substance: with this choice of content, what message were the PM and his team trying to send out with the release?

NS has tried to use the first conversation with Trump to bolster himself personally at a time when he is embroiled in an embarrassing corruption scandal. Will our PM’s personal interests continue to trump institutional structures and diplomatic norms, and will his personal rapport with foreign leaders continue to dominate policy choices? Instead of focusing on what could be reaped from the conversation in the interest of Pakistan, its text reflects our PM’s propensity to view his official functions as opportunities to promote partisan personal interests.

NS has always been thick with Arab rulers. They became his benefactors when they played a major role in extricating him from Pakistan after Musharraf usurped power and threw NS in jail. After the emergence of that fantastic letter from a Qatari prince explaining how the Sharif progeny came to own the fabled London apartments, folks are wondering if there is a dividing line between the Sharifs’ fiduciary responsibilities as state officials and their family business interests. Is it irrational to ask how the Sharifs return such favours, if they do?

The ability of a leader to develop amiable relationships with other leaders can be a great asset if it multiplies his ability to pursue his country’s interests. But what if personal relationships make the leader beholden to foreign leaders or diminish his ability to determine the country’s best interests? We saw a trailer during the Houbara Bustard issue and recently during the Turkish president’s trip. President Erdogan pushed Pakistan after the coup against him to make an example out of Turkish teachers at Pak-Turk schools to settle scores with his domestic political nemesis. Our PM obliged.

Turkey and Pakistan have shared a longstanding relationship of mutual regard and friendship. Our state relations have been non-partisan and our societal bond has remained strong, no matter who ran either state. This is now changing. Asking all Turkish teachers in an excellent school with campuses across Pakistan to exit the country at the drop of the hat in the middle of the academic term is an insult for the Turkish teachers and a disservice to their Pakistani students. Why couldn’t our PM tell Erdogan that this wasn’t the right thing for Pakistan to do?

Our PM is big on personal relationships. But to what end does he nurture such relationships? The US president is probably the most powerful head of state in the world. It would be useful if our PM had a warm and cordial relationship with him. But what does it tell the average Pakistani when our PM boasts about the US president-elect’s endorsement of his work and his reputation? In a place where conventional wisdom assumes that the US has a controlling influence over our domestic power play, is the PM saying that the new sheriff has his back?

There are days when a child comes back from school with three stars painted on his cheek. He shows them off and proudly tells his parents that his teacher rewarded him for good work or good behaviour or for finishing his lunch. Did the readout not have a Trump-painted-three-stars-on-Sharif’s-face sense about it? If this was a two-way conversation between a third-time PM of a decent-sized sovereign country and president-elect of the US, should it not have revealed what NS said to Trump other than congratulating him and inviting him to Pakistan?

Why did the reputation of NS come up during this first conversation? Did Trump know that NS is facing corruption charges in petitions presently being heard by our Supreme Court and could be patronised with a few good words? Did NS and his advisers not think that it would seem desperate if NS bragged about words used by a to-be head of state (who is an absolute stranger to NS), in an attempt to prop-up his reputation at home? Did no one in the famed media cell at the PM Office think that Trump’s crass patronage would make NS seem small and needy?

Can disregard for institutional and diplomatic norms be explained by declining institutional capacities in Pakistan or the PM’s personalised style of work? There was this little incident in Washington DC a while back when after a few months of deteriorating Pak-US relations, the US First Lady came to the house of our ambassador in her capacity as a parent (the children of our ambassador and the US president reportedly go to the same school). Our ambassador then tweeted a photo with the First Lady insinuating that this was some sort of diplomatic breakthrough.

Are people occupying high offices simply not thinking through the consequences of their words and actions? It was reported that the Washington incident involving the First Lady wasn’t received well by the White House. Likewise, coverage of this Trump-Sharif chat makes Pakistan look like a chump. Would this gaffe have been avoided if notes of this chat were sent to the Foreign Office and its spokesman released a brief statement drafted by professionals as is customary? Or does the Washington incident suggest that the decline is all around?

There is no gainsaying the importance of shaping and controlling the public narrative in today’s age. But constructing narratives has now become a science and crude attempts tend to backfire. Look at what happened with the Dawn leak. Some folks in the PM’s team, too clever by half, probably thought it was an opportune time to recover some space from the khakis over the issue of terror. They thought everyone would focus squarely on what was said and not who said it and why.

The other side, which has mastered the science of shaping narratives at home, wasn’t amused. Many weeks later and even after sacrificing a minister, who is a good man, the bleeding hasn’t stopped. Team NS did such a hack job that, instead of recovering lost space, the civilian side ended up yielding more.

Maybe Trump and NS will get on famously when they realise their commonalities: business acumen, taste for opulent lifestyles, induction of close family members as advisers and disregard for public concerns regarding conflict of interest between public duties and business interests. But will that mean anything for Pak-US relations, peace in our region or the fears of Pakistani diaspora in the US? Not much, if the readout released by the PM Office is any clue to go by.

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu