United States, Trump and Policy Options for Pakistan
US do not really have any policy options for Pakistan, if US had any they would have been used in the last 16 years of War of Terror
US has used combination of carrots and sticks ever since the war has started and getting Pakistan to do completely what US wants is near impossible due to Pakistan fear regarding Indian domination of the region/Afghanistan. And there are reasons why despite being compliant to US, Pakistan cant give completely what US wants, this is because experience has taught Pakistan pragmatic establishment two things
- PK need to continuously show your usefulness and if you completely sell yourself then there wont be any use for you
- Complete overt compliance to US may lead to an internal coup and overthrow of the current government/system/setup
United States in a nutshell asking Pakistan to fit into an India centric policy to contain China which Trump has articulated in his policy speech.
To War-Game break of ties between US and Pakistan
Lets say Pakistan cut off US supply lines and pull their support from War of Terror. What the US can do in return? Really nothing. The loss to US is so huge that US will have no choice but to continue to bribe and pay off the rulers of Pakistan using combination of threats and carrots.
Pakistan cutting off supply lines to US would mean
- Puppet govt of Afghanistan collapsing once Pakistan stop border control between Af/Pak and the jihadists/Haqqanis start to move in.
- US bases collapsing as US will rush to withdraw without supply lines
- There is no option of supplies from Russian or Iranian side. RU will take an arm and a leg in EU in return and Iran govt despite covertly an ally will have a hostile population to US which will not allow supply lines to run
- India is too far off and India will NOT give bases or access to US the way Pakistan has done. India also has a vibrant left oppose to US
- So US will be restricted back to Arabian Ocean with only air power at disposal.
- Once US abandon Af/Pak physically RU and CN will dominate the region
- Once financial and intelligence support to PK government declines there is a very real threat of an Islamist takeover — held back only because of US supplied intelligence
- This puts containment of CN policy at risk. Once PK is out of US influence US also looses a stick to beat India with - whenever required. So imagine a US with only India as an ally. What leverage US will have over India? when India say NO! to US demands. There wont be any carrots to get Pakistan to ban Lashkar e Taiba or Kashmir…
Pakistan is no North Korea and certainly not Iran. It is a nuclear power with a sophisticated and huge intelligence agencies and army. US pushes Pakistan into a corner is not going to happen. US government knows this full well.
What do readers think? please leave comments.
