ASKING FOR A MIRACLE!

The one with the principal global currency and control of Bretton Woods institutions. The other with a weak currency and a regular borrower.

And even if there are two symmetries in the fact that both countries are equal single vote-Members of the UN General Assembly, the one has veto power in the Security Council while the other does not, and that both are two of only 9 countries in the whole world which possess nuclear weapons, the vast numbers of weapons and advanced delivery systems of the one neutralize the equality in view of the other’s comparative limitation of numbers and capacity. While both are multi-party democracies and both use an unrepresentative electoral system in which, often, half or even more of the voting population does not cast ballots, the larger nation has an unfettered socio-cultural environment of free speech.

Fortunately, there are more than two sources of influence --- apart from the State Department and the Intelligence agencies --- that shape US foreign policy.

Whereas the other country’s people are subject to both overt and covert restrictions and repressions. In science and technology, in internal evolution, and in respective geopolitical roles, the two are moving into the future in two very different trajectories.

With the backdrop of a 77-year uneven relationship, the imminent Trump term will note the record that reflects a consistent trade relationship: the USA being Pakistan’s largest export market while the latter remains a recipient of American aid in sectors such as power, dams, and other physical infrastructure.

In the international American Fulbright scholarship programme, Pakistan interestingly stays as the largest single beneficiary. Perhaps this fact, a refreshing oddity, will help stimulate improvements in the diverse facets of the bilateral linkage. For Pakistan’s part, it is vital for the country to retrieve and strengthen its capacity to firmly assert its right to adopt its own choices, regardless of US preferences or pressures.

This attribute is a periodically recurring phenomenon. The decision to form an exclusive relationship with China in the 1950s and early 1960s, even as Pakistan became and stayed a member of two anti-Communist pacts such as CENTO and SEATO, till the early and late 1970s. The decision to persevere with the development of nuclear weapons’ development despite US sanctions and strong discouragement. Unwavering support for South Africa’s democratization even as America continued to support a racist apartheid regime until 1990. In the Middle East, similar unflinching support to Arab states and Palestine, including sending ace pilots to Syria in the 1973 war. In subsequent phases in other parts of the Gulf region, maintaining links with Iran and staying neutral in the Iran-Iraq war. Later, refusal to send troops to Yemen despite Saudi pressure being added to covert American pressures.

Simultaneous to the strictly bilateral relationship, there will be at least seven contexts in which the American relationship with a third country will test Pakistan’s ability to navigate a course that protects its own interests and, at the same time, sustains its positions and goals. Such third-country contexts comprise China, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Israel/Palestine. Other third-country/third-party contexts are also germane but in a comparatively secondary sense. These are the European Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In these contexts, there are specific elements peculiar to each country or entity. This writer rates Pakistan’s diplomatic capacity and insights higher than America’s capacity, a view open to challenge and contestation but, going by the track record of the disastrous misjudgements and failures of American foreign and defence policies over the past seven decades, and notwithstanding Pakistan’s own catastrophic failures in 1971, on balance, the prospects favour Pakistan being more perceptive and pertinent. One hopes that the accumulated institutional experience of related institutions in the USA will overcome the lack of experience, ignorance, and prejudice of some high-level policy-makers.

The crucial dimension of the bilateral relationship during the next four years will be determined by the degree of comprehensive knowledge and understanding possessed by the USA about the complexity of Pakistan’s society and state. The immediate test will be whether Trump acknowledges --- even if only unofficially! --- the travesties committed in the results of the 8th February polls held in Pakistan, the subsequent distortions introduced into the Constitution, the arbitrary arrests and persecution of political opponents of a regime with low credibility. While the imbalanced role of the Army in politics --- neither good for itself, nor for the country --- abides, the prospective American Government of President Trump, in its own interest, needs to engage with the hybrid system of the world’s fifth largest-populated nation, and one of the world’s most significant countries --- in an open-minded, learning-oriented, constructive way untinged by its short-sighted obsessions with China and India. Even if one is asking for a miracle, sometimes miracles of another kind do occur: for instance, Trump’s unlikely, unpredicted margin of victory. Wonders will never cease.