New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has honoured Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir rather than holding the country accountable for its protection of Osama Bin Laden, its sponsorship of the Taliban and the humiliation its double-dealing delivered to the United States, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in The Sunday Guardian.

“In doing so, President Trump has systematically shredded a quarter century effort to build a US-India partnership,” he noted.

Rubin described Munir as an “unapologetic terror apologist” with both American and Indian blood on his hands.

Trump turned to Pakistan to mediate between the US and Iran on the West Asia conflict, effectively placing it on a “pedestal”.

Rubin reminds in The Sunday Guardian that President Trump had criticised Pakistan’s “lies and deceit” during his first term, and is now gushing about Pakistanis as “brilliant people”.

He wrote that perhaps Pakistani authorities believe Trump will sell them advanced technology to combat India’s military advantage, or perhaps Munir believes he can use the opportunity for “US mediation” on Kashmir to Pakistan’s advantage.

If Munir hopes to take advantage of the situation, then he is forgetting the unhappy history of the US-Pakistan ties.

Rubin explains how United States and Pakistan never shared a common goal.

“America sought to stop if not roll back Soviet expansion; Pakistan was more obsessed with India. Pakistani officials had a unique ability not only to start every single war with India, but to convince themselves and Pakistani society after they lost that Pakistan was the victim from the start,” he said.

Moreover, the writer reminds that neither President Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon believed the Pakistani narrative and so the United States never really considered mobilising to help Pakistan against India, as Pakistani authorities demanded. This was true even under National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger whose “animosity” toward Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was “unhinged”.

Rubin called Pakistan “a criminal state” in The Sunday Guardian.

He highlighted that even though nominally an ally, the United States has repeatedly sanctioned Pakistan over the past 50 years.

Notably, after Pakistan detonated its nuclear weapon in 1998, Glenn Amendment sanctions came into force and they remained on Pakistan until 2001, when President George W. Bush waived sanctions to again get Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan.

Rubin mentioned that Asim Munir fails to remember that with US forces no longer in Afghanistan, the strategic need for Pakistan has again disappeared.

Perhaps, Munir is forgetting that whatever favour he believes Pakistan can accrue from America is meaningless because: “The United States uses Pakistan and then turns its back on the country as soon as Washington no longer needs its assistance”.

“Pakistan may believe it is playing Trump for a fool, but the opposite may be true. Pakistan will never collect on Trump promises,” Michael Rubin said.

–IANS

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