{"id":29832,"date":"2016-12-08T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T19:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=29832"},"modified":"2016-12-07T12:17:22","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T01:17:22","slug":"trumps-bizarre-call-pakistans-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/trumps-bizarre-call-pakistans-pm\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s fantastic phone call with Pakistan\u2019s PM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/p>\n

Of all the eccentric conversations President-elect Trump has had with foreign heads of state and government since winning the election, the one he had last week with Nawaz Sharif<\/a>, Prime Minister of Pakistan, ranks as one of the more unusual ones.<\/p>\n

Breaking protocol, the Pakistani government released a transcript of the telephone conversation which the PM initiated. That\u2019s highly unusual, in that a government doesn\u2019t generally release what the foreign interlocutor said in the exchange.<\/p>\n

According to the Pakistani version of the conversation,<\/a> Trump was utterly effusive about the \u2018amazing\u2019 work the Prime Minister was doing for his country and what a \u2018terrific guy\u2019 he was. Upon being invited to visit Pakistan, Trump reportedly said<\/a> that \u2018he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people.\u2019 He added that \u2018\u2026all Pakistani people I\u00a0have known are exceptional people\u2019.<\/p>\n

That seriously jars with some of his earlier views about Pakistan. Back in 2012, using his favourite social media platform, he tweeted<\/a> that \u2018Pakistan is not our friend. We\u2019ve given them billions and billions of dollars, and what did we get? Betrayal and disrespect\u2014and much worse.\u2019 And more recently, he got into a public scrap with a Pakistani-American family who had lost their son in Iraq while serving as an officer in the US military. The Khans criticised Trump\u2019s suggestion<\/a> during his election campaign that all Muslims should be banned from coming into the US.<\/p>\n

Many American commentators and analysts have ridiculed<\/a> Trump\u2019s call with Sharif because it further confirms Trump\u2019s obvious lack of knowledge of international affairs. However Islamabad intends to build on that conversation to try to improve a bilateral relationship which hasn\u2019t tracked well under President Obama. Accordingly, PM Sharif\u2019s main adviser on foreign policy, Tariq Fatemi, was sent to Washington<\/a> to talk to the Trump team and members of Congress to move the bilateral agenda forward. There\u2019s a sense among political leaders in Pakistan that given Trump\u2019s unorthodox approach to foreign affairs and his rejection of Washington\u2019s traditional playbook\u2014at least for the moment\u2014perhaps there\u2019s a window of opportunity to get back in America\u2019s good books.<\/p>\n

However, that may all be wishful thinking. While Trump may well prove to be a transactional president par excellence, <\/em>the fact remains that the same issues confronting the US today will need to be addressed by the new administration. And one of those which will need to be dealt with soon after Trump\u2019s inauguration will be how many of the 10,000 American troops now in Afghanistan should be withdrawn. According to the latest US assessment, the Afghan security forces only control some 60% of the national territory, and they\u2019re losing ground every day<\/a>. The rest is either controlled<\/a> or contested by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other foreign fighters. And that\u2019s where Pakistan comes into the picture.<\/p>\n

Thanks to an ongoing military operation in Pakistan\u2019s North Waziristan tribal agency for the last two and half years, many Taliban fighters have fled Pakistan and have resettled in Afghanistan. However, indications are that elements of the Pakistan army or intelligence service are either still providing support or aren\u2019t vigorously pursuing some of those terrorist groups, in particular the Haqqani Network. Accordingly, US$300 million worth of American military assistance earmarked for Pakistan couldn\u2019t be disbursed last year because US Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter, couldn\u2019t certify<\/a> to Congress that the Pakistan military was \u2018taking demonstrable steps\u2019 against the Haqqani Network. Carter needs to again provide such a certification if US$450 million is to be paid out as part of the current US National Defence Authorisation Act. It\u2019s unlikely that he\u2019ll do so.<\/p>\n

As with much of his foreign policy possibilities, it\u2019s difficult to know what decision Trump will take on Afghanistan, having said virtually nothing about the issue during the election campaign. Back in 2011 he stated<\/a> that the US should get out of Afghanistan because the Taliban would in any case eventually return to power. He also indicated then that he wasn\u2019t keen to commit troops overseas if it\u2019s not in America\u2019s direct interest.<\/p>\n

Given the lack of reference points, it\u2019s impossible to predict what approach a Trump administration will take towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the good news is that General (ret.) James Mattis and Lieutenant General (ret.) Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s nominees for Secretary of Defense and National Security Adviser, respectively, have both served in Afghanistan. They should know what a wicked problem Afghanistan is. And, hopefully, if Trump makes a wise choice in his Secretary of State, he\u2019ll have a national security team which could bring some coherence and predictability to the direction of US foreign policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the eccentric conversations President-elect Trump has had with foreign heads of state and government since winning the election, the one he had last week with Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan, ranks as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":29833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1056,1428,251,1606],"class_list":["post-29832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-bilateral-relations","tag-donald-trump","tag-pakistan","tag-presidential-election-2016"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s fantastic phone call with Pakistan\u2019s PM | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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