Pakistan has over the past decade all but become a vassal State of China that is openly challenging the US in multiple theatres, but the new US bonhomie with Pakistan is only laying the ground for another betrayal.
Disregarding a history of betrayal, China's belligerence, and terrorism, the US ongoing courtship of Islamabad is risk-prone, reported the European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS).
Even as a New York court last week pulled up Pakistan's largest bank for financing the terrorism of the same Al Qaeda that had carried out the 9/11 attacks in the US that killed thousands of innocent Americans, the carpets were being dusted and laid out at the State Department and the Pentagon to welcome warmly General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the Chief of the same Pakistani Army that is charged with creating, overseeing and directing the actions of the country's many terrorist assets.
It is unclear why the US, despite being the self-appointed custodian of democracy, continues to pander to military leaders from Pakistan and in the process allows the Generals to cement their authority back home, said EFSAS.
Meanwhile, the likes of Robin Raphel, a veteran of the Pakistan beat in the State Department who has stood strongly behind the country through the years, have again begun featuring in the news for putting out study group recommendations that advocate some US engagement with Islamabad.
Donald Blome, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, has also been in the news for a high-visibility message-laden visit to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) that he undertook this week.
It has been y argued that the way to counter Pakistan's growing reliance on China was through the US continuing its engagement with the South Asian nation.
It is also opined that investment and climate cooperation were key to the engagement and that by promoting investment from US businesses and others the US may "help build Pakistan's capacity for transparency and compliance" with regard to Chinese loans and lessen Pakistan's reliance on China, reported EFSAS.
However, the arguments put forward, such as the contention that engaging with Pakistan would prevent it from getting even closer to China, and that it would help combat terrorism and extremism, are tired and archaic, and have been in circulation for several years.
They have also time and again been proved untrue and counter-productive. Selling the threat of nuclear war breaking out in South Asia has also been an old favourite, reported EFSAS.
( With inputs from ANI )
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