Opinion | Why China’s not glad US-Pakistan ties have hit a rough patch
Donald Trump opened new year with a tweet accusing Islamabad of ‘lies and deceit’
Barely a week into the new year, it appeared 2018 might become the worst year for US-Pakistan ties since 2011. That year, not only did a Central Intelligence Agency contractor shoot dead two Pakistanis, sparking a diplomatic crisis, but the United States also carried out a covert operation to kill Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil without the knowledge of the Pakistani military.
More than any other year in the past decade, 2011 illustrated the extent to which the fundamental national interests of the US and Pakistan diverged sharply – on everything from Afghanistan to the utility of terrorism as an instrument of state power in South Asia.
Of course, this observation is not particularly novel or exciting. US presidents have known it for some time. In 2009, when former US president Barack Obama delivered his first speech on America’s war in Afghanistan – what is today the US’s longest war – he criticised Islamabad for providing safe haven to extremists and militants.
Little had changed in eight years. In August, when US President Donald Trump delivered his speech on Afghanistan strategy, he too criticised Islamabad. “It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilisation, order, and peace,” he said.
Bilateral ties got off to a rocky start this year when Trump fired a Twitter broadside at Pakistan at 4.12am on January 1. “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools,” he tweeted. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”