After struggling over the past year to align their policy towards Afghanistan, the US-Pakistan relations are at a breaking point. Ever since US President Donald Trump in his new year day tweet accused Pakistan of giving US nothing but “lies and deceit” and giving “safe haven to the terrorists” US hunts in Afghanistan, the ties between the two countries have taken a nosedive. US has since withheld 255 million dollar aid to Pakistan. President Trump has also suggested that he would be in favor of cutting all aid to Islamabad over the government’s refusal to take more decisive action against terrorism. Trump tweeted that ending all US assistance to Pakistan would be a “Good Idea”. His tweet came in response to a tweet from U.S. Senator Rand Paul calling for stopping aid to Pakistan. Such hardening American stance has elicited angry reaction from Pakistan. The country has denied US allegations that Pakistan was giving either the Taliban or the Haqqanis any sort of safe haven from which they can attack U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan foreign ministry has slammed the US for imposing “arbitrary deadlines” on the country and making “unilateral pronouncements.” It said that Islamabad has fought the war against terror “largely” from its own financial resources. Pakistan has, however, stopped short of refusing to cooperate with the US war effort. Overall, the signals from Islamabad have been measured. There’s, however, little clarity on how things will evolve in near future. Though the US has steeply ratchet up the pressure by embarking on several successive extreme measures to get Pakistan to do its bidding, Islamabad has largely chosen to respond with some equanimity – albeit leavened with some expression of pique and hurt. Some senior US officials too have indicated that the two countries could get back to working together again if Pakistan takes decisive action against Haqqani network and other militant groups. But the interests of the two countries have become too divergent to be aligned anytime soon. At the same time a complete break in the ties will be detrimental to not only the peace in Afghanistan but the regional peace as well. It is thus incumbent on the two countries to mend their differences through a sustained dialogue and find a way to work together for stabilizing Afghanistan. There is no other option.
Trumping the regional peace
