How Trump sold Kabul and New Delhi down the river

WASHINGTON: He loves deals and thinks he has mastered the “Art of the Deal.” And the deal Pakistan sucked in him into on a hot and muggy Washington afternoon was “Afghanistan exit-for-Kashmir mediation.”
Virtually reversing more than two decades of US policy in Afghanistan centering on cleansing the landlocked country from Pakistan-sponsored extremism that led to the 9/11 terrorist attack on America, US President Donald Trump on Monday restored Islamabad’s primacy over Kabul, saying “Pakistan is going to help us out to extricate ourselves (from Afghanistan).”
In the process, Trump threw Kabul and New Delhi under the bus while retreating from his own charges of Pakistan’s deceit and double dealing on sponsoring terrorism in the region, identifying Iran as his principal enemy and declaring (that unlike Iran) “Pakistan does not lie.”
Trump had repeatedly attacked Pakistan on Twitter and on television for taking American aid and still working against the US in the region, but in 30 tumultuous minutes in the White House Oval Office, he publicly changed policy and position, claiming Pakistan did so because it did not respect his predecessors and he did not blame Islamabad for it.

In Trump’s eyes, it is not Pakistan, widely regarded in US and global intelligence community as the malevolent force that poisoned Afghanistan with its Taliban proxies, which is at fault or a danger to the region. It is Afghanistan which is the danger and which needs to be defeated –and he could do it quickly by eviscerating the country but he would rather not.

"I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone. It would be over in -- literally in ten days. And I don't want to do -- I don't want to go that route," Trump said, with a bizarre digression about US weapons that could cause catastrophic damage in a nation that is a victim of foreign interference for ages.
He then explained his turnaround on Pakistan, blaming his predecessors for Pakistan’s policies.
“I don’t think Pakistan respected the United States. I don’t think Pakistan respected its presidents. I think Pakistan can do tremendous amount against -- with respect to Afghanistan. They didn’t do it and I don’t’ blame them because they were dealing with the wrong President. Who knows? But… they’re helping us a lot now,” the US President rambled, openly displaying pique about his predecessors and bringing it into the foreign policy sphere.
“I think they could have helped us a lot in the past. But it doesn’t matter. We have a new leader; he’s doing to be a great leader of Pakistan. And we have a new leader here. Sort of new; I’m two and half years now -- getting to be three years, can you believe it? You’re going to find time flies,” Trump rambled on. “But, no, I think Pakistan could have done a lot but they chose not to. And that’s because they did not respect US leadership.”
In fact, Trump went to far as to say Pakistan was “subversive” despite taking $ 1.3 billion in aid that he had ended, but because of him, “I think we have a better relationship with Pakistan right now than we did when we were paying that money” All that (aid) can come back depending on what we work out, he added, before he segued into the possibility of his mediation role in the Kashmir issue.
Trump’s turnaround on Pakistan and his threat to long-suffering Afghanistan caused Kabul, thrown under the bus along with New Delhi to seek clarification about his remarks.
"The Afghan nation has not and will never allow any foreign power to determine its fate. While the Afghan government supports the US efforts for ensuring peace in Afghanistan, the government underscores that foreign heads of state cannot determine Afghanistan's fate in absence of the Afghan leadership," the Afghan President’s office, which like New Delhi is being cut out of Trump’s in-the-works deal with Pakistan and its terrorist proxy Taliban, said in a statement.
The architect of what experts reckon will be Trump’s Faustian bargain to return to power in Kabul the very forces that nurtured terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11 is said to be Senator Linsday Graham, who visited Pakistan earlier this year and appears to have persuaded Trump to change policy.
“Peace with honor and dignity in Afghanistan is only possible with the complete buy in of Pakistan. It is now time for the United States to have a strategic relationship with Pakistan, which is best achieved by a free trade agreement tied to security performance,” Graham tweeted on Monday after meeting Imran Khan ahead of the Pakistani prime minister’s White House meeting with Trump.

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan was all gratitude for Trump’s turnaround. “I want to thank President Trump for his warm & gracious hospitality, his understanding of Pakistan's point of view & his wonderful way of putting our entire delegation at ease. Appreciate the President taking out time to show us the historic White House private quarters,” he tweeted.

The man referred to as "Taliban Khan" even in Pakistan then added: “I want to assure President Trump Pakistan will do everything within its power to facilitate the Afghan peace process. The world owes it to the long-suffering Afghan people to bring about peace after 4 decades of conflict.”

There was no mention of Pakistan’s and his support for the terrorist proxies who go by the name of Taliban, and who sheltered the terrorist masterminds who inflicted the world’s biggest terrorist attack on the United States.