Analyst:

Imran Khan’s Pakistan stands up to US like a sovereign nation

Rasa - Under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan Pakistan has stood up to the United States from its position as a sovereign nation, and is demonstrating a clean break from the past, according to Adam Garrie, an independent political analyst and writer based in London.

News ID: 441996

Date: 10 December 2018 - 09:38

RNA - Garrie made the remarks in an interview on Saturday while commenting on a statement of Prime Minister Khan where he expressed regret over Pakistan’s past dealings with the United States, adding that Islamabad will not act as a “hired gun” for the US anymore.

“I would never want to have a relationship where Pakistan is treated like a hired gun — given money to fight someone else’s war. We should never put ourselves in this position again,” Khan said in a Washington Post interview on Thursday.

Khan’s latest comments came days after he had a heated exchange with US President Donald Trump.

According to Press TV, he rejected Trump’s accusation that Pakistan had done “nothing” to fight terrorism despite receiving “billions” in US aid, underlining US failure in ending conflict in Afghanistan after spending nearly two decades in the country.

“Well, when Imran Khan first came to power and formed his government just a few months ago I went out on a limb but very confidently saying that that he would be the best political ruler that Pakistan has had since the late and great Muhammad Ali Jinnah,” Garrie said.

“And events that have happened over the last few months now that Imran is in the government, have totally vindicated this. He’s put very few feet wrong and many feet right in terms of foreign policy relations. He has embraced with that spirit of win-win multi-polarity,” he stated.

“At the same time he has done something that none of his predecessors in recent decades has done: He stood up to the United States from a position of a sovereign nation, as opposed to a nation with a neo-colonial mentality that can be bamboozled by the CIA , whose civilians can be butchered by unmanned drone strikes, and that the US can spit upon whether it was withdrawing so-called aid which is really frankly just reparations in disguise – and a measly, paltry amount at that,” the analyst said.

“And, so Imran is really putting his nation in a position, that’s repositioning it from one of subservience to one of regional leadership. This will in the coming years have positive economic repercussions and positive diplomatic repercussions,” he added.

“In some ways we have already seen the flowering of this as Donald Trump within weeks went from criticizing and frankly maligning Pakistan to now asking Islamabad for help in the exit war of America’s creation in Afghanistan which frankly the US started in the early 1980s or late 1970s, and which continued with only a short period of quasi abatement in this 1990s,” he stated.

“So because of this it would behoove anyone with a rational mindset to realize that you cannot solve the crisis in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help and that indeed goes for all neighbors of the besieged Afghan nation,” the commentator noted.

“So it is anyone’s guess what the US will do now because especially under Trump an atmosphere of volatility pervades the general atmosphere where one day he is someone’s friend, one day he is someone’s enemy. This is true whether it’s Emanuel Macron, and Justin Trudeau or Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. But if Imran continues on the path that he is pursuing I believe that Pakistan’s best days are very much ahead,” he said.

“Of course, there are economic problems which need to be solved, and are being solved. But in terms of foreign policy, I think Pakistan’s new government really is demonstrating that it’s a clean break from the past, not just in terms of who the prime minister is but in terms of what he is doing.  He’s creating a new mentality in terms not only of the general political atmosphere but in terms of all the policies that all of them are very positive thus far,” he concluded.

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