By Pamela Constable
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
— A wave of anti-American anger has swept Pakistan this past week,
triggered both by President Trump’s threat to punish the country for
harboring insurgents and by his invitation to India, Pakistan’s longtime rival,
to become more involved in Afghanistan’s future.
Tribal and religious
leaders have held protests at border crossings, and banners urging
“Say no to America!” have appeared across the capital. Officials have canceled
trips to Washington and asked a State Department official to postpone her
planned visit here this week. Across the country’s fractious political
spectrum, leaders have raised a collective fist at Trump.
In a stern speech Aug. 21, the U.S. president laid out a new militarized
policy for the region, saying he would send more American troops to Afghanistan
and insisting that Pakistan must “do more” to rein in Islamist militants or face
possible sanctions, such as cutting aid or revoking its status as a major
non-NATO ally.
Afghan officials
welcomed Trump’s message, but Pakistanis accused him of “bullying” their
country despite its history of cooperating with the United States in
foreign conflicts. They said he had betrayed them by reaching out to India,
which Pakistan views as a persistent threat to its existence.
“President Trump wants
to portray us as a villain despite the huge losses we have suffered in the
so-called anti-terrorism war,” said Hafiz Hamdullah, a conservative Muslim cleric
and legislator. “Both India and the U.S. want to use Afghanistan against us.
These charges of terrorist hideouts are just to destabilize Pakistan.”
Mian Raza Rabbani, the
left-leaning chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, denounced Trump in
similar terms. “No country in the world has done more than Pakistan to
counter the menace of terrorism,” he declared. Invoking the “legacy of
Vietnam,” he said that if Trump “wants Pakistan to become a graveyard for U.S.
troops, let him do so.”
In tribal regions
along the border, where U.S. drone strikes have killed hundreds of suspected
militants and civilians, one crowd of tribesmen chanted, “Long live Pakistan.”
In another spot, religious activists held up placards saying, “India, America
and Afghanistan are conspiring against Pakistan.”
Pakistan’s National
Security Committee, which comprises top military and civilian officials,
sharply rejected Trump’s charges of sheltering insurgents and demanded
that the U.S. military “eliminate sanctuaries for terrorists” on the Afghan
side. “The Afghan war cannot be fought in Pakistan,” the group declared.
Pakistani officials
took other steps to show their unhappiness. They requested that a planned visit
by Alice Wells, the senior State Department official dealing with the region,
be indefinitely postponed. Pakistan’s foreign minister, who had been planning a
trip to Washington, instead announced that he would travel to China, Russia and
Turkey.
Despite the hostile
rhetoric, there were signs that U.S.-Pakistan relations are far from
collapsing. Over the past few weeks, several low-profile meetings were
held between current and former officials from both governments to discuss how
to keep relations on an even keel.
Pakistani newspapers
ran headlines that blasted Trump as a hectoring bully but also published nuanced
commentaries calling for pragmatism and patience. The editors of Dawn, the country’s most influential daily paper, counseled
that “there is still space and time for constructive dialog. A strategic
rupture is in neither the U.S. nor Pakistan’s interest.”
For Pakistan, the
issue of militant sanctuaries is a familiar one; both of Trump’s immediate predecessors pressed Pakistan to
crack down on them but did not take harsh measures, especially because Pakistan
was cooperating in the broader anti-terrorism war. This time, though, Pakistani
officials are said to be far more worried that Trump, an unpredictable leader,
may follow through.
“Trump’s threats are
real. . . . Madness on our doorstep has already arrived,” commentator Syed Talat Hussain wrote in the News International on
Monday. He suggested that if Trump, “an ignoramus addicted to creating
sensation,” ordered a drone strike in Pakistani territory — as opposed to the
border tribal areas — it could “get us embroiled in a war with the U.S. This is
deadly serious business.”
Pakistanis have been
even more deeply rattled by Trump’s warm embrace of India, where the current
prime minister is an ardent Hindu nationalist and Indian army troops have been
waging an aggressive, months-long campaign against Muslim protesters in the
disputed Kashmir region.
Pakistan has long
pursued influence in Afghanistan largely as a foil to India, a larger and more
powerful rival, only to see New Delhi become a major benefactor of the
U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
“Trump’s comments
about India were more unsettling for Pakistanis than his threats to Pakistan,”
said Michael Kugelman, a Pakistan expert at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars in Washington. “The U.S. calling for a deeper Indian
footprint in Afghanistan sets off alarm bells across Pakistan. It will
cause very real fear.”
A few Pakistani voices
here have called for a rethinking of Pakistan’s efforts to influence
Afghanistan, noting this has created a burden on its resources and a spillover of
Islamist radicalization. But virtually no one questions the notion that India,
the world’s largest democracy, is their mortal enemy — a premise that has long
kept Pakistan’s army in a position of extraordinary power but has left the
country increasingly isolated.
“We have sacrificed
for so many years to help the United States, and this Afghan war has destroyed
us,” said Rehman Malik, a Pakistani senator and former interior minister. “We
don’t want anything but their respect. We are a victim of terrorism, not a
cause of it. We want peace in Afghanistan, not war. Now America is befriending
India at the expense of Pakistan. And that really hurts.”
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