'When it comes to Pakistan, Trump and Modi's meetings are long on rhetoric, short on substance'

After a flurry of meetings across Asia among world leaders, the question on everyone's lips is: just what does United States President Donald Trump stand for?

In Beijing, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping who was on his best behaviour.

Xi gave Trump red carpet treatment and promised to work together for a terrorism-free South Asia.

President Donald Trump (right) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) shake hands during a bilateral meeting at the ASEAN Summit

President Donald Trump (right) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) shake hands during a bilateral meeting at the ASEAN Summit

The loud chuckles from the Generals in Rawalpindi could be heard as far away as in Beijing. 

Rhetoric

The moment he left Beijing for Vietnam and then Manila for back-to-back summits with the leaders of ASEAN, Trump's tone changed.

He criticised China for unfair trade practices and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for doing an 'astounding' job to make India a major global economy.

Trump said: 'Since India opened its economy it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class. PM (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very, very successfully indeed.'

The Trump-Modi meeting in Manila though was long on rhetoric, short on substance. 

Can Trump back his talk of a new South Asia policy that reins in Pakistan-sponsored terrorism? The short answer: no. There are multiple reasons for this.

At home Trump is under enormous pressure.

Democratic party victories last week in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have been seized by the anti-Trump US media as a decisive turning point in the Trump presidency.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is meanwhile likely to charge Trump's former National Security Advisor (NSA) General Michael Flynn over illegal Russian collusion as well as an alleged $15 million (about Rs 98 crore) payoff deal to forcibly seize Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen and hand him over to Ankara which accuses him of masterminding ast year's failed coup in Turkey.

US President Donald Trump holds a bilateral meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside the ASEAN Summit

US President Donald Trump holds a bilateral meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside the ASEAN Summit

The US media, which hasn't reconciled to Trump's electoral victory last November, is circling over him like vultures sighting prey.

Last week The Washington Post ran a story on Republican candidate Roy Moore, a former judge, virtually destroying his chances in a Senate race for the Alabama seat vacated by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions.

If the Republicans lose their majority in the House of Representatives in the biennial 2018 elections, Trump faces the real prospect of impeachment.

Mueller has widened his probe against Trump to include obstruction of justice, a lower bar to prove than Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential election which requires proof of malicious intent.

Fighting multiple fires at home, Trump is hemmed in abroad as well. After Syria recently signed the Paris accord, the US is now the only country which has refused to ratify the climate change agreement.

All this at least partly explains Trump's often contradictory positions on China, Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and the Saudi Arabia-Iran proxy conflict currently roiling the Middle East.

Pakistan, left out of major world summits, is meanwhile chafing at the bit. Desperate to win back a measure of respectability, it suggested a SAARC meeting to discuss pollution across north India and Pakistan Punjab.

India has ruled out a SAARC summit as well as direct talks with Pakistan till terrorism from Islamabad-backed jihadis ends.

Decision

Trump's decision to change the narrative from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific deeply worries Islamabad. The US-proposed quadrilateral between the US, India, Japan and Australia, whose four leaders met in Manila this week, has also unsettled Pakistan.

It sees its options limited to China. In order to keep US trade sanctions at bay following its failure to rein in North Korea, Beijing will be compelled to show it is at least reining in Pakistan.

This is part of Xi's commitment to Trump last week in Beijing to make South Asia terrorism-free. Complicating matters is the ongoing crisis in Saudi Arabia. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe and other world leaders at an ASEAN Summit dinner in Manila on Sunday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe and other world leaders at an ASEAN Summit dinner in Manila on Sunday

Emboldened by Trump's visit in May 2017 followed by his son-in-law Jared Kushner's several under-the-radar trips to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is upending decades of settled Middle East politics.

Apparently with Trump's blessings, Kushner has held long meetings in Riyadh, often past midnight, with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's crown prince who is destabilising the Middle East with his demonic antipathy towards Shia Iran.

Alliance

On one side are ranged Shi'ite powers Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah-backed Lebanon. On the other side is a powerful Saudi-led Sunni alliance of Gulf states and Riyadh's covert ally Israel.

Trump has unwisely backed the covert Saudi-Israel alliance while Russia's Valdimir Putin, who helped the Syrian government defeat US-backed insurgents fighting to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, is firmly behind the Iran-led alliance. 

These global flashpoints threaten to overturn the balance of regional power in an arc from Lebanon in the west to North Korea in the east.

Right in the middle of this geopolitical theatre lies the longest running war America has fought outside its borders: Afghanistan.

Trump knows Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is the cancer at the heart of Afghanistan. But he cannot administer chemotherapy because Islamabad controls access to landlocked Afghanistan.

Last month, the first Indian shipment of wheat left Chabahar port in Iran for Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan.

When Modi exchanged his trademark hug with Trump in Manila, he would have offered him wiser counsel than the American President has received from the silvertongued hustlers in the ISI.

That advice can be summarised thus: if you want a terror-free Afghanistan, treat Pakistan as part of the problem, not as part of the solution. 

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