According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s new Pakistan Afghanistan strategy face a potential challenge because of the rising fortunes of Imran Khan, a popular politician, a fierce critic of the US policy, who maintains that Pakistan’s anti-terror alliance caused destruction in Pakistan and gave rise to violence. .
He is totally against American intervention in Pakistan.
Former US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, wrote in the New York Times, advising Trump to show an unflagging commitment to the cause and be prepared to respond to moves by adversaries to disrupt his plan.
He said the president must be ready for Pakistan to resist and test his resolve. This might come in the form of attacks on American assets in Afghanistan or of interference with supply routes across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Pakistan’s security apparatus will try to prove that the United States cannot succeed without cooperating on Islamabad’s terms.
A major change from the Obama era is Trump’s decision to give American commanders in the field the flexibility they’ve long sought in assisting the Afghan forces fighting the Taliban and other insurgents. The president also adopted a realistic position regarding peace talks, moving away from President Barack Obama’s pursuit of reconciliation regardless of the deteriorating military situation.
In another write-up, The News York Times says Pakistani officials have cited Indian influence as a primary cause of instability and insecurity in Afghanistan. Officials in Islamabad accuse India of supporting a hostile political regime in Kabul and funding militants, who use Afghanistan as a base to launch attacks inside Pakistan.
Pakistani officials said they expected private contractors to take a more dominant role than troops already in Afghanistan. Senior Pakistani security officials stress that an all-inclusive engagement is the only option for peace inside Afghanistan. More troops inside the country, along with blaming Pakistan for harboring terrorists, will not work, they said in background interviews.
Sehar Kamran, an opposition senator who leads an Islamabad-based think tank, said Mr. Trump’s plan appeared to be “more of the same, under much more colorful language and contradictory bluster.