We have been witnessing multiple changes in the world for the past few months. Foes of yesterday are friends of today. India is very actively playing its role in starting from the USA to the Middle East. Now, the Indian-Israeli bond is getting stronger and stronger day by day. It looks like Israel will have its bases in the Middle East on our West and it is already a defence partner with India. The real-time satellite military monitoring of Pakistan and China is a cause for real alarm in the region. Pakistan and China need to raise this illegal monitoring and enhancing the fifth-generation warfare of India. Israel used to be a country of persona non grata for Muslims and the Muslims from the Middle East used to consider it a sin to eat the dates produced in Israel. The products made in Israel were banned and Israel had got its ingress in the Middle Eastern market via France and Germany, just by changing the labels on the goods with the name of the European countries. The trap thrown by President Donald Trump using intelligence collected by Israel on Saudi Arabia and Qatar was used against each other and two neighbouring friends turned into enemies. UAE, having close ties also joined Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi relations had been tense for many years. The relations between Iran and the UAE had also been bad over a dispute on an island, which UAE alleged Iran to have forcefully and illegally occupied. The world powers used ‘fear technology’ very tactfully and this confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the UAE has become more intense.

Turkey stopped the food supply of Israel in the Suez Canal and although this dispute was resolved, yet mighty Israel did not forgive Turkey. Turkey was manipulated and pitched against UAE in 2020 exhibition voting and though UAE won even though Pakistan did not vote in favour of UAE; this was the basic reason that UAE got annoyed. Pakistan made mistakes like we had made a mistake by jumping in the US war against USSR when the Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, threatening the free world’s frontiers. Pakistan was lured in to stand by the USA and fought one of the most significant guerrilla wars, which landed Pakistan in hot water and we are suffering since then. This war in Afghanistan brought in Kalashnikov culture and the burden of millions of Afghan refugees, which to date remains an unbearable burden on Pakistan’s economy. One of the most devastating impacts on the politics of the country was to push the country in the hands of religious extremists which radicalised most of the youth into ferocious Jihadists. Ultimately, they turned out to be a threat to Pakistan’s internal stability and plunging its economy into decline.

The USA abruptly left war-ridden Afghanistan in the hands of 30 thousand trained Jihadis and in a short period these American trained Jihadis turned into Taliban and Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri took them under their umbrella called Al-Qaeda.

This support to the USA cost Pakistan very heavily both in terms of human lives and economy and while we were trying to recover from this setback, the tragic incident of 9/11 dragged us back into the American war on terror as we once again decided to support the US.

Despite none of the alleged culprits of 9/ 11 incidence was a Pakistani or Afghani and nor were they trained or incubated in Pakistan or Afghanistan, yet, these were suspiciously branded as Al-Qaida’s sympathisers, having its base camps in Afghanistan. India, which had been playing as a Soviet surrogate till the end of war, nurturing and promoting terrorism through covert operations in the region got a golden chance to launch a proxy war against Pakistan using the Afghan soil and took Afghanistan in grip by pumping in billions of dollars just to create seven bases along the Pak-Afghan border thus launching hybrid war continues against Pakistan.

Pakistan is now confronted with hybrid warfare on multiple fronts, unleashed against Pakistan by India, with continued support to Daesh, under the full gaze of the international bodies and the UN. Yet, India remains unanswerable. If left unchecked, India, under the direction of its Prime Minister Modi is all set to plunge the world into WW-III. I have requested the US President-elect, Mr Joe Biden, through a letter on November 24, 2020, to kindly revisit Indo-US relations as the recent military partnership with India is highly detrimental to Pakistan as it has been continuously suffering from the day we decided to stand by the side of the USA against USSR and subsequently the American war on terror. The suffering in terms of irreversible human and finical loss is a matter of public record and Modi is dragging the US into the conflict between USA and China which will bring a serious highly modern military conflict which would engulf not only the region but also the whole world. I foresee that India, with the support of Daesh, want to replicate the Afghan like bloodshed in China and Pakistan and it needs to be checked as it can trigger nuclear war in this region. I am very closely watching the recent developments in the Middle East and South Asia and feel that we have already been isolated except for China, our dependable friend in this region. We need to counter this isolation on an SOS basis in the odd developing situation. We have to either take the help of the West to end our isolation or to forge our relations with a bloc of countries having common security and economic interests. Earlier, Pakistan wholeheartedly supported the US war on terror, even by turning a blind eye to the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by many drone attacks and the provision of Shamsi airbase and logistic support at the cost of our innocent dying children and their parents. Yet Pakistan, in good faith, continued to face the war on terror and sacrificed more than 60000 civilians and troops. It was a compromise for the sake of the war on terror. We even lost our Eastern part of the country through an international conspiracy but the USA did not play its positive role to save Pakistan from disintegration despite our political and military alliance with it. The USA committed support to rehabilitate FATA but it remained limited to the non-performed promises.

I have made some suggestions to the US president-elect to consider treating Pakistan at par with India and the USA discrimination may come to end. He has previous knowledge of the issues of South Asia, being former US Vice President, and had closely worked with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to reports, the President-elect has picked most of his cabinet who had earlier worked with him and most of them have earlier worked with our PPP government at the level of Deputy Secretary of State and others of similar level in other important departments. Here are my proposals which I have given to the president-elect. My letter along with these proposals have been already received in his office.

PROPOSALS

a. The USA may like to withdraw its complaint against Pakistan to FATF as it is not based on facts on the ground and it has adversely assailed our economy.

b.            USA’s humanitarian intervention asking Prime Minister Modi to lift the curfew in Kashmir with immediate effect and support Kashmiris to get their right of self-determination by having a date announced by India as per the resolution of UNSC.

c. India is misleading the USA about the ground situation regarding CPEC whereas it is a peaceful and simple developmental project to enhance its trade with the neighbouring countries including China. Hence, the people of Pakistan will be happy if it is supported rather than opposing like President Donald Trump.

d.            The sabotaging role of India in the Afghan peace processes may kindly be examined and India is asked to refrain from derailing the peace process in Afghanistan for its intelligence-driven objectives.

e. Prime Minister Modi is fully promoting its ideology of Hindutva through RSS and killing innocent Muslims which is a matter of public record, that goes against all norms of the new world order, which looks for religious harmony.

f.  The USA had enlisted Prime Minister Modi/India as a top 10 religious extremist, but later, took him off the list, encouraging and emboldening him to continue his crimes against humanity with impunity. The list may be judiciously revisited and if found culpable, Prime Minister Modi may be placed back on the blacklist.

While I have suggested the above to the US president-elect and I would like to advise our Foreign Office to consider my above points as a point of negotiation with the new US administration.

Note: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my party.

Senator Rehman Malik
The writer is former Interior Minister of Pakistan, Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Interior and Chairman of Think Tank “Global Eye”. He is the author of four books and his fifth book is about to get published. He can be reached at: rmalik1212@gmail.com, Twitter 
@Senrehmanmalik