Thread: Pakistan Has a New Prime Minister

There is an easy flexibility in WH. Any decision can (must) be changed anytime - even on the board of AF1...

Originally Posted by Klondyke

There is an easy flexibility in WH.

The Art of the Deal



First published 1987...love that NYT blurb at the bottom.

"anti-establishment"

Originally Posted by OhOh

It appears that after accusing Pakistan of assisting terrorists, goldilocks has now requested assistance to solve the Afghanistan quagmire it finds itself in.

In letter to PM Imran, Trump seeks negotiated settlement of Afghan war: FO


"ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump, in his letter addressed to Prime Minister Imran Khan, has stated that his most important regional priority was achieving a negotiated settlement of the Afghan war. In this regard, he has sought Pakistan's support and facilitation.

According to a press release issued by the Foreign Office on Monday, President Trump has also acknowledged that the war had cost both USA and Pakistan.

He has emphasized that Pakistan and USA should explore opportunities to work together and renew partnership.



“Since Pakistan has always advocated a political settlement to end war in Afghanistan, US decision is welcomed,” it said.

Pakistan reiterates its commitment to play a facilitation role in good faith.
Peace and stability in Afghanistan remains a shared responsibility, the statement added."

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/40...-of-afghan-war



President Trump's Letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan


"(2018-12-03) US President Donald Trump, in his letter addressed to Prime Minister Imran Khan, has stated that his most important regional priority was achieving a negotiated settlement of the Afghan war. In this regard, he has sought Pakistan's support and facilitation.

President Trump has also acknowledged that the war had cost both USA and Pakistan. He has emphasized that Pakistan and USA should explore opportunities to work together and renew partnership.

Since Pakistan has always advocated a political settlement to end war in Afghanistan, US decision is welcomed. Pakistan reiterates its commitment to play a facilitation role in good faith. Peace and stability in Afghanistan remains a shared responsibility."



Islamabad

3 December 2018

Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Islamabad, Pakistan

What's to negotiate?

America has to do what it did in Vietnam. Pull out and accept that it lost.


(That's the country HoHo, not the "continent" )

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

America has to do what it did in Vietnam. Pull out and accept that it lost.

It's a news to me, they have accepted? Any link?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

America has to do what it did in Vietnam. Pull out and accept that it lost.

Should never have got into Afganistan or for that matter Iraq in the first place. As Powell said, you break it you own it and the US has owned it for 17 years at a cost of $4 trillion.

Let Imran Khan sort and get the fuck out.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

What's to negotiate?

America has to do what it did in Vietnam. Pull out and accept that it lost.

Should be a lesson in there, somewhere, to win every major battle and still lose the war.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
America has to do what it did in Vietnam. Pull out and accept that it lost.

Originally Posted by Norton

Should never have got into Afganistan or for that matter Iraq in the first place. As Powell said, you break it you own it and the US has owned it for 17 years at a cost of $4 trillion.

I will never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are.

That's says it all...

Originally Posted by Norton

Should never have got into Afganistan or for that matter Iraq in the first place. As Powell said, you break it you own it and the US has owned it for 17 years at a cost of $4 trillion.

Let Imran Khan sort and get the fuck out.

Not sure it's that easy. Usually, generals plan a war with extraction as a formality and withdrawal/evacuation contingencies, unless the intention is to stay. In the case of these two countries, fools rushed in where common sense should fear to tread, and once broken they chose to give them away. Would've been much easier all round if they broke a few priceless vases.

Not sure how Khan could sort anything out, beyond handing over a % of the fight-against-terrorist sponsorship to those he is supposed to be fighting, with fingers/legs/eyes crossed that they'll be happy with it and knowing they won't, because it's jihad not terrorism and can only ever be bought off for short periods.

He can't. Comment tongue in cheek. The taliban are winnng and will have no sincere interest in peace talks unless it results in giving them rule over the country again.

When done will be as before a nice place for jihadists to plan jihadi stuff.

Yes, and square one will seem attractive against the end result, which confirms and cements Taliban ownership of Afghanistan; for now, till they start snapping at their neighbours.

Originally Posted by Norton

When done will be as before a nice place for jihadists to plan jihadi stuff.

You mean we'll be reading more fairytales from Afghan caves?

Originally Posted by Norton

He can't. Comment tongue in cheek. The taliban are winnng and will have no sincere interest in peace talks unless it results in giving them rule over the country again.

They can see $$$$$$$$$$$ signs.

Originally Posted by SKkin

You mean we'll be reading more fairytales from Afghan caves?

Allegedly by an uneducated Saudi Arabian son of major, wealthy Saudi Arabian business family

Originally Posted by OhOh

Imran Khan’s Historic Victory Should Pave The Way For an ASEAN-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement





"Pakistan’s Prime Minister designate Imran Khan is coming into office with the wind of mass popular support behind his back and also the weight of history on his shoulders. Many of the major issues ranging from long term sustainable poverty relief, to improved education across Pakistan’s provinces and strengthening important foreign alliances while working to end hostilities with traditional adversaries, formed key elements of Imran Khan’s widely praised victory speech. But there was one important issue that Imran Khan did not specifically mention and this is the all important area of trade. New trade agreements with new partners will ultimately be of extreme importance to insuring Pakistan’s road to moderate prosperity.

ASEAN-Pakistan: A free trade agreement right for today and fit for the future

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is among the most diverse, dynamic and economically growing geopolitical blocks in the world. As a free trading zone, ASEAN member states are able to trade more easily among each other while the collective weight of ASEAN allows the bloc to negotiate trade agreements with other major economies. At present, ASEAN has free trading agreements with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

A new ASEAN-Pakistan free trading agreement would not only allow Pakistan to export its own goods and raw materials to an ever diverse and expanding south east Asian market but most importantly, an ASEAN-Pakistan free trading agreement would pave the way for good future relations between a major south Asian nation and an ASEAN bloc whose economic fortunes will likely mutually accelerate over the next years and decades.

In this sense, while free trading agreements are often conducted between countries and blocs that have reached a critical mass in terms of development goals, in the age of win-win cooperation between nations and blocs of the wider developing world, it is becoming increasingly important for developing nations to aid one another by trading more freely even long before attaining goals of moderate domestic prosperity. This is the case because trading with mutually developing nations can help to accelerate economic growth and human development by allowing for the comparatively easy access of domestic producers to crucial foreign goods, services and raw materials that are essential for one’s own developmental needs.

Furthermore, such an atmosphere helps to bring the economies of various nations closer together in terms not only of service exchange but in terms of mutual exchanges in expertise. Thus, while the model of a major economic power helping a materially poorer partner to accelerate sustainable economic growth will continue to be a vital model across Asia, it remains the case that nations at more similar stages of their development can actually provide for one another in similar ways based on a win-win model of pooling the goods and human talents of economically growing nations in order to strengthen each side.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, when the major nations of ASEAN all become moderately prosperous societies (Singapore for example attained this status decades ago) and Pakistan moves closer to the same goal, there will already be a free trading agreement in place to ensure continued economic connectivity later in the 21st century when the ASEAN economies and Pakistan’s economy are likely to be vastly larger and more vibrant than they are today. By establishing contacts in the form of a free trading agreement today, it will ensure a more harmonious mutual growth pattern in the long term future for all parties to such an agreement.

The India factor

As party of New Delhi’s “act east” strategy, India has already secured a free trading agreement with ASEAN. While modern economies throughout the world look to embrace free trade versus protectionism on a non-ideological basis, India’s interests in south east Asia are motivated by a deeply zero-sum mentality in trying to cut China out of partnerships in the region. In Myanmar for example at the height of the conflict in the country’s Rakhine state, India appeared to be openly competing with China to see which country could be a more important partner of Naypyidaw at a time when the west began deserting Myanmar en masse.

While Indian Premier Narendra Modi conducted a well choreographed visit to Myanmar in 2017, it was ultimately a Chinese authored proposal to bring peace to Rakhine through cooperation between Myanmar and Bangladesh – one offered with hardly any fanfare or public warning, that has been able to gradually calm the situation which itself was an outgrowth of Myanmar’s long running civil conflict.

The significance of last year’s Sino-Indian “competition” for Myanmar is instructive to Pakistan on several levels. First of all, it demonstrated that while India has emulated America’s model of turning every peace agreement or bilateral agreement into a Hollywood/Bollywood spectacle, China prefers a more businesslike approach that focuses more on the results than on promoting the process.

Here, ironically, Pakistan could learn from its rival India in so far as many in ASEAN seem to look at China, Japan and India in terms of considering new trade deals to the north without considering other countries to the north of ASEAN including Russia, the central Asian republics and of course Pakistan.

In this sense, it would be to Pakistan’s supreme benefit to conduct an outreach programme with ASEAN that borrows some of the overt showmanship of India but with the ability to guarantee Chinese style businesslike results. One of the key elements of One Belt–One Road is that China can now offer the ASEAN countries to its south the ability to trade with western Eurasia, Africa and Europe owing to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which acts as the main artery connecting China’s Pacific coasts with Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.

Complimenting China while introducing oneself to southern neighbours

There is absolutely no reason why Pakistan cannot launch a campaign within ASEAN states to promote Gwadar and CPEC as a clear alternative to existing trade routes for ASEAN nations, including the often fraught Strait of Malacca. By promoting Pakistani products and services while welcoming ASEAN products to Pakistan’s markets, CPEC could be transformed from a project rarely discussed in the ASEAN press to one that becomes a source of economic and geopolitical attraction for ASEAN states.

In this sense, China would clearly welcome its partner Pakistan in taking on the added responsibility of ensuring that CPEC reaches its maximum potential in the shortest amount of time. Furthermore, as a nation that received independence around the same time that many ASEAN nations broke free of British, French, Dutch and American rule, Pakistan can help China to counter the largely Indian and US narrative that because China was never formally colonised in totality, it somehow cannot relate to the countries that were fully colonised by European aggressors in the late modern period.

India has often spread propaganda in the region that because China became weakened by western and Japanese aggression in the 19th and 20th century but never became a colony, that somehow China is aggressive towards countries that only became independent in the middle of the 20th century. This devious narrative is automatically picked up by Sinosceptics in ASEAN, thus cutting ASEAN off from great potential partnerships.

As a country that has struggled to gain independence at a time when many ASEAN states began their anti-colonial struggles, Pakistan is well placed to challenge India’s Sinophobic post-colonial narrative while simultaneously reminding ASEAN that while India portrays itself in the ASEAN press as an innocent post colonial power that is geopolitically ‘at one with the people’, for millions of Kashmiris and their fraternal Pakistani friends, India is both a post colonial independent state and an aggressor. If Pakistan were able to show that there is more than one side to south Asia among ASEAN nations often cut-off from the realities of recent south Asian history, China would see that Pakistan is able of complimenting Beijing’s win-win strategy in ways not previously foreseen.

Sending both an economic and geopolitical message to the United States

One of the major themes of Imran Khan’s campaign was fierce criticism of the paralytic attitude that the old political elites of the country took to the United States. One of the reasons underscoring Imran Khan’s victory was the fact that he campaigned for Pakistan to develop a dignified, non-aligned and truly independent foreign policy that would be able to engage and appropriately react to the United States in ways other than subservience and confusion.

By taking the initiative in opening up trade with ASEAN, a bloc with as many if not more US partners as Chinese partners – Pakistan would be able to show the US that it should be treated more like Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, The Philippines or Cambodia than like Afghanistan. In all of the aforementioned ASEAN states, the US is openly competing with China for economic influence and in each case even among traditional US partners, there are strong cases being made in China’s long term economic favour. This has caused the US to inadvertently try harder to persuade ASEAN nations to see the US as an economic partner rather than a neo-colonial overlord — an image the US is trying to shake even while often enforcing this stereotype.

Even the DPRK is now being openly courted by the US, China and Russia simultaneously based on a unique outgrowth of the strategies that have long been used by the major Pacific powers in the ASEAN bloc. Pakistan needs to teach the United States a lesson in respect and recent trends show that only by taking the initiative to engage in economic relationships not reliant on the US, does Washington sit up, take notice and realise that zero-sum strategies will no longer work against a nation diversifying its geopolitical portfolio.

Conclusion

Pakistan has nothing to lose and potentially very much to gain by establishing a free trading relationship with ASEAN. In summary such an agreement can achieve the following:

–Accelerated development through a mutual partnership with a group of largely developing nations with rapidly growing economies

–Help create a cooperative atmosphere where mechanical, technological and research exchange can transpire on a win-win basis

–Set the stage for a long-term free trading area among nations on the road to moderate prosperity in the 21st century

–Help off-set India’s anti-China and de-facto anti-Pakistan strategy in the region

–Put Pakistan on the intellectual and economic map of ASEAN leaders who too often only see Japan, China and India as important northern neighbours

–Help to leverage US economic threats by showing a profound independent streak which includes partnerships with many US allies in Asia

https://www.eurasiafuture.com/2018/0...ade-agreement/

Imran Khan is indisputably the greatest cricketer to emerge from Pakistan, and arguably the world's second-best allrounder after Garry Sobers.