Just days after firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson - whom many believed to be the only adult left in his administration - the impetuous US President Trump has appointed John Bolton, a George W Bush era neo-con hardliner, as the new national security adviser. The third person to hold that office in a little over a year, Bolton is a controversial figure for his hawkish views. He has been a strong critic of the Iran nuclear deal, calling for military action as well as regime change in that country. An unrepentant defender of the US invasion of Iraq, he has also been making a case for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. And, of course, Bolton is the same former US ambassador to the UN who had remarked that if the UN building "lost 10 storeys today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
Thankfully, however, he has his reasons to support a softer policy approach towards this country. In an article he wrote in The Wall Street Journal last August, soon after Trump announced his new controversial policy statement on Afghanistan and South Asia, he had argued that "putting too much pressure on Pakistan risks further destabilising the already volatile country, tipping it into the hands of domestic radical Islamicists. ... In this unstable environment, blunt pressure by the US - and, by inference, India - could backfire." As rightly predicted by him, the policy has since backfired. Pakistan has made it more than clear that it would not be blamed for the US' failure in Afghanistan, nor allow India to present it with a two-front situation. At the time, Bolton had also argued that to compel Pakistan to decisively act against terrorists what President Trump needs is a China component to his nascent South Asia policy, "holding Beijing accountable for the misdeeds that helped create the current strategic danger."
That statement holds at least three questionable assumptions: One that Washington could pressure Beijing into doing something against its will; second, in turn, it would put pressure on Pakistan; and third, the US faced strategic danger in Afghanistan due to outsiders' (Pakistan's) misdeeds. As a matter of fact, in an official reaction to Trump's policy statement, Beijing had told Washington Pakistan's important role on the issue of Afghanistan must be valued, and its reasonable security concerns respected. As for 'misdeeds' leading to 'strategic danger' that is an easy way of shifting the blame for US' failure in Afghanistan rather than a serious statement of facts. Although the national security adviser-designate is full of hubris, but from Pakistan's perspective, one good thing about him is that he realizes that putting too much 'do more' pressure on this country would be counterproductive. And hence can be expected to help ease some of the tension in Pak-US relations.
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