What has Pak done so grave that it needs to be forgiven? Last time ZAB's life was taken to atone for another "crime"....
One thing is clear though: contrary to the popular belief, the USA is intricately involved in the affairs of Pak. Only if the Pak leaders could leverage this....
Both ZAB and Imran Khan were guilty of becoming “non-aligned”. Remember the rhetoric of “either you are with us or against us”. Bhutto’s nationalization drive, Mao outfit, and general hobnobbing with non-aligned leaders made the west fear he was aligning himself with the Russians. Equally, IK being in Moscow when Pakistan was being told not to visit, was the last straw for a myopic Biden administration that sees only in black and white.
Khan and Pakistan wasn’t allowed to hold a nuanced self interested viewpoint; Pakistan was considered to weak and therefore even European ambassadors spoke publicly (undiplomatically) about Pakistan not pushing back against Russia’s actions vis a vi Ukraine. But, IMHO, The issue started earlier.
Pakistan’s lack of enthusiasm in “fully” supporting the doomed from the start war in Afghanistan gets blamed on Khan that spoke too openly about moving past the war, after the US withdrawal.
The real internal weakness in Pakistan is the competition between the parties (by parties I mean all vested interest groups),
without boundaries, a violation of the Nash Equilibrium. These elites fail to realize they are playing an infinite game while they are thinking in finite terms. If you play thinking a finite game (for your own self interest, and not for the perpetual national interests) you will lose to the player with the stamina to play an infinite game. They still think Adam smith dictates how the world works.
Professor Nash taught at Princeton and only died a few years ago, alongside his wife, in a terrible car accident. Perhaps professor Atif Mian, who still teaches at Princeton, who probably knew Dr. Nash, could enlighten our elites of the governing dynamics; doing what’s best for oneself and the group.
The other parties, made overtures to the US, that they would be better partners. Bilawal admits on a US tv show that he pushed for the VoNC for 2 years before it happened. A plan that emerged out of a desire by the US for an easy solution / a quick fix and the Pakistani parties willing to regain power for their own sake, and national interests be damned. Ironically, eventually the Shabaz government still went to go seek that discounted Russia oil that IK was negotiating for when he went to Moscow.
These myopic people running both Pakistan and the US brought us all to this point. We can ask which came first the chicken or the egg, regardless of which ever party made the first overture, but both sides have failed to learn from when they did this with ZAB, nearly 50 years, when ironically Biden was already in Congress.
If history doesn’t repeat it rhymes
