By Prarthana Mitra
US president Donald Trump on Sunday launched a relentless Twitter tirade against his Pakistani counterpart, bringing the already deteriorating relations between the two nations to a new low. Imran Khan’s tweets, coming a day after aspersions were cast against Pakistan’s role in the region’s exacerbating terrorism, “corrected” Trump’s “false assertions” and attempted to prevent the scapegoating of Pakistan for America’s failure in the war on terror.
Here’s why Trump said what he said
Attacking Islamabad for not doing enough for the US war on terrorism despite billions of dollars in US aid, Trump expressed his discontent first in an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday. In the same pre-recorded interview, he blamed Pakistan for offering a hideout to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, where he was finally taken out in a US-led operation in 2011.
“He was living in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them $1.3bn a year, which we don’t give them any more. By the way, I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us,” Trump reportedly said.
He then took to Twitter in an attempted takedown of Pakistan.
Trump has blamed Pakistan on several occasions in the past, for allegedly providing a safe haven to terrorist groups such as the Haqqani Network and Taliban that straddle the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal belt. This simmering discontent recently resulted in the slashing of the US aid package to Pakistan, a move that Trump was defending in his Monday tweets.
How Imran Khan reacted
Known for his openly anti-American rhetoric, newly-elected Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attacked Trump in a fierce rebuttal, all of which unfolded in public view of the entire world.
In an attempt to set the record straight, Khan tweeted that the US administration has recompensed a “minuscule $20billion” of the $ 123billion Pakistan spent during the war. “No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror…suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy,” he tweeted in response.
Hitting back at Trump’s “false assertions,” Khan further added that Pakistan had lost innumerable lives fighting a war that wasn’t theirs to fight, reminding him that Islamabad continues to provide the US military lines of ground and air communications, despite the destabilising effect that the war on terror has had on its economy and social fabric. ”Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?” he asked.
Khan also reacted sharply to this scapegoating, questioning how the Taliban were still powerful in Afghanistan. “Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops and reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than ever before,” Khan said implying that the US should look closer home.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry summoned its US envoy late Monday to protest the unacceptable claims made by Trump, insisting that Pakistan’s intelligence service had, in fact, helped the US trace bin Laden. With the latest Twitter spat straining the already volatile alliance Islamabad shared with Washington, the ongoing negotiations with the Taliban may also experience a setback.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius