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It’s a shame that Pakistan is going down the gutter just when a changing, increasingly multipolar world is triggering a “battle of offers” between big powers as they rush to cement alliances with “strategic third countries”.

US and its G7 partners, due to meet in Hiroshima, Japan on 19 May 2023, have reportedly prepared fresh commercial incentives for individually identified “key partner states” to counter a slow and small but very clear shift towards Russia and China, especially their plans to diversify international trade out of the dollar, that caught both the US and EU completely off guard after the Ukraine war.

But the list of intended recipients of this generosity that Bloomberg and Reuters reporters have duly sniffed out includes countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, even South Africa despite the recent standoff with Washington that sent the rand into a tailspin, India, Bangladesh, etc.; not Pakistan. IMF’s refusal to resume the bailout facility even though the government has fulfilled all “prior actions”, and paid a heavy political price for it, shows that they will not throw any more good money after bad money as the competition for resources heats up.

G7 already fears that its summit will be overshadowed by a show of China’s “granular diplomacy” as President Xi hosts a China-Central Asia summit at the same time. Then, in July, President Putin is sure to put Russia’s usual basket of fertilisers, grain, also tactical weapons and nuclear energy technology on the market when he greets African leaders in St Petersburg and blames western sanctions for the commodity price volatility that is devastating their economies.

Pakistan could easily have found a spot among grateful states receiving favours at bottom dollar as both camps sprinkle favours to establish strategic partnerships in the third world. But its political elite’s blind lust for power, its military establishment’s obsession with playing kingmaker, and its judiciary’s habit of punching above its weight, even as the country goes to the dogs, have finally triggered an implosion that’s making even old friends shy away from their traditional role of lenders of last resort. It’s also why we’ve just missed the bus to a new world order where alliances will be bargained for intrinsic, quantifiable deliverables like debt write-offs and solid infrastructure investments.

It also explains why we’ll have no say at all when the whole world’s attention turns to the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – meeting in Johannesburg in August. We’re not in the running as the bloc debates including 19 new hopeful entrants and the feasibility of introducing a common currency; a policy option that has been gaining momentum since Russia and China began sidestepping the dollar to avoid US and EU sanctions.

That’s not all. We’re also left without much of a voice in historic developments within the Muslim world; a sorry reflection on our self-created Fort of Islam status.

The Saudi-Iran thaw that is coming full circle with Syria’s return to the Arab League has involved many countries, from Egypt to Qatar, with not so much as a whisper about Pakistan except when they wish to add Afghanistan in the minutes of some of their meetings.

Tehran and Riyadh shaking hands, especially finishing the proxy war in Syria, puts an end to the long and ugly conflict that threw billions of dollars and combined the military and financial might of the US, EU, GCC and Turkey in the bid to destroy the Arab world’s last Baathist dynastic dictatorship. Yet far more importantly, it signals the end of the era of sectarian militias and could well be the most meaningful push to heal the Shi’a-Sunni divide across the Muslim world in centuries.

There are clear signs that the world is changing. And it’s also clear that our political leadership’s inability and unwillingness to see beyond their own nose, and care for nothing more than their own power and privileges despite unprecedented inflation, unemployment and the threat of default, has already robbed us of any meaningful place in the new world.

As the global south moves to exploit emerging trade and business opportunities to benefit its people and the Muslim bloc tries to lean from its mistakes and bury the hatchet, there’s no place for a country whose top politicians are bending over backwards to tear down institutions and wreck the whole country just so they can rule over its ashes; and rightly so.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

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Sumroo May 18, 2023 07:21am
"It’s a shame that Pakistan is going down the gutter just when a changing, increasingly multipolar world is triggering a “battle of offers” between big powers as they rush to cement alliances with “strategic third countries”." The compromised generals have compromised the future of Pakistan!
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KU May 18, 2023 08:24am
Very true....it's a tragedy that our progress and development is confined to the the wishes of leadership who have lust and greed as their finest points and status quo to survive. Anyone who differs from their self serving agenda, is now branded as unpatriotic.
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Whatwilltheydointhegrave? May 18, 2023 11:03am
Fantastic piece, enjoyed reading but also made me very angry - our power hungry, corrupt, uneducated fools of politicains and military brass have brought us here - dejected to the bottom of the "unwanted list". Waiting for them to be lowered in their graves and then they better hope their "power" works when the angels come forth
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Tulukan Mairandi May 18, 2023 12:56pm
Pakistan is not going down the gutter. It is already down the gutter and on the way to the stinking sewer.
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Ashraf May 18, 2023 02:05pm
@Ali Asghar, Dude he’s a Pakistani, PTI supporter and lives in France.
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TimeToMovveOn May 18, 2023 05:22pm
Pakistan is stuck in 1971, the world is moving towards 2071
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TimeToMovveOn May 18, 2023 05:31pm
Pakistan’s place in a changing world---IT has NO place in the changing world. Its only place is the so-called fake pseudo-fight for Indian Muslims and Kashmir Muslims. Other than that, it has not carved any spot for itself. If we look back at 2020s, in 2030s, the biggest loser country of this decade will be Pakistan. Historians will write how the self-righteous Pakistan was fighting with itself, while the rest of the world was moving. Historians will also write that Pakistan's foreign policy was a single-tune record that focussed on the dead issue of Kashmir, at the expense of economic development.
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Honor May 18, 2023 10:16pm
“Rule over ashes”? No sir. First priority NRO2 to clear all corruption cases. Second, stay in the game anyhow and at any cost to make more money. As for ashes, let it get blown away.
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test May 19, 2023 10:03am
Things got worse when Imran was launched by the establishment back in 2013 in the name of so called rigged elections and from there we saw an unforgettable destruction which is happening till this day. Nawaz Sharif's tenure was a bit good. Most of the infrastructure today you see in Pakistan is built by Nawaz Sharif. He gave CPEC and moved away Pakistan from the western world. Imran did nothing except sabotaging CPEC that was the core idea behind launch by the establishment at that time. Imran himself tells that he spent most of his time in the west means he is a western puppet. What reforms did he committed regarding civil services, economic autonomy, taxation, health, education, infrastructure, governance and security ? Nothing. People look at the corruption of left side but they don't look at the corrupt of right side be it malam jaba, peshawar brt, al qadir trust and on the left side panama, fake bank accounts and money laundering. It's always the game of elite class always elites.
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test1 May 19, 2023 10:07am
@Sumroo, It's always elite class which include politicians, generals, businessmen, policy makers, judges and media houses etc. Poor and a common man has no say in it. Nawaz Sharif was 100% right Imran was launched by establishment to sabotage CPEC and the relationship with China which we saw in his tenure. All this destruction started from 2013 in the name of Imran's malicious propaganda of rigged elections back in 2013 and yeah generals at that time did play a role in the destruction at that time in 2013.
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Az_Iz May 20, 2023 04:35am
Moving production out of China is easier said than done. The low end labor intensive production could move out, which China itself does not mind.
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