{"id":373014,"date":"2018-08-12T00:10:57","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T23:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/election-results-could-be-good-for-pakistan-bad-for-us-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-08-12T00:10:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T23:10:57","slug":"election-results-could-be-good-for-pakistan-bad-for-us-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/election-results-could-be-good-for-pakistan-bad-for-us-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Results Could be Good for Pakistan, Bad for US \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">The election of Imran Khan as Pakistan\u2019s new president further underscores America\u2019s futile military strategy in the region, argues Graham Fuller.<br \/><span id=\"more-29491\"\/><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>By Graham Fuller<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Graham-Fuller.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Graham-Fuller-150x150.jpg\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-27009\" alt=\"\" width=\"77\" height=\"77\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-27009\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Graham-Fuller-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"77\" height=\"77\"\/><\/noscript><\/a>A bold new political face has come to power in the recent Pakistani elections, possibly offering the US a new opportunity in that country. Sadly the opportunity will likely be squandered\u2014again. There\u2019s something about Pakistani and US interests that seem doomed to collision course\u2014mainly because Pakistan\u2019s national interests<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> ar<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">e<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> rarely what the US thinks they should be.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Pakistanis themselves can be pleased the country has just experienced for only the second time in its history a democratic electoral transition from one political party to another. Over long decades democratically-elected governments have been routinely dethroned by the all-powerful Pakistani military-dominated intelligence service ISI.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_29495\" style=\"width: 585px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/imran-khan-summon-meeting-with-pti-party-leaders-1500632385-3413.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/imran-khan-summon-meeting-with-pti-party-leaders-1500632385-3413.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-29495\" alt=\"\" width=\"575\" height=\"383\"  \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-29495\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/imran-khan-summon-meeting-with-pti-party-leaders-1500632385-3413.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"575\" height=\"383\"  \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Imran Khan<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">A key problem is that American interests in Pakistan have had little to do with Pakistan itself, but have been the function of other American interests\u2014China, fighting the Soviet Union, al-Qaeda, and trying to win an ongoing\u2014and losing\u201417-year US war in Afghanistan. Once about eliminating al-Qaeda, Washington today hopes the war in Afghanistan will eliminate the often violent fundamentalist Pashtun movement (Taliban) and enable the US to impose its strategic agenda upon Afghanistan. And over decades the US has alternately cajoled, but mostly threatened Pakistan to do US bidding in Afghanistan. (A former Deputy Secretary of the Pentagon, in the months after 9\/11, threatened to \u201cbomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age\u201d if it didn\u2019t fully get on board and support the new US invasion of Afghanistan.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In an earlier decade, after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a failing Afghan communist regime, the US had recruited the Pakistani government to take the lead in organizing a new anti-Soviet \u201cjihad\u201d through supporting new mujahedin groups in Afghanistan. It was a fateful moment: this anti-Soviet jihad represented the first time that Islamist warriors, recruited from around the world in a joint US-Saudi-Pakistani strategy, became a powerful&#8230;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2018\/08\/10\/election-results-could-be-good-for-pakistan-bad-for-us\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The election of Imran Khan as Pakistan\u2019s new president further underscores America\u2019s futile military strategy in the region, argues Graham Fuller. By Graham Fuller A bold new political face has come to power in the recent Pakistani elections, possibly offering the US a new opportunity in that country. Sadly the opportunity will likely be squandered\u2014again. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-373014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}