National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf should have perhaps chosen a different medium to deliver a message to the president of the United States than a newspaper interview, and those who chose him should have reflected that this perhaps is not the best means of delivering a message, especially as it seemed driven more by personal pique rather than diplomatic necessity. For Dr Yusuf to say that if President Joe Biden did not telephone Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan had other options, amounts to a threat. It cannot have been made without the knowledge of Dr Yusuf’s boss.
However, if Mr Imran does feel piqued, perhaps he needs look no further than his own ‘same page’ rhetoric or a reason. It has so happened that the US has found that its top officials need not talk to the prime minister, and if they do talk to him, they will have to wait for him to obtain approval from elsewhere. They have found that they can gain access to the source of that approval, and thus find it simpler to talk with the source. If Mr Imran finds himself out of the loop, he has only himself to blame.
There is a double implication in Dr Yusuf’s statement. First, it must be seen as an expression of support for China in its confrontation with the US. Second, it must be seen as an expression of Pakistani concern at the US’s increasing closeness to India. It fails to accept that the US president and the Pakistani premier both place a high value on the call. Calls to foreign leaders can be double-edged, as Mr Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump found to his cost, when he faced impeachment last year over his call to the Ukrainian president. President Biden best knows when he should call, or whether he should call Mr Imran.
Dr Moeed Yusuf himself is an idiot when he suggest so for others. He is an advisor to GoP and neither an elected representative nor a politician nor even a spokesperson of GoP to give public statements every now and then. It is better for him to do his jobs quitely. 😁