The US State Department’s congratulations to the new Sharif government would have been unremarkable, and liable to be dismissed as the usual diplomatic noise accompanying changes of government, had it not been for the accompanying denial, repeated for the umpteenth time, that the USA had nothing to do with the change of government. This denial has been made necessary by the ceaseless claims by ousted PM Imran Khan, who has claimed that the USA had conspired with the opposition against him because of his independent foreign policy.
Presumably he reconciles this with receiving Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at his Bani Gala residence. Going by his refusal to deal with opposition leaders while PM, on the ground that they were not nice people, he should have refused any defiling contact with an American too, especially a Democrat Congresswoman who firmly supports President Joe Biden, whose failure to phone Mr Khan was one of the signs of the deteriorating relationship. Ms Omar, who was one of only two Muslim woman elected to US Congress, may help burnish Mr Khan’s status as an international statesman, but it will also be used by the Shehbaz government to burnish its own Islamic credentials, because though Ms Omar can hardly make US policy turn on its head, the fact that she is going to go on to Azad Kashmir, will burnish the new government’s pan-Islamist credentials.
The visit also highlights the need of the present government to make relations with the USA a priority. The Foreign Office is expected to get a minister in the person of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, but it is still not clear when he will take oath. However, the Foreign Office has already received a Minister of State, Hina Rabbani Khar, who held the portfolio as a full minister after Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s 2011 resignation. As a minister, she had done a competent job, and whether she has the primary responsibility or a subordinate role, she will have to work hard to repair relations with what is still, despite Mr Khan’s continued claims, the country’s most important relationship.
