TOI correspondent from Washington: Pakistani expat supporters of former PM Imran Khan are lining up protests against the country’s de facto military ruler, “Field Marshal” Asim Munir, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington DC on Thursday to attend a military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of US Army.“General Asim Munir and his regime have committed some of the worst human rights abuses in Pakistan’s history. Pakistani-Americans from across the country will travel to Washington this Saturday, the 14th, to demand a lifting of the martial law, an end to human rights violations, and restoration of the constitution,” the US wing of the Imran Khan’s PTI said in a statement. Munir is a guest of the Centcom commander Gen Michael Kurilla, who gave glowing testimonials to Pakistan as a “phenomenal partner” in counter-terrorism at a congressional hearing earlier this week, underscoring rejuvenated ties between Washington and Islamabad. The remarks came in the face of Pakistan’s terrorist depredations in the US and in India, where officials attribute the uptick in terror attacks in Kashmir, including the Pahalgam carnage, to Munir’s hardline policies aimed at keeping the military relevant.Once a “frontline ally” and a “major non-Nato partner”, Pakistan’s ties with US have been moribund for almost 15 years following a tactical alliance during the Bush presidency to vanquish Al Qaeda and ISIS, even as Washington forged strategic ties with New Delhi with a civilian nuclear deal and began to view India as a counterweight to China.Successive US Presidents after Bush, including Obama, Trump in his first term, and Biden, largely ignored the country. But ties have rebounded dramatically over the past 15 weeks after the Pakistani establishment reached out to Trump surrogates to play a “get out of jail” card, dangling lucrative contracts in mineral exploration and cryptocurrency to Trump surrogates to make inroads into Washington.Among them is Gentry Beach, a Texas-based businessman, hedge fund manager, and CEO/co-founder of Highground Holdings and Valence Chemicals, who is a longtime friend and associate of Donald Trump Jr., having met him at the Wharton School of Business in the 1990s.Beach led a US business investor delegation to Pakistan soon after the Trump II inauguration to explore investments in luxury real estate, mining, energy, technology, with his company White Bridge Mining, signing an agreement for exploration of gold and other minerals. Following meetings with top Pakistani leaders in Islamabad and Dubai, Beach began talking up Pakistan in Washington, calling it an “amazing country” and echoing Islamabad’s talking points that it has been on the “frontlines in the war on terrorism” and “sacrificed so much for America.” Trump himself began taking a charitable view of Pakistan after having lambasted it during his first term. “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” he tweeted in January 2018. He also suspended $1.3 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, citing its failure to crack down on terrorist networks.But amid scuttlebutt that Pakistan had bought its way back into Washington’s good books, the US President took a more benign view of Islamabad, asserting on June 6, “Pakistan has very strong leadership. Some people won’t like when I say that, but it is what it is.”
