Donald Trump the President of United States of America was on a two day tour of Saudi Arabia from 20th to 21st May. During the visit, Trump addressed the Arab-Islamic-US summit involving leaders of 55 Muslim majority countries, and the corner-stone of his speech was Islamic terrorism.
During the speech, he reportedly made a passionate plea to the Middle East leaders to unite in defeating Islamic extremists and driving out terrorism. During the speech he also mentioned India among the countries which he believed were the victims of terrorism.
While there were supporters and critics of Trump’s visit, Pakistan citizens have ended up feeling utterly humiliated after their nation was completely snubbed during the whole event.
As per reports, Pakistan had high hopes of recognition but ended up being largely shut out of the event. The report pointed out how the US-Saudi relationship had made Islamabad its ally and when the alliance was planning an Islamic summit, Pakistan was expected to be in the spotlight. But things didn’t quite turn out as expected.
According to the report Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif had spent the entire duration of his flight to Riyadh rehearsing his speech for the summit. The report suggested that the speech would have been unique as Pakistan has an unique position of being both the perpetrator and the victim of terror. But to the dismay of the nation, neither Nawaz Sharif nor Army Chief Raheel Sharif ended up getting invited to address the summit.
What seems to have irked them further is the fact that Trump identified India as a victim of terror but failed to do so in case of Pakistan. What made matters worse was the fact that Trump also denied the request of a full fledged meeting with Nawaz Sharif and only talked to him on the sidelines of the event.
According to reports the Pakistani media failed to come to grips with the humiliation of Pakistan. One Pakistani publication summed up the incident as:
The popular sentiment among the majority of Pakistani media delegation was that of a total humiliation
The ego of the Pakistani establishment was also hurt as apparently Sharif was not allowed to speak even though some ‘small nations’ were allowed to do so.
What might have further embarrassed and angered the Pakistanis is the fact that Pakistan was snubbed from an Islamic summit while it considers itself an Islamic country with its founding principles too being based on the religion.
If this snub to Pakistan was deliberately staged, one could argue that this yet another shift in US policy where it treated Pakistan as an ally and tried to monkey-balance between India and Pakistan.
During his election campaign Trump had been making statements favoring India and its policies, which suggested that him coming into office would mean a shift in America’s long standing pro-Pakistan foreign policy.
