REFERENCE Owen Bennett-Jones’s article ‘A divisive agenda’ (May 25) and his surprise over Donald Trump’s willing acceptance of authoritarian regimes with unenviable record as regards human rights.

The US leaders have no problem associating closely with regimes which are totalitarian and violate human rights. They pick up these issues only when they want to bash some state.

As for supporting only one side of the sectarian divide, well, with the arrival of Trump in the White House, America’s very warm and close relations with Israel have now been further upgraded to almost family connection. His daughter married a Jew, a fanatic Israeli supporter who Trump has made his principal adviser on the Middle East.

As for Iran, the writer says it remains one of the few major powers in the Middle East which has not descended into chaos, though ‘not yet made to descend into chaos’ would be better. Both Israel and the US see it as an adversary.

However, what could be better for Israel and the US than to see Saudi and Gulf rulers on the one side and Iran on the other, fighting and destroying each other, using their own resources in men and material, with only marginal input from Israel and the US?

That will only leave nuclear-armed Pakistan to deal with, which the US, Israel and India all see as an adversary, especially as an ally of China. For that reason the US and India doubly hate it. In preparation for the move against Pakistan, Trump has already started hardening his stance towards it.

S.R.H. Hashmi

Karachi

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PAKISTANIS were greatly disappointed by US President Donald Trump when he mentioned India as one of the countries hurt by terrorism but he did not say anything about Pakistan, the only country in the world which has been facing terrorism for the last 10 years.

Pakistan has lost more than 100,000 people, including soldiers,in attacks by Indian terrorists like Kulbhushan Jadhav, Kashmir Singh, Ravindra Kaushik, Sarabjit Singh and Sheikh Shamim.

How is it possible that President Trump did not know about this?

Trump should know that the US and India have been using Afghanistan to destabilise Pakistan in order to denuclearize the only Muslim nuclear power (reference: “ Our Secret War in Pakistan ” by Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, October 2008, sent from Jalalabad, Afghanistan).

Mr Trump spoke on all issues of US interests and asked Muslim countries to take care of themselves, meaning probably he does not expect any country, including the US, to go to their help.

Yes, we shall stand up on a stronger footing on our own rather than stand on the crutches of USAID. Thanks to ZAB, we are self-sufficient in our defence.

Sajid M. Ansari

Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2017