More Nobel prizes for Trump? Pakistan’s ruling clique from flattery to fallout

There is something exquisitely revealing about Pakistan’s ruling establishment discovering that American presidents are not hereditary monarchs and congressional elections are not ceremonial inconveniences. For Field Marshal Asim Munir, Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the Democrats’ midterm triumph threatens more than diplomatic embarrassment. It could unravel the political protection secured through their extraordinary cultivation of Donald Trump, transforming yesterday’s celebrated Washington connections into tomorrow’s congressional investigations.

The diplomatic triumphs may soon become congressional exhibits.

Few governments have pursued Trump’s affection with Islamabad’s spectacular lack of self-respect.

Sharif, in particular, has elevated presidential sycophancy into something approaching a constitutional responsibility. His repeated enthusiasm for nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize would qualify as political comedy were the consequences not so grotesque.

Even Trump’s devastating war against Iran could not apparently interrupt Sharif’s campaign to secure his patron a medal for international peace making. Perhaps another nomination is overdue, this time honouring Trump’s remarkable achievement in engineering his own party’s spectacular electoral humiliation.

But beneath this theatre of prostration lies a considerably uglier political enterprise.

Munir and Sharif did not merely flatter Trump. They constructed a diplomatic strategy intertwined with the commercial interests of his family, associates and political entourage. Cryptocurrency arrangements involving Trump-linked World Liberty Financial, military procurement involving Powerus, critical-mineral ventures, real-estate negotiations and expensive lobbying operations reveal how thoroughly Pakistan’s engagement with Washington became personalised and commercialised.

This was not sophisticated statecraft. It was the degradation of national diplomacy into a marketplace of political access, private financial interests and presidential favouritism.

Pakistan’s rulers mistook proximity to American power for possession of it. The corruption of this political architecture is not confined to whether particular transactions ultimately constitute prosecutable offenses. The deeper scandal is the systematic contamination of public diplomacy by private commercial interests.

When presidential family businesses pursue opportunities with foreign governments simultaneously seeking presidential indulgence, the distinction between national policy and private enrichment becomes dangerously compromised.

Now comes the deliciously uncomfortable prospect of congressional scrutiny.

With Democrats assuming congressional control, investigations into Trump’s business entanglements could expose the financial and political relationships surrounding his administration’s dealings with Islamabad. The cryptocurrency arrangements are especially inviting targets. What Pakistan’s establishment advertised as privileged presidential access may look rather less impressive when congressional investigators begin demanding documents and explanations.

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The motivations behind such investigations will hardly be uniformly noble. Much of the Democratic leadership may pursue Trump’s commercial entanglements primarily to inflict maximum political damage. Its historical accommodation of foreign dictatorships hardly suggests an overnight conversion to democratic principle.

Yet an increasingly assertive contingent of Democratic officials genuinely seeks accountability for executive corruption, authoritarian collaboration and Washington’s international double standards. Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed’s outspoken criticism of Pakistan’s military dictatorship reflects this more principled current.

Partisan opportunism and genuine accountability can converge without becoming morally equivalent. Democrats determined to expose Trump’s corruption may also expose the machinery through which Pakistan’s generals secured international legitimacy while extinguishing democratic accountability at home.

That legitimacy has been indispensable to Munir. Trump’s enthusiastic embrace conferred political respectability upon a military establishment responsible for crushing opposition, subverting civilian authority and perpetuating Imran Khan’s persecution. Sharif supplied the civilian decoration; Munir exercised the substantive power.

Washington provided legitimacy. Rawalpindi enforced submission. Pakistanis paid the price.

Nevertheless, predicting Munir’s imminent abandonment would be dangerously simplistic. The Pentagon-CIA relationship with Pakistan’s military establishment has survived decades of changing presidents, generals and governments. Intelligence cooperation, counterterrorism and regional strategic calculations sustain institutional relationships far more durable than Trump’s personal friendships.

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Democrats may consequently investigate Trump’s commercial dealings while preserving the military relationship sustaining Pakistan’s authoritarian order. Washington’s commitment to democracy has always demonstrated remarkable flexibility whenever strategic convenience demands it.

Nor should Pakistanis confuse congressional scrutiny with democratic emancipation. Substituting Democratic patronage for Republican indulgence would merely refurbish the architecture of dependency. Genuine sovereignty requires constitutional government accountable to Pakistanis, not another American political faction supervising their rulers.

The establishment’s fundamental miscalculation was confusing presidential access with national influence, commercial proximity with strategic leverage, and Trump’s political fortunes with its own institutional security.

Trump remains president. American institutions will not suddenly acquire a conscience because congressional majorities change. But the balance of political risk has shifted. Commercial arrangements may require explanations. Presidential connections may attract investigators. Diplomatic victories may become political liabilities.

Perhaps Sharif should prepare yet another Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Trump. Having already elevated presidential flattery into a governing philosophy, he might now nominate his benefactor for the remarkable achievement of inspiring American voters to repudiate his own party. He could even attach a modest supplementary request: that Trump’s next act of peace making involve persuading congressional investigators to leave his grateful admirers in Islamabad undisturbed.

The irony is exquisite. Men who systematically dismantled democratic accountability in Pakistan may now discover its considerably less accommodating virtues in America.

And Sharif, having spent so much political capital campaigning for Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize, may soon find himself campaigning for something rather more urgent: congressional mercy.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.