Peace Prize for the war maker
“Gaey wo din ke nadaanista ghairon ki wafadaari kiya karte the tum taqreer, hum khamosh rehte the” [Gone are the days when you would speak for foes and we kept silent.] — Ghalib
THE Government of Pakistan’s choice for the Nobel Peace Prize is a person who has bombed Iran’s nuclear sites while pretending to negotiate peace with it. This is a violation of international law, the UN Charter, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA Statute, and the US constitution itself. He has also comprehensively facilitated Israel’s criminal invasion of Iran — a Muslim neighbour of Pakistan that has supported it on Kashmir and in conflicts with India.
Israel’s invasion of Iran is the culmination of its century of genocide against the Palestinian people, which today forms part of a larger US project of multiple regime changes in the heart of the Muslim world. This in turn is part of a still larger project to eliminate China — Pakistan’s proven friend — as a global rival.
The so-called ceasefire announced on June 24 and the wretched games of war and peace that Trump plays in no way diminish his responsibility for the death, damage and suffering wantonly inflicted on civilians in Iran and several Muslim countries. Accordingly, all self-respecting Pakistanis were hugely embarrassed by this decision.
Earlier, there were reports that the field marshal made this decision. These were quickly downplayed and largely unreported in Pakistan. They were not officially denied because the White House appeared to confirm them. However, the prime minister has now made the decision.
Trump is as entitled to a Nobel Peace Prize as is India’s Butcher of Gujrat, Modi, and Israel’s Genocidal Exterminator, Netanyahu! Perhaps Trump, who believes he is entitled to several Nobel Peace Prizes, did not take kindly to Pakistan’s apparent backsliding. Amends have now been made and we have learnt there is no free lunch. However, in view of the outrage caused in Pakistan and the Muslim world, this decision has again become moot.
All self-respecting Pakistanis were embarrassed by the government’s decision.
In 1972, Zulfikar Bhutto told an ambassadors’ conference in Izmir that smaller countries could not rely on realpolitik alone for their security. Ultimately, they had to rely on international law, morality and norms.
The UN Charter states its determination to “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. Earlier, the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal recognised that initiating a war of aggression was the “supreme international crime” because it encompassed all the evil that could follow, including genocide.
The crime of aggression today is investigated by the International Criminal Court. Trump, however, has threatened to bomb the ICC if any American soldier is ever brought before it on war crime charges. Needless to note, no country since World War II has committed more international war crimes than the US.
According to Noam Chomsky, every US president since World War II has been guilty of unauthorised aggression against other countries without Congressional authorisation. These are capital crimes according to the US constitution.
More recently, Trump placed a travel ban on four judges of the ICC who had the temerity to charge US soldiers with war crimes. The fact that the US has not ratified the ICC in no way exempts it from its jurisdiction, as it pursues ICC-charged individuals of countries it does not like which have similarly not accepted its jurisdiction.
In the case of the Middle East, Israel, for all its alleged ‘chutzpah’, ie, impudence has been little more than the attack dog of the US ‘deep state’ that also ultimately controls Trump and his antics. Once out office, both Trump and Netanyahu may well end up in jail on several corruption charges. Accordingly, an extended peace does not suit them.
Israel claims it faces an ‘existential threat’ from Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb. This is an outright lie known to all the foreign offices of the world. Israel feels ‘existentially threatened’ because it knows its creation was itself a crime against the Palestinians and the people of the region.
Today, Israel is an existential threat to several regional countries in accordance with a Pentagon plan approved immediately after 9/11 — as disclosed by retired US Gen Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of Nato in Europe — to bring about regime change in seven regional countries, culminating with Iran. When all seven are done, can Turkey and Pakistan be far behind?
Iran accepted an Arab proposal for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which would have ended any nuclear weapons programme it may have had. The US, however, aborted the proposal because it wanted Israel to remain the only, if undeclared and illegal, nuclear weapons power in the region. Later, Iran in 2015 negotiated a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the P5 plus One countries, ie, the UNSC permanent members and Germany.
In return for sanctions relief, Iran agreed not to enrich its uranium beyond 3.7 per cent. Only after Trump reneged on the JCPOA, for which he was criticised by his European and Nato allies, did Iran raise its uranium enrichment to 60pc, which was still far from the 90pc plus enrichment required for nuclear weapons development. Although the IAEA criticised Iran, neither the Agency nor US intelligence ever confirmed Iran had actually developed a nuclear bomb which Iran consistently denies.
But with the return of Trump, the moral credibility of the European and Nato countries evaporated, clearing the way for US wars in the Middle East. Unfortunately, regional ruling elites have sought survival and class security through playing double games.
In conclusion, Pakistan earned a significant measure of international respect in its recent conflict with India, not least due to indispensable technical training and assistance from China. What will China now make of Pakistan’s apparent, if hesitant, pandering to its arch foe? Can it continue to trust a soft state seeking to ‘balance’ relations between China’s self-declared enemy and China itself? Sooner or later, it may despair of us.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US,
India and China, and head of UN missions
in Iraq and Sudan.
Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2025