Shortly after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, Pakistan’s intelligence chief was summoned by the United States deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, who bluntly told him that if Pakistan did not cooperate with America’s planned attack on Afghanistan, then “Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age”. The Pakistani president at the time, Pervez Musharraf, had no choice but to throw his lot behind the then US president, George W. Bush.

American diplomacy from that moment onwards began a sharp departure from what was the accepted norm. No more behind-the-scenes smooth talk or strong-arm tactics. No more private threats or cajoling. Instead, it was blatant bullying by the most powerful nation on earth.

The trend unfortunately has continued with the current US President, Donald Trump. Just week before last, following the US veto on the United Nations Security Council Resolution to withdraw the US decision to name occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a resolution was tabled on Thursday at UN General Assembly to retract the US leader’s controversial move and where the US veto carried no thunder. That led to a lot of arm-twisting and open threats by the US administration before the tabling of the motion for a vote. Trump publicly threatened to cut off financial aid to any country opposed to his decision. He said that he would not let countries take “hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars” of US money and then vote against him at the UN.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, whose track record towards a just Middle East peace process has been brought in question in recent times by her anti-Arab bias, sent a letter to UN members, urging them not to support the impending resolution that sought to discredit and condemn Trump’s unilateral shift on occupied Jerusalem, where Washington also planned to move its embassy.

‘Taking names’

In a scene reminiscent of a stern school teacher admonishing her pupils, Haley warned UN diplomats at the General Assembly before the vote that the Trump administration did not “expect those we’ve helped to target us” and that “the US will be taking names”. In a letter released to an Israeli newspaper, Haley said that “the president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us”.

Hours before the vote, the US said it was being “singled out for attack” at the UN over occupied Jerusalem, on which rest Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy sites. In an address to the 193-member General Assembly, Haley stated: “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.” With an undisguised threat of economic retribution, she added: “We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations, and so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.” Oh please, has it come to that?

Trumped by the majority

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly responded when he thundered in a speech in Ankara that the US could not buy Turkey’s support in the vote. “Mr Trump, you cannot buy Turkey’s democratic values with your dollars,” Erdogan said.

When the voting began on Thursday, it seemed that all of Trump’s threats to cut off financial aid were trumped by the majority. Hundred and twenty-eight countries defied him and voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly Resolution calling for the US to pull back its recognition of occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Only nine nations voted against it, while 35 abstained.

Has US foreign policy, especially that related to the Middle East, sunk to such a new low with such blatant threats are now par for the course? What happened to diplomacy? And with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulling the strings from behind, why is the Trump administration so willing to comply? With this one act, the US has openly declared to the Arab world that it is not an impartial or honest broker of peace in the region.

I am not sure who or what is guiding US foreign policies these days, but reading enough credible reports of deep schisms and conflicts within the current US administration, it seems to me that it is not in America’s best interests to stick to such a course.

Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Twitter: @talmaeena.