How a “terrorist” becomes an “ally”
In a world of shifting superpower alliances, where does Pakistan stand?
We are living through historic times.
Two nuclear-armed countries shot missiles into each other's military bases for the first time ever. We’ve been watching the Gaza genocide and now famine live on our phones for months. The U.S. snubbed Israel, its most important “ally” in the Middle East on its president’s trip to the region. And Saudi Arabia just cut the single largest bilateral deal in history worth $600 billion over 4 years - for it to buy weapons, tech, and AI chips from the U.S.
Saudi even brokered a meeting between U.S. President Trump and former Al Qaeda and ISIS “terrorist” alias al Jowlani or al Golani and now Syrian President Ahmed al‑Sharaa. Trump said Sharaa was a “young, attractive guy, tough…a fighter.” When Trump announced U.S. sanctions relief for Syria, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, known as MBS, got up and gave a standing ovation. Trump then said, “Oh what I would do for the Crown Prince.” In eight years, Sharaa went from U.S.‑designated “terrorist” to “proxy” to “ally,” with a “real shot at pulling Syria together.”
What we are seeing in headlines may not seem real. But what is real is how fast the labels on people and countries can change once they are aligned with U.S. foreign policy. A lot of shadowy work goes on before that happens to manufacture consent for U.S. foreign policy. This consent is often built on ideological grounds, when the real fight is always about resources.
In the past, global powers colonized vast territories to extract resources such as sugar, spices, cotton, rubber, gold, and diamonds—to enrich their economies. In the last few decades, superpowers started allying in wars that gave advantage in resources such as crude oil (Iraq War), but that is quickly expanding to natural gas, gold, AI, and resources that enable tech, such as cobalt, lithium or silicon. These wars and alliances can range from “false-flag” operations that are labeled as “terrorism” in the media, or “assets” in intelligence briefs, and some can even lead to genocide for the larger goal of capturing resources.
In this edition, I hope you’ll get a sense of how messy, ugly, and deceptive these strategic alliances are and why binary frames of right and wrong, true or false, or “terrorist” or “resistance-fighter”, cannot be used if you want to understand strategic alliances or warfare when superpowers are involved. Be that armed groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al Qaeda, or the Taliban. Or superpowers like the U.S., China, Russia, or aspirationally India. Or GCC countries like Saudi, UAE and Qatar, who have perfected a hedging strategy—Qatar hosts the most U.S. bases outside the U.S., UAE buys Chinese tech and invests in the U.S., and Saudi colludes with Russia on crude oil prices, while cutting deals with the U.S.
In today’s world, labels like “terrorist” or “ally” can flip in an instant. Nowhere is that more revealing—than in Pakistan’s strategic dance between the U.S., China, India and GCC countries. This is a complicated and layered story with many players beyond those, but I want this to be an essay and not a book, so I’m only focusing on these players for now. I’ll show you why ideology is just camouflage for resource wars, and chart some hope for how Pakistan can reclaim agency in a transactional world driven by superpowers.
The powers that govern the world are shifting and it is going to impact me and you and those who come after us. This can seem terrifying if you don’t understand what is happening. But if you can get a sense of some of it, the knowledge can give you pause, calm, and perhaps hope.
That said, don’t take this essay, which is impartial political education of how the world operates, as a signal of my personal values. I personally hope one day all weapons manufacturers and militaries are abolished and seize to exist. I hope all oppressed and occupied people are free to live on their land, without violence or threats. I hope individual billionaires are outlawed, and wealth, education, health, and opportunity is accessible to all. While I immerse myself in news, facts, and history that is harsh, terrifying, and brutal, I am a gentle person. I stay soft in a hard world. This is a choice I make everyday and you can too.
Empire politics is shifting fast, and Syria was its lab for testing alliances.
Here’s a map of all alliances in Syria before Bashar al-Assad’s fall and Ahmed Al Sharaa’s take over. It’s a mind fuck.
I’m not going to even try to explain it beyond this: now all of those militant groups fighting Assad, can be represented by one Syria aligned with Turkey, Saudi, and the U.S. Where does that leave Iran and Russia - Turkey's allies? Time will tell. President Trump suddenly wants to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine and said, he wants, “Iran to succeed and be a great country.”
Is Saudi born-Sharaa, a U.S. or Saudi or Turkey groomed puppet in Syria? I can’t say, journalists who document the present, can rarely report on covert proxy wars accurately, because there are no sources. I’ll explain what “proxy” wars are in a minute. Point is we have to wait years or decades for documents to be unclassified or testimony from retired officials to have proof of proxy wars.
For example, Hilary Clinton’s 2009 congressional testimony confirming that the Taliban were created by the U.S. as a “proxy” to defeat Russia, its then rival superpower, came 30 years after money bags were exchanged. The U.S. did not fight a conventional war with Russia in the 80s, when both were the two nuclear-armed biggest superpowers in the world. The U.S. fought a “proxy” war through its mujahideen against Russia, with allies Saudi and Pakistan. And the U.S. won, it obliterated Russia, and became the world’s hegemon or supreme power.
At the time, Osama bin Laden was a “proxy” mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan. Within 11 years he was the mastermind “terrorist” behind 9/11.
Proxy wars and playing dirty for resources
The U.S. is still the hegemon for another 25 years at least, but the U.S. got here by playing dirty.
In 2022, the U.S. Congressional Research Service documented 469 foreign military interventions by the U.S. since 1798. They noted that the U.S. only formally declared war 11 times. Every other intervention was covert.
Syrian President Al Sharaa or alias al Golani is still technically on the U.S. “terror” watch list and the SDN list (Specially Designated Nationals) sanction list under the SDGT list (Specially Designated Global Terrorism).
The U.S uses its “terrorist” and “sanctions” list as a political tool, it’s not some moral signal of what’s right or wrong. These lists are used to harass and manipulate people and countries to become collaborators, proxies, and eventually allies. It’s also used to manufacture consent for violence on groups of people, certain identities, or countries. Which is why I strictly don’t use the arbitrary terms “terrorism” or “terrorist” as a qualifier of violence, or use it outside “quotations”.
With the snap of a finger a “terrorist” on the list can become an “ally”.
India made a lot of fuss about Hafiz Abdul Rauf, a funeral prayer leader who was performing the rites for Pakistanis slain in one of India’s brazen missile attacks in Muridke last week. That man, like thousands of other Muslims associated with any sort of Islamic charity, have arbitrarily been put on the SDGT SDN list, without any sort of investigation. His name appearing on the list does not prove anything, except India’s former power to use that list as an American ally. After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, India had requested dozens of Pakistanis associated with charities be added to the SDN list, eventually the U.S. complied. That’s how Hafiz Abdul Rauf got added to the list.
Ideology as a weapon used to manufacture consent
The fact is that this world does not operate on morality or right and wrong. It operates on resources, alliances, and transactions.
Hollywood and the news industry like to paint alliances in terms of ideology: freedom loving vs freedom hating; women’s freedom vs women’s oppression; Islamist vs western; minority freedom vs minority oppression; or communist vs capitalist.
But in the end, it's always about resources, and ideology is just a tool or weapon used to manufacture consent to get resources. Take “terrorism” for example, it manufactures consent for violence and interventions and wars, in ways that, “hey, we want their water, gold, or cobalt”, simply can’t.
Think of any Western power—you know, the ones built on “freedom” and “free speech.” Yet here in the U.S., fundamental rights can vanish overnight by a single policy change or Supreme Court decision. This past year, we witnessed hundreds of college students being arrested for campus protests against the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza and even U.S. green card holders being arrested for their political views on genocide. Similarly, the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade guaranteed abortion rights in all U.S. states for decades, then it was overturned in 2022. Today, 12 states enforce outright abortion bans, and 14 more have near‑total prohibitions. Two states explicitly allowed homicide charges against women for stillbirths.
On the other ideological side, Saudi Arabia removed its biggest restrictions on women driving, covering, and working, with the stroke of a pen.
Ideological frames shift with the blink of an eye. But strategic alliances based on resource control, withstands all kinds of contradictory ideological frames.
If you can accept this reality, that right and wrong do not rule the world, and temporarily suspend your judgment and your value system, you’ll have a much easier time understanding strategic alliances.
Then suddenly it will start to make sense why:
UAE and Bahrain signed the U.S.-brokered military alliance Abraham Accords recognizing Israel in 2020.
Qatar and Saudi promised massive deals that amount to trillions of dollars with Trump in 2025.
Or why Pakistan did not get rid of militants engaged in an armed struggle in occupied Kashmir in the 90s: it's because of water insecurity.
While Pakistani diplomacy will always present this issue as the rights of the oppressed and Indian occupied Kashmiri people, it is strategic water security that Pakistan is after.
The U.S., China, and India ALL know this. That’s why the U.S. or China aren’t taking the ideological Hindutva threat seriously. They believe its a resource play on India’s part.
Pakistan and India both fight proxy wars in each others countries
Kashmir is the source of the Indus River system, Pakistan’s agriculture and hydro‑power depend on it. Under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, India controls eastern tributaries while Pakistan relies on the western rivers Jhelum, Chenab,and Indus. Islamabad has long viewed any Indian dam or diversion project in Kashmir as a national‑security threat. Scholars argue that the high stakes of water flow helped cement Pakistan’s resolve to contest Indian projects—making militancy in Kashmir an indirect means of safeguarding its water lifeline.
From Islamabad’s perspective, supporting proxies like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) was a way to internationalize Kashmir and keep military pressure on India without a full‑scale war. By training and arming these groups, Pakistan sought to undermine Indian administrative control in Kashmir and bolster its own claim to the region and its access to water.
The Kashmiri struggle for freedom against Indian oppression is real. So is the Baloch struggle for its rights and a fair share of its resources in Pakistan. India’s jailing of Kashmiri politicians and journalists is real, and the jailing of peaceful leaders of the Balochistan freedom movement like Mahrang Baloch is real. The suppression of legitimate struggle is real and the suppression is morally wrong, but not strategically relevant for either country.
Pakistan’s map, carved by colonialists, a playground for superpowers
To understand Pakistan’s strategic relevance in the world, you have to look at its map, carved by colonialists.
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