Embracing Dictators

Democracy id held hostage in Pakistan, and the United States is aiding the kidnapper.

When Donald Trump returned to office earlier this year, many of us, reluctantly or otherwise, saw a sliver of hope. Not because we believed Trump to be principled, but because we believed his disruptive instincts might finally shatter the tired, transactional status quo of American foreign policy. We hoped for a reset, one that might finally stop Washington from underwriting the very regimes that suffocate democratic aspirations across the Global South.

But instead of breaking from the past, Trump has chosen to double down.

Dictators at the table

This week’s White House lunch with Pakistan’s military strongman, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is a grim reminder: Washington’s embrace of authoritarianism is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Let’s be clear. This wasn’t a state visit. It wasn’t the hosting of a democratically elected leader. This was the most powerful man in Pakistan, who holds no electoral mandate, being ushered into the centre of American power while the country’s real democratic leaders rot in prison cells or live in fear. A man whose only claim to power is through the barrel of a gun now sits across from the so-called leader of the “free world.”

This isn’t strategy, it’s surrender. Surrender to the convenience of dealing with unelected generals rather than messy democratic processes. Surrender to short-term gains in the name of “stability.” And above all, surrender to the illusion that repression abroad can insulate the empire at home.

But history shows otherwise. The more the U.S. props up dictators abroad, the more authoritarianism creeps in at home. It’s not just a foreign policy, it’s a contagion.

The swamp

For decades, the United States has claimed to champion freedom, democracy, and human rights. And for decades, those ideals have been selectively applied, weaponised when convenient, discarded when inconvenient. The Biden administration was no better. Trump is just more honest about it.

Some had hoped a second Trump term might depart from the hypocrisy of the liberal internationalists who spoke the language of democracy while orchestrating coups, drone wars, and sanctions. But what we’re seeing now is not a realignment. It’s a grotesque continuity: Trump is not fighting the swamp; he is swimming in it.
His once-fiery rhetoric against the “deep state” gave many in the Global South a sliver of hope, perhaps he would challenge the unelected power centres that drive US foreign policy. Instead, he seems to have made peace with them. The outsider who campaigned against the machine now is greasing its wheels.

Washington’s new favourite general

To see Field Marshal Munir, not a real elected Prime Minister, welcomed in Washington is a slap in the face to every Pakistani who believes in democracy. It is a green light for repression. It is the legitimisation of a military regime that has censored the press, rigged elections, and launched a brutal crackdown on dissent. And it is a betrayal of the millions who, despite the risks, continue to demand a say in how their country is governed.

Those who once loudly opposed Trump for his autocratic tendencies are now silent as he embraces actual dictators. Why? Because their problem was never about principles. It was about power. And so long as that power serves American interests, whether in Islamabad or the Middles East, it will be coddled, armed, and protected.

A Global Strategy of Suppression

The optics of this visit, coming amid Israel’s expanding war on Iran, with the full backing of the US, are no coincidence. This is all part of the same global game: entrench control, suppress resistance, and repackage domination as diplomacy. From Gaza to Kashmir, the strategy is the same. Destroy opposition. Reward compliance. Call it peace.

What’s happening in Pakistan is not an isolated case. It is a test balloon. If the world will tolerate this, the outright erasure of a democratic movement, the imprisonment of its most popular leader, the militarisation of politics, then the template will be repeated elsewhere. In fact, it already is.

Imran Khan’s crime was not corruption, violence, or mismanagement. His real crime was independence. His real threat was popularity. He refused to bend. And that is why the establishment, both in Rawalpindi and in Washington, had to break him.

The illusion of stability

It’s ironic. The United States claims to fear instability. And yet, by empowering unelected generals and suffocating democratic movements, it is manufacturing the very chaos it claims to avoid.

There is still a way forward, but it requires courage. Courage from Pakistanis to keep resisting, peacefully but persistently. Courage from global citizens to call out the hypocrisy of Western powers. And perhaps most of all, courage from those inside the US who still believe that democracy should mean something, even when it’s inconvenient.

Until then, we must recognise the truth. Trump is not embracing Pakistan. He is embracing its dictator.

And in doing so, he is embracing the very forces that democracy was meant to defeat.