Imagine your neighbourhood charmer who always borrows money, promises to repay, and then vanishes when the bill comes due. Let’s call him Jarnail. Jarnail is at your barbecue, flattering your cooking, while secretly pocketing your beer cans for his next party. You know he’s playing you, yet you keep inviting him back, hoping he’ll change.
Pakistan is Jarnail, a pro in double-dealing who’s spent decades conning big and small fries alike. Its double games — flagrantly cozying up to one power while backstabbing another — are not only tolerated but, bafflingly, incentivized. From the Cold War to today, Pakistan has taken the United States, China, and even Iran for a ride, leaving broken trust and squandered billions in its wake. Yet, these nations, like suckers at the poker table, keep anteing up.
What does this reveal about their collective psychology? And how long can Pakistan keep shuffling the deck before the game changes?
A Few of Jarnail’s Cons
Pakistan’s history of duplicity is a masterclass in opportunism. During the Afghan War, it pocketed billions in U.S. aid to arm the mujahideen while quietly nurturing the Taliban, a monster that later turned on its benefactor. The discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, practically next door to a Pakistani military academy, was a brazen middle finger to Washington, which had funnelled billions into Islamabad’s coffers under the guise of counterterrorism.
Then came China, Pakistan’s “all-weather friend,” who bet big on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The result? Abducted and murdered Chinese workers, stalled projects, mounting debts, and Beijing staring into a financial abyss. Now, Pakistan has pivoted again, reportedly aligning with the U.S. against Iran, a fellow Muslim nation it once courted. Its Jarnail borrowing from one friend to pay another while planning to stiff them both. Jarnail’s, and Pakistan’s, audacity is almost admirable — if it weren’t so infuriating.
The Idiots that are the Conned States
What compels states like the U.S., China, and Iran to keep dealing with this geopolitical grifter? It’s a toxic mix of strategic desperation and willful blindness. For the U.S., Pakistan’s location — wedged between Afghanistan, Iran, and China — makes it a necessary evil, like lending Jarnail money because he’s your only ride to work. Washington’s leaders, chasing short-term wins, ignore Pakistan’s long-term treachery, convincing themselves the next aid package will buy loyalty.
China saw Pakistan as a linchpin in its Belt and Road dreams, only to learn that grandiose projects don’t survive in a swamp of corruption — much like Jarnail’s promises of a “surefire” business venture that never materializes. Iran’s calculus is the most perplexing. Even after Pakistan’s flirtations with its arch enemy, the U.S., Tehran seems poised to crawl back, driven by Islamic solidarity and a lack of better options, like inviting Jarnail back to the party despite knowing he’ll raid your wine cellar.
This pattern exposes a psychological flaw in these states’ leadership: an addiction to the illusion of control. By forgiving Pakistan’s betrayals, they cling to the hope they can shape its behaviour, as if a state built on duplicity can be tamed by cash or goodwill. “Jarnail will pay you back if you just lend him some more”, has become the norm. The U.S. can’t stomach the embarrassment of cutting ties after decades of investment; China can’t abandon its sunk billions in CPEC; Iran can’t resist the mirage of Muslim unity, even when they see that with Pakistan, it is always a one-way street.
This isn’t just weakness — it’s a collective delusion, a refusal to admit they’ve been played.
“Emperor’s Naked!” sniggers the World
The internet age makes this all the more damning. Social media, X posts, and open-source intelligence lay bare Pakistan’s cons: U.S. drones strike targets Pakistan claims to fight, while its military harbours the same militants it’s paid to eliminate. Chinese workers are attacked on CPEC projects, yet Beijing doubles down. Iran fumes over its U.S. tilt, but whispers of reconciliation persist. The public sees the scam — just as neighbours gossip about Jarnail’s latest hustle — yet leaders act as if awareness changes nothing. This erodes their credibility faster than any policy failure.
When a state’s leadership keeps accommodating a rogue actor like Pakistan, it signals not just incompetence but cowardice — a refusal to confront the truth for fear of admitting they’ve been duped.
Pakistan’s knack for survival is uncanny. For close to 25 years now, analysts have predicted its collapse — economic ruin, internal chaos, you name it — yet it persists. It is the equivalent of a geopolitical cockroach that thrives on bailouts and strategic begging.
Jarnail is South Asia’s Perennial Migraine
The IMF keeps tossing lifelines. This $7 billion package approved in 2024, proves that the global patience isn’t thinning: it’s practically inexhaustible. Iran, bound by an Islamic regime’s need for Muslim allies, can’t afford to shun Pakistan, no matter how many times it’s burned. The U.S. and China, too, remain hooked, lured by its geographic leverage.
Jarnail always finds another sucker to fund his schemes, and Pakistan always exploits rivalries to stay afloat. And while the rest of the world apparently has no problems in being played, this kind of an arrangement has gradually morphed into becoming South Asia’s eternal burden. Only India and now Afghanistan, understands that the real fix isn’t more loans or diplomacy — its balkanization. Carve Pakistan into smaller, less volatile states, each too weak to play Jarnail’s grand con. The world might miss being conned, miss Jarnail’s old hustle and all that, but at least the region would be at peace.
