The Islamabad Accord and the Future of American Power
I was returning from the Shrine of Bari Imam when I passed the United States Embassy compound in Islamabad’s Diplomatic Enclave.
The Stars and Stripes hung quietly above the compound. There was no wind. No movement. The flag seemed unusually still, almost as if it were carrying the weight of an untold story.
I have always loved that flag.
Perhaps my fascination began when I was a fifth-grade student at Government Islamia High School, Lakhi Dar, Shikarpur. In those days, the United States Embassy regularly distributed two magazines. One was Sairbeen in Urdu; the other was Panorama in English.
For a schoolboy growing up in Sindh, those magazines were windows opening toward a distant world. I would turn their pages again and again, studying the photographs, reading the stories and imagining the cities beyond the oceans. America was not merely a country. It was an idea. A dream. A destination that existed somewhere between reality and imagination.
Years passed.
School corridors disappeared behind me. College years arrived and departed. The pages of Sairbeen and Panorama turned yellow somewhere in forgotten cupboards.
Then one day, destiny carried me across the Atlantic.
I still remember the moment my feet touched the floor of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
There it was.
The Stars and Stripes.
Red.
White.
Blue.
Not on a magazine cover this time, but right before my eyes.
For a few silent moments, I simply stood there looking at it.
I had arrived on the land that had occupied so many corners of my childhood imagination.
Perhaps that is why, as I drove past the embassy this evening in my [mustard-colored two-door] Foxy, a strange sadness entered my heart.
The flag looked lonely. And somehow, I felt lonely too. As the old saying goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Just then, a familiar melody floated through the evening air.
Ching…Ching…Ching…!!
The delicate music of brass bells.
Only one man in Islamabad announced his arrival with bells.
“Baba Tal” [The Bell-Man].
The fragrance arrived before the man himself. That was Baba Tal’s habit. First came a faint fragrance. Then the bells. Then the man. A moment later, he emerged from the twilight, his navy-blue robe decorated with tiny brass bells that chimed with every step. My darling Foxy seemed to recognize him. I stopped the car. Baba Tal settled comfortably into the passenger seat and looked through the windshield toward the embassy compound. For several moments neither of us spoke. Then he leaned forward and whispered:
“Bacha… why are you sad?” I remained silent.
The “BaBaTal” watched the motionless flag for a while. Then he smiled.
“Ah,” he said softly. “So that is the matter.”
The bells on his sleeve chimed gently.
“Listen, Bacha. This is the Great Game of History. Since you spend your nights writing about empires, wars, presidents and revolutions, you should know better than most people that history never moves in straight lines.”
He pointed toward the distant embassy walls.
“Every empire writes its own victory speech. Defeat arrives quietly. Victory arrives with headlines.”
The evening breeze finally stirred. As I listened to him, a question began forming in my mind. How do we recognize the moment when a great power first discovers that it cannot always get its way?
The Qur’an offers a timeless reminder:
“And these days We alternate among the people.” (3:140)
History, after all, is nothing more than the changing of fortunes.
Rome learned that lesson. Britain learned that lesson. The Soviet Union learned that lesson. The Roman Empire did not collapse in a day. Long before its formal fall, its foundations had begun to weaken. Frontiers became difficult to defend. Military commitments multiplied. The empire still appeared magnificent from a distance, but cracks had already begun to appear beneath the marble.
Britain’s story was different, yet strangely familiar. The empire on which the sun supposedly never set survived wars, rebellions and crises. Yet historians still debate which moments first revealed that Britain’s ability to impose its will upon the world was diminishing.
The Soviet Union appeared powerful until the very end. Nuclear weapons, armies and influence stretched across continents. Yet what seemed permanent proved temporary.
History rarely announces the beginning of decline. It merely leaves clues for those willing to read them. And that brings us to the Islamabad Accord. Permit me, before proceeding further, to offer a statement that the White House is welcome to borrow free of charge.
After years of pressure campaigns, sanctions, threats, speeches, military deployments, diplomatic maneuvering, social-media offensives and the full-swinging dance of Trumpology, President Donald J. Trump may well have achieved something that eluded several American presidents before him.
If so, history will record it.
Yet history may also record something else. Iran arrived at the negotiating table pressured but not surrendered; challenged but not conquered. And therein lies the paradox.
Washington can claim a diplomatic success.
Tehran can claim survival.
The question future historians may debate is not whether agreements were signed or statements were issued.
The larger question is this:
If the world’s most powerful nation mobilizes its economic strength, diplomatic influence, military pressure and political capital against a far weaker adversary and still concludes its struggle at a negotiating table, what exactly does that tell us about power in the twenty-first century?
Somewhere beyond the headlines and television debates, a man in uniform chose the difficult path.
He spoke the language of peace when the market was trading in fear.
He worked for peace when others were preparing for conflict.
And when the moment arrived, he helped make peace possible.
In doing so, one of humanity’s oldest civilizations was spared another journey into the valley of fire.
The Qur’an teaches that whoever saves a single life, it is as though he has saved all mankind.
What is unusual about that?
The unusual thing is not that a soldier worked for peace.
The unusual thing is that so many people still seem surprised when a soldier understands the true cost of war.
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
“The world is sweet and green, and Allah has appointed you stewards over it to see how you act.”
Perhaps that applies to nations as much as it applies to individuals.
As I started the engine of my mustard-colored Foxy, Baba Tal stepped out of the car and adjusted the tiny brass bells hanging from his robe.
The embassy flag was still visible in the rear-view mirror.
For a moment he stood watching it.
Then he smiled.
“Bacha,” he said softly, “perhaps America won. Perhaps Iran survived.
Perhaps both are true.” The bells chimed gently.
“History will decide that later.”
He turned and began walking toward the darkness.
After a few steps he stopped, looked back and raised a finger.
“Just remember one thing.”
The night breeze carried his words toward me.
“How do we recognize the moment when a great power first discovers that it cannot always get its way?”
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Baba Tal smiled.
“Perhaps historians spend their entire lives trying to answer that question.”
The bells chimed once more. Then he disappeared into the Islamabad night.
I drove away slowly.
Behind me, the Stars and Stripes continued to flutter above the Diplomatic Enclave.
Ahead of me lay another road, another question and another chapter of history.
Because the first brick never brings down the wall.
It merely proves that walls, too, are mortal.
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