President Trump’s Peace Board-an instrument for peace or coersion

The uproar in Pakistan over its
decision to accept President Donald Trump’s invitation to sit on his “Peace Board,” mainly from PTI-aligned social media, frames Pakistan’s participation as a moral betrayal of Palestine or a covert step toward recognizing Israel. This framing may generate clicks and emotional release, but it obscures the deeper reality: Pakistan is not confronting a moral dilemma so much as navigating the brutal logic of imperial power in an era of capitalist crisis.
The Palestinian struggle is deeply embedded in Pakistan’s emotional psyche, woven into popular consciousness and religious discourse. At the same time, the issue has repeatedly been instrumentalized by the religious establishment and political elite to mobilize the masses, often opportunistically. This makes any engagement with Israel politically explosive.
Let us be clear: the Peace Board is neither about peace nor about Gaza. It is not about justice for Palestinians or conflict resolution. It is an imperialist instrument designed to manage a decaying neoliberal order.
The draft framework circulated for this body does not even mention Gaza, as was originally proposed. Its mandate is deliberately vague: intervention in any conflict, anywhere in the world. It has been established by President Trump through an executive order, bypassing the US Congress. No attempt has been made to develop an international consensus. Trump appoints himself chairman for life. Board members serve fixed terms, while permanent seats can reportedly be purchased for one billion dollars. This is the brutal face of capitalism, stripped of all pretenses.
Out of the countries invited by President Trump to the board, many smaller states from Asia and Africa, including Pakistan, have decided to accept the invitation. Meanwhile, larger powers such as China and Russia are still sitting on the fence, and traditional US allies in Europe have responded cautiously, with some arguing that this initiative undermines the authority of the United Nations.
From Pakistan’s perspective, that concern rings hollow.
For decades, Pakistan has witnessed the UN’s failure to enforce its own resolutions, most notably on Kashmir. The UN has issued statements, passed resolutions, and expressed concern—while allowing power politics to determine outcomes. To invoke the UN as a neutral and effective guarantor of justice is to ignore the lived experience of the Global South.
On a moral level, Pakistan’s participation in this body is indefensible. Any structure that emerges in the aftermath of genocide yet refuses to name the crime, the perpetrator, or the victim is morally bankrupt. On a political level, however, Pakistan’s room for maneuver is painfully narrow.
Pakistan today is a weak capitalist state under immense strain: economic crisis, debt dependency, internal militancy, ethnic marginalization, and extreme political polarization. Its economy is tied to international financial institutions that function as enforcement arms of global capital. Its political stability is fragile. Its society is deeply divided along class, religious, and ethnic lines—divisions that imperial powers have historically exploited with devastating efficiency.
To imagine that Pakistan could simply take a heroic stand, reject participation, and suffer no consequences is to indulge in fantasy politics. Trump is not a liberal president constrained by norms, laws, or institutional restraint. He governs through coercion, unpredictability, and personalized retribution. Opposition is not debated; it is punished—economically, diplomatically, or through indirect destabilization.
This does not require conspiracy theories. History provides ample evidence. Imperial power rarely needs to overthrow governments directly. It creates pressure, incentivizes unrest, amplifies fractures, and lets societies tear themselves apart.
Pakistan today is navigating overlapping crises: insurgency and militancy in Balochistan, instability in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and intense internal political polarization. The social contract has been shredded by inequality, unemployment, poverty, and austerity.
The state’s capacity to absorb external shocks is limited. In such conditions, deliberately antagonizing a US president known for punitive, personalized responses to defiance would be an act of strategic irresponsibility.
The only defensible stance, therefore, is tactical engagement without ideological buy-in. Pakistan must refuse financial entanglement, resist legitimizing the body’s authority, and treat its participation as temporary and conditional.
At the same time, let us not pretend that refusing to join would have saved Gaza. It would not have stopped the bombs. It would not have restrained Israel. It would not have reformed the UN. It would only have satisfied a desire for moral posturing—while exposing Pakistan to real material retaliation. On the other hand, having a place at the table is an opportunity, however small, to have a voice in the decisions made by this board.
Fundamentally, however, the issue is not about Trump, or even Gaza alone. It is about the ravages heaped upon humanity by neoliberal capitalism in the form of endless wars, grotesque inequality, hollow institutions, and authoritarian strongmen. Trump’s Peace Board signals an empire admitting that it feels the sand shifting beneath its feet.
For Pakistan, the path forward lies not in aligning with imperial projects, nor in empty gestures of defiance, but in rebuilding internal strength: economic sovereignty, social cohesion, and class solidarity. Without that, foreign policy will always be reactive, defensive, and compromised.
History does not judge weak states by their rhetoric. In a world sliding toward systemic chaos—where war is normalized and genocide is televised—the test is to change the balance of power. And the only way to accomplish this is through worldwide class struggle, before the working class completely disappears in this age of technology and AI. Or perhaps AI—“alien intelligence,” as Yuval Noah Harari calls it—will take over the world and rebuild it from scratch.

Dr. Shahnaz Khan
Vice chairperson Barabri Party
Twitter handle
@shahnazsk
Email: Shahnazk@gmail.com
WhatsApp
+92336 5707581