Some lobbying documents are meant to persuade. Others are meant to reassure.
This one was clearly meant to distract.
On May 15, 2025, barely four days after Operation Sindoor (launched by India in retaliation for the Pahalgam massacre by Pakistan-trained terrorists) a one-page outline titled “A Renewed Pakistan–United States Relationship” was formally received by the Foreign Agents Registration Act Registration Unit of the US Department of Justice.
It was circulated by Squire Patton Boggs, acting as a registered agent of the Government of Pakistan.
This matters because what follows is not an off-hand email or think-tank musings. It is a declared advocacy document, legally filed, lawyer-approved, and intended for senior U.S. officials at the State Department and beyond.
And it is spectacular.
The document opens not with remorse, reflection, or even context, but with scheduling anxiety.
“Do you think we could try again to schedule a meeting with Eric?” it asks, before requesting guidance on FATF and whether anything in the attached outline might sound “off-key in Washington.”
That sentence alone tells you everything. The concern is not whether anything is wrong, but whether it might sound off-key. Truth is optional; tone is not.
Then comes the outline itself—a four-bullet masterpiece of strategic optimism: Trade & Investment. Financial Modernisation. Security. Geopolitical.
It reads less like a foreign policy plan and more like a venture capital pitch deck written during a power outage. Let us take it point by point.
The security section leads with Pakistan being “prepared to double down on its commitment to counter-terrorism cooperation with the US.” The phrase “double down” is doing a heroic amount of work here, since the baseline commitment remains conveniently undefined.
To prove its seriousness, Pakistan cites a single example: “arresting and expelling to the US the Abbey Gate ISIS bomber who killed 13 American soldiers.” This is presented as definitive evidence of capability, credibility, and partnership.
This is a remarkable argument. Pakistan points to the handover of an ISIS operative—an enemy of both Pakistan and the United States—as proof of its counter-terror bona fides. In other words: we helped you against a group that threatens us too; please stop asking about the groups that don’t. It is the diplomatic equivalent of returning stolen property and requesting immunity for everything else in the house.
The document then reminds Washington that President Trump publicly thanked Pakistan for this cooperation. This is not evidence; it is a receipt. And it is being used exactly as intended—to cash goodwill earned in one lane to avoid questions in another.
Pakistan then pivots smoothly to requesting deeper cooperation against ISIS, help retrieving U.S. weapons left behind in Afghanistan, and collaboration against the Pakistani Taliban (TPP), citing the U.S. Director of National Intelligence’s threat assessment.
Notice the pattern. Every terrorist threat Pakistan highlights is either:
- anti-Pakistan,
- anti-U.S., or
- safely disconnected from Kashmir.
Groups that operate against India do not appear. They never do. Silence, here, is policy.
Next comes financial modernisation, where Pakistan describes its “largely cash economy” as “poised for digitization,” offering opportunities for U.S. fintech and broadband companies. This is followed by assurances of “debt sustainability and financial transparency.”
The comedy here is unintentional but exquisite. Pakistan promises transparency in the same breath that it asks Washington officials, privately, to explain the “lay of the land” on FATF. Transparency, it seems, is aspirational—like weight loss or good governance.
We are then told that Pakistan’s Finance Minister highlighted “recent improvements in the country’s macroeconomic outlook, including a sovereign credit rating upgrade.”
This is technically true, but strategically misleading. Credit upgrades do not erase structural dependency; they merely delay panic. Presenting this as proof of reform is like citing a good week at the gym as evidence of lifelong fitness.
Then comes geopolitics, where the document achieves peak denial density.
Pakistan seeks a U.S. relationship “that stands on its own merits, not dependent on US relations with Pakistan’s neighbors.” This sentence is doing pure acrobatics. Pakistan is asking the U.S. to ignore China, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan’s own military-managed foreign policy, while pretending the relationship exists in a vacuum.
It is geopolitics without geography.
China is dismissed with the assurance that Pakistan’s relationship with Beijing “does not inhibit” U.S. opportunities. This will be news to Beijing, Washington, and reality.
India is mentioned only to insist that U.S.-India ties should not “inhibit stronger US-Pakistan ties.” Translation: please decouple consequences from behaviour.
The document then claims Pakistan has taken “resolute actions against Iranian support for terrorist separatists.” Evidence is not offered. It never is. Assertion remains the house style.
Then comes the trade section—the true pièce de résistance.
Pakistan announces it is “prepared to help balance the trade deficit” and “buy significantly more US exports.” This is followed by a promise to lower tariffs and fast-track U.S. investors through the Special Investment Facilitation Council, “jointly chaired by the Prime Minister and Army Chief.” This is presented as a selling point.
In one sentence, Pakistan reassures American investors that civilian-military fusion is not a problem but a feature. The subtext is unmistakable: don’t worry about institutions, rules, or accountability—the army will handle it.
Finally, the document goes fully mythological. Pakistan claims “extensive reserves in copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel and various rare earths valued in the trillions of dollars,” and seeks a bilateral critical minerals agreement. Trillions. On paper. Always on paper.
This is where the one-page outline stops being lobbying and becomes speculative fiction. Pakistan’s mineral wealth has been “valued in the trillions” for decades—usually right before the next IMF programme.
The document closes by describing Pakistan as “indispensable” and highlighting its youthful population and affluent diaspora. Every failing state eventually reaches this paragraph. Youth replaces reform. Geography replaces responsibility. Potential replaces performance.
Taken together, this FARA filing is not a roadmap. It is a diversion. It seeks to:
- substitute cooperation against ISIS for accountability elsewhere,
- trade speculative minerals for strategic indulgence, and
- convert denial into a growth industry.
And it does all this not quietly, but formally—filed, stamped, and archived with the U.S. Justice Department.
That is the real scandal here. Not that Pakistan made these claims, but that it made them under U.S. law, with lawyers, knowing the record would be public.
This was not a roadmap—it was an alibi, billed by the hour and filed with the Justice Department.
In other words: Denial, notarised.
