Ties between the US and Pakistan were already strained over differences on Afghanistan. The hit on Osama bin Laden might have been the final straw.
The US and Pakistani governments seem to be heading for a divorce full of recriminations. So great are the divergent objectives and lack of trust between them that Pakistan seems to be contemplating moving out of the United States’ orbit altogether and into China’s embrace.
The US decision, without it seems informing Pakistan nor seeking its help, to send a hit team deep inside Pakistani territory to kill Osama Bin Laden may have proved to be the last straw. Pakistan’s leaders are furious. Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, for example, declared that any future action violating Pakistan’s sovereignty would lead to a complete review of military and intelligence co-operation with the United States.
Added to this, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani expressed fulsome praise for China on a visit to Beijing late last month. China, he said, was a source of inspiration for the Pakistani people, while Chinese premier Wen Jiabao declared that China and Pakistan will remain forever good neighbours, good friends, good partners and good brothers.
As well as co-operating in the military, banking, civil nuclear and other fields, Pakistan wants China to build a naval base and maintain a regular naval presence at the port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province, something that has alarmed the United States, India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Worried at Pakistan’s drift away from Washington, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hurried to Pakistan for a few hours on May 27 in an attempt to patch things up, but apparently with little success. Why? Because the row over the killing of bin Laden is only the latest chapter in a long narrative of mutual misperceptions.
CIA missile attacks by unmanned drones against alleged terrorist targets inside Pakistan invariably end up killing civilians, and arousing furious anti-American sentiment. The Pakistani Parliament has denounced these strikes as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and demanded a permanent halt to them. Some parliamentary members warned that Pakistan could cut supply lines to US forces in Afghanistan if drone attacks continued.
The extent of hostility towards the United States was already evident following an incident on January 27, when Raymond A Davis, a covert CIA officer, shot and killed two Pakistanis in a crowded street in Lahore. Pakistani popular opinion wanted him hanged, and it was only with great difficulty that the United States managed to secure his release.
But by then the idea was already taking root in Pakistan that the United States was deploying a secret army against Islamic militants in the country. The Pakistani Army has demanded that the number of US military personnel in the country be reduced. Relations between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence directorate (ISI), headed by Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, are said to be tense.
At the heart of the US-Pakistani estrangement lies a profound disagreement about everything to do with Afghanistan, especially how to deal with radical factions, such as the Taliban. Not content with having eliminated bin Laden, the United States wants to hunt down and destroy any remnants of al-Qaeda and other militant groups, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and even in places further afield like Yemen. Obsessed with the danger of terrorist violence, the United States has been unwilling to recognise that Arab and Muslim hostility toward it springs mainly from its own catastrophic wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan itself, with their heavy toll of civilian casualties, and from its blind support for Israel.
Suspecting Pakistan of complicity with Muslim radicals, the United States insists that it should join in with the US anti-terrorist campaigns. It would like Pakistan to break relations with Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Afghan Taliban; with the Jalaluddin Haqqani network (now run by Jalaluddin’s sons, Sirajuddin and Badruddin); and with the Lashkar-e-Taiba — a militant group considered responsible for the devastating Mumbai attack of 2008.
Photo Credit: US Navy
View as Single Page
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Technorati
Yahoo
Google
Plurk
Harpy Drone
What an arrogant article by this fossil of British colonial heritage. There would be no Pakistan if it were not for compliant British colonials. The very idea that the US or the UK or any other Western power can put pressure on a nuclear-armed & economically rising India on an existential issue like Kashmir is pure fantasy and extremely facile – that ship has sailed!!!
The Idea that the US or the West ever “had” Pakistan in order to “lose” it is ridiculous – Pakistan has always been a rogue state that has played the West for its own purposes. If the US did not “lose” Pakistan when it sold nuclear technology to its enemies or sponsored terrorist attacks on its soil through the ISI, then what makes the killing of OBL the tipping point?…because it exposed Pakistani complicity in international terror to a degree not previously obvious or visible?
In addition to repeating previously heard apologists for Pakistani aggresion, the author also advances justifications for the Pakistani colonization of Afghanistan. I guess becoming a second rate power has not quenched the British appetite for interfering in other people’s business.
Peter
In the short term, the U.S. may require assistance form Pakistan to track al-Qaeda members. But in the long term, the current relationship is rotten for both Pakistan the U.S. More at FPIF: http://ow.ly/5c4Sr
AM
Pakistan did not experience “loss of Kashmir to India in the 1947-48 war”…Kashmir was independent immediately following India/Pak independence. Then, the Pakistanis sent over Pashtun soldiers (with Army assistance) in order to forcibly claim it, as the Hindu King of Kashmir was refusing to join either side. With the Pasthun ‘army’ laying waste to much of Kashmir, the King hastily signed the standard Instrument of Accession and India got involved. Under the signing of the Instrument, the whole of Kashmir should have belonged to India, but the extent of these Pashtun tribesmen’s excursions has ended up being the border.
That being said, I think Mr. Seale is a bit too pro-Pakistan, but that is quite common with UK-based commentators. For example, the idea that the mujaheddin, because they “lost their jobs” had no choice but to go around butchering foreigners, non-Muslims, men, women and children, etc shows very sharp cynicism, hindsight and no faith whatsoever in humanity. In fact, what it sounds like is apologism for a bitterly racist and divided country.
Then comes the breathtaking assertion that the US should try to get India to negotiate on Kashmir. You probably think this is reasonable. It is not…it is giving in to blackmail, something the US itself [allegedly] does not do but apparently can encourage others to.
Why? You probably think Pakistan’s demand for a plebiscite is reasonable. But imagine if somehow, in that plebiscite, Kashmiris voted to stay part of India. Do you really think Pakistan would accept this outcome? It would not. Some fantasy story will come out, no doubt, about India committing widespread fraud.
So immediately, the plebiscite question is politically slanted and sub-optimal. Ultimately, Pakistanis have yet to accept that Muslims can live peacefully in India and happen to think that Muslim-majority states should automatically be part of Pakistan. This is factually incorrect – the Princes/Kings themselves had to sign their territories over to one of the two, and Kashmir was signed over to India.
Ultimately…India has accepted less territory than it was promised…why can’t Pakistan?
John Chan
@AM, do you think your argument against plebiscite is specious? You totally discredit plebiscite itself to justify by not holding a plebiscite in Kashmir. Are you lack of faith in India’s appeal to the Kashmir people because their oppression history in Kashmir? Or are you insulting the intelligence of Kashmir people, by implying that they are unable to make decision for their own good?
If you are as democratic as you claimed, then India should support a plebiscite in Kashmir, and let the Kashmir people to decide what they want to, they may join India, Pakistan, or become independent. UN can make sure the result of the plebiscite is genuine and represents the wish of Kashmir people.
If India insists the sovergnty over Kashmir based on the Hindu King of Kashmir’s accession to India, then the argument is more plausible. Please drop the pretence of democracy, just argue on the truth, call a spade a spade.
Lastly, there is no such nation called India before 1947, only a geography term Indian subcontinent. Nation’s territory has to be established by the nation itself, not by decreed of another party. “Ultimately…India has accepted less territory than it was promised” does it mean USA can promise Kashmir to Pakistan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to Tibetans, or Nagaland to Myanmar?
Jaisingh Thakur
The question of Jammu & Kashmir,has remained in its present unsettled state largey due to the machinations of a petty bureaucrat called Mountbatten and his comrade-in-arms Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who, for all his Western education and progressive ideas, could not get out of his bureaucratic mentality, due to years of his British training. Be that as it may, it is a fact that the Maharaja of J&K, signed the instrument of accession acceding to India and that the Indian Army, on its part, succeeded in driving out the tribal marauders from J & k and,, given the political will, could have succeeded in ensuring total Indian sway over the entire state itself in 1947 ! Then there would have been no “Kashmir problem ” for pundits to ponder over and contemplate, no subject left for highly partisan writers like Alastair Lamb to display their “scholarship”, no handle in the hands of anti-India elements to beat India with. Those relishing in baiting us day in and day out with the mention of Kashmir would do well to remember that the state is being ruled democratically as opposed to POK and that in every sense of the word, there is freedom and tolerance in the Kashmir valley today largely because of Indian control.The only issue in Kashmir, is the one that has been caused by Pakistan that has illegally occupied one-third of the state and ceded a sizeable portion to China. The portion under China’s illegal occupation is an issue as well and in any discussion on the topic of Kashmir, this must also be brought to the negotiating table !
AM
John Chan – arguing that there was no India before 1947 makes me think you are living in a fantasy land. Fact is, Pakistan was carved out of India – India has always been there even if it was only “legalised” in 1947. But then, India had been united previously, about 2,500 years ago. I’m sure you think that’s so long ago that it doesn’t matter. Please drop this fiction that India does not have a right to call itself the natural heir to Ancient India, because it does. Pakistan considers itself part of Islamic heritage, which leaves India to its ancient Indian heritage. End of story.
As for plebiscite, isn’t it true that allegations have surfaced that there was large scale fraud in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’s elections? Actually, isn’t this true of all elections in POK? Atleast India’s side of Kashmir has proper elections. I think they’d rather live this way in India than across the border, in the Asian version of Somalia.
Also, please stop pointing out that Kashmir’s King was Hindu…don’t forget, several Kings down South in India were Muslim. And the votes fell a certain way. Accept it. Accept that the “Hindu” King only chose India because Pakistan used (as it would continue to use) violence to invade Kashmir at a time that it had chosen to stay neutral. As usual, Pakistan did work with the international community, it used violence, used tribal people to carry out murder in the way it is now finally world famous for.
AM
Sorry, in the 3rd line from the bottom, I mean “Pakistan did NOT work with the international community”. You know this makes more sense!
Devil’s Lapdog
The US has lost the entire Muslim world- not just Pakistan. It has done so because everywhere it has gone it has sought out nothing but to create problem and cause division- ‘divide and conquer’. Whether setting up Balochis against other Pakistanis, Sunnis against Shias, Hamas against Fatah, Palestinian Arabs against Syrian Arabs, the US has done nothing more than create problem.
This help explains why 95% of Pakistanis have a positive view of China and the same % have a negative view of the US- the Chinese develop Pakistan’s Gwadar port and nuclear plants, the US threatens to bomb them.
Unfortunately, the US is not only dumb but stubborn. While it is hated in every Muslim country and nobody wants US troops in their country (even desperate Libyans), the US wants to establish troops everywhere. It is apparent, as Vietnam and Lebanon unfortunately showed, the only times Americans leave is when they are bombed out. They do not ever leave voluntarily!!!!
Farhan
First thing is how America got on our soils. This was done by people who for their short term gains sold themselves to americans. Gilani issues statements but never acts on anything he says. Some people are now repeating same mistake with China. Why let anyone on our soil. We have nuclear weapons to defend ourself. We can obliterate anyone who dare attacks but people like Frank want to sell Pakistan for there personal gains. Mehran was not an military’s mistake, it was an terror attack and it doesn’t mean anything.
adam
Pakistan should ditch US instead of many fellow Muslim countries. Now Pakistan is not welcoming fellow Muslim brothers (refusing Visas and religious students) at the bequest of US. So they are taking instead drones after drones and commandos incursion and plenty of bombs. Compare to pre 9-11 period what a wonderful peaceful country it used to be.
z
Yeah whose fault is that. I for once would like Pakistani leaders (or at least its citizens) to take responsibility for the wreckage they’ve leaders have brought upon themselves. You don’t see Chinese leaders going around blaming others for the cultural revolution. Maybe China can teach Pakistan in that regard.
Personally I’d say the U.S. losing Pakistan is akin to losing cancer, its certainly not missed you just hope it doesn’t come back.