I Have Revenge on My Heart

These are the words of a local Waziristani (a Pakistani tribal district on the Afghan border) farmer, Noor Magul, who grieves death of three non-militant relatives who were killed last Oct. 30 when a [U.S.] drone struck the car in which they were traveling. New York Times, March 18^th. Drone strikes remain the lifeblood of NATO efforts to contain the “safe havens” in Northern and Southern Waziristan against remaining al Qaeda operatives, but more importantly Taliban forces, particularly the leadership, who mount attacks across the border from these ungovernable tribal areas. There have been almost 300 such attacks by U.S.-controlled drones, and almost all of them in this vital region. It is the hottest of hot buttons in U.S.-Pakistani relations, which many feel have become unmendable. It’s a question of national sovereignty and the collateral casualties for the Pakistanis, and a matter of military necessity for the NATO forces.

At a time when American/NATO efforts wreak of failure, talk still persists of transferring “defense” from NATO to the mega-corrupt Karzai regime – which literally controls the Afghan capital city of Kabul and the area around it… and nothing else – a notion that “requires” NATO troops to remain in Afghanistan well into 2014. Recent months have sparked the greatest levels of hatred against mostly American troops that the Afghan war has ever known. Riots, bombings and a Taliban directive to behead any Americans caught scar whatever positive feelings may have been generated by an occupying army of foreigners that never seems to leave. Between the inadvertent burning of surplus Qur’ans to the slaughter of 16 innocents purportedly by rogue American staff sergeant Robert Bales, even Hamid Karzi himself is calling for the NATO allies to quit his country. The Taliban, sensing inevitable victory, have withdrawn from peace talks with the West.

It is as close to absolute certainty that when the NATO allies leave the country, now or in ten years, our presence in Afghanistan will be more thoroughly erased than the vestiges of the Soviet ten year war in the 1980s. Almost every American knows it. The Taliban know it. Hamid Karzi knows it. We lost not only the war, but our efforts have effectively recruited tens of thousands (if not more) militants willing to die to kill American “infidels” anywhere on earth as well as the antipathy of masses of Muslims in the developing world. As we watch Iraq move steadily into the Iranian camp, we should really wonder what the aggregate of trillions of dollars of U.S. war effort actually generated in benefits for the United States. As the world changes, given our failed efforts in the region, the question returns: why should we even care about Pakistan anymore? Let’s leave and turn the region over to the locals.

But there is one fierce reality in U.S.-Pakistani relations: Pakistan is a nuclear power with a history of spreading the underlying technology to North Korea and Iran. Our billions of dollars of military and civilian aid to Pakistan once created a nominal ally in the “war against terrorism,” but it is equally clear that no Pakistani official could ever be elected if perceived by the electorate as “working with the Americans” in support of this policy. Why would the Pakistani government support a global bully with an anti-Islamic agenda, voters always ask. There are those in Congress who thump the table and self-righteously press that such massive aid must be conditioned on vastly greater involvement by Pakistan in our efforts to fight Muslim extremists who are hell-bent on our destruction. It’s time for these naïve representatives and an American constituency that hates to read history or look below the headlines to understand the real (and unstated) reason for our rather large aid package to unstable Pakistan: pure and simple, it’s a bribe to keep Pakistan from doing it again… from spreading its “Muslim bomb” to other rogue forces in the world.

So given this hidden agenda, one that would never pass muster with either Pakistani or American voters, the U.S. and Pakistan must go through the charade of fence-mending. Americans have seriously upgraded the pinpoint accuracy of their drones, dropping civilian collateral casualties to a trickle (not comforting to those who are “trickled”), and are willing to talk about just about anything else. Likewise, Pakistani leaders, trying to explain serious lapses within their own system that allowed Osama bin Laden to live openly in their midst for years, are willing to consider reopening dialog with their American counterparts.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has asked his parliament to address U.S.-Pakistani relations with an eye to improvement. “American officials hope that the parliamentary debate will pave the way for a normalization of relations by early April, end a months-long blockade of NATO supply lines through Pakistan and boost faltering efforts to draw the Afghan Taliban into peace talks. All those issues are critical to American plans to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014. But signs are that the Pakistani debate will be dominated by strident calls for an end to drone strikes.” NY Times. After all, we have to pave the way so that we can justify the bribe… it’s pragmatic international diplomacy at its best… and worst.

I’m Peter Dekom, and international relations are so much more than mindless knee-jerk reactions and self-righteous indignation.