Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Pakistan's Wrong Debate On US Ties

Today, The News International published an opinion I wrote on resetting Pakistan-US ties, appropriately titled, Re-Engaging US.

My argument on this debate is simple. The recommendations that the Parliamentary Committee on National Security proposed are good but not enough.

We are having the wrong debate.

We are discussing reopening the US and NATO supply road. We are talking about containers, trucks, drones and money.

The real issue is that the United States has taken over Pakistani presidency. It struck a deal in 2006 and 2007 that decided who will be the next Pakistani president. Washington is pumping money into Pakistani media. It refuses to blacklist BLA as a terror group and is shielding BLA and TTP terrorists in Switzerland and Afghanistan, respectively. Washington owes Pakistan close to a billion dollars for using our bases and facilities for the Afghan war. It has been using that money to blackmail us. It wants to bring India into Afghanistan, has granted India access to civil nuclear technology and continues to blackmail our nuclear program in Geneva.

Considering all of this, the least we can do is to be honest. All of the above has to be part of the agenda of resetting Pak-US ties. Simply talking about restoring the supply road is ridiculous.

And what about the aerial corridor? Are we going to tax the goods flying through our airspace to Afghanistan? How come there's no mention of this in the parliamentary recommendations?

Someone also needs to ask the Zardari government why he quietly decided to reopen the aerial corridor for Americans on 'humanitarian grounds'? And is it possible for his compassion to extend to the seven Pakistani widows and the sixteen Pakistani orphans left behind by the deliberate American attack on 26/11?

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