She’s not a congresswoman. She’s not a talk show host. She’s the Secretary of State. Whereas others can call it like they see it on Pakistan, Hillary Clinton’s job requires far more subtlety. In an era where even military chiefs have to be soldier-statesmen, ala Messrs Petraeus and Mullen, Ms Clinton would have used all the willpower in her body not to lash out at what she and her colleagues probably perceive to be treachery by the Pakistani establishment in the combined war against terror.
But as the highest ranking US official to visit Pakistan after Operation Geronimo, Ms Clinton exonerated the Pakistani establishment of the more serious charges of knowing Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts. That, at least, is the official stance. Reports from inside sources in both the Pentagon and the State Department reveal that the verdict on that issue is not out yet.
In the realpolitik of international relations, no one puts Pakistan in the dock for longer than it can withstand. The Obama administration realises this. Even the Bush administration (not the sharpest tools in the shed though tools nonetheless) realised this. As Bush Jr rhetorically asked a confidante after the US intercepted the first bit of evidence of collusion between Pakistani authorities and the militant networks, how does one invade an ally?
The answer to that, of course, is that you don’t. You slug it out in this most unconventional struggle, more unconventional still than the asymmetric warfare of post-regime change Iraq and Afghanistan. A theatre of action (if not war) where keeping up appearances takes precedence over the lets-get-em approach. The position of the Pakistani establishment in this whole equation is such a tripwire that it makes everybody, most of all the Pakistanis themselves, extremely nervous.
Expect the frenemy status to continue indefinitely. With the state department advising us that anti-Americanism is not going to make Pakistan’s problems go away rather than saying what is really on its mind. Coupled, of course, with more and more unilateral military action.
