After the attack

Some realistic assessments, please – The limited number of options that the Pakistani government has to protest against any western transgression in the war on terror is a prickly problem. The stoppage of Nato supply routes through the Torkham border, which the government did the day before in response to the shelling of a Pakistani border outpost, had been done before as well, that too under similar circumstances. How to show greater outrage at a clear violation of the rules of conduct between the two countries, like the aforementioned incident that cost 28 Pakistani lives?
The decision for asking the Americans to vacate the Shamsi base was a way out of the problem. Given the gravity of the stimulus, this is not a business-as-usual response.
But this attempt by the government to placate a domestic audience baying for revenge is also counter-productive. The government, after all, had been denying since a long time that the Americans had use of the base. Their explanations on the issue ranged from the base being firmly under Pakistani control to saying that the base was being used by the UAE. Asking the Americans to leave is an admission of guilt on this front and would serve to enrage the particular segment that wants more transparency in the war on terror.
Finally, though the Salala outpost incident was a glaring injustice, there needs to be a dispassionate analysis of the situation. What, exactly, does the jingo in the media expect our government to do? By cutting off the supply routes and the Shamsi airbase itself, we’ve used just about the only leverage we had. We might turn it up by a notch and prevent the use of our airspace as well but that would be it. If another incident prompts the more hawkish in our security establishment to go for more proactive and offensive strategies in the theatre of war, then we can know for sure of an American response. A disproportionate one at that, given how long the hawks at their end have been kept relatively restrained. It would do us well to size ourselves and our adversaries up.
Discretion, they say, is the better part of valour. We live in the real world. We take real decisions and they have real consequences. A better approach would be to ask Nato authorities to explain their case. The latter, for their part, have promised a full probe into the issue. Western powers openly admit that this is a war that cannot be won without Pakistan’s cooperation. Neither side is going anywhere. Cooperation is the only way out of this rut.