This is apropos of the news item that commander of the US Central Command, General James N Mattis, is scheduled to visit Pakistan next week. During his visit, he will call on General Kayani to discuss ways to improve Pak-US relations that had spiralled downward in the past year.
Despite the negative perceptions on both sides, there is an acknowledgement at both ends that the US and Pakistan need each other not only in the war on terror but also for other geo-political and socio-economic reasons. For instance, because of Pakistan’s strategic location, Pakistan can be a safe conduit of Central Asian resources to United States. This is just one example of how the countries can be of economic benefit to each other.
Today’s world demands that inter-state relations be designed to promote the respective national interests of each country. Unfortunately, this has not been so in the sixty years of the difficult relationship with the United States. It has been subjected more than often to misperceptions and emotionalism rather than a rational and pragmatic approach.
It all started with CIA operative Raymond Davis’s brazen killing of two Pakistani nationals in broad day light in Lahore. This episode was followed with violation of its sovereignty when US Marines attacked a compound in Abbottabad to kill Osama Bin Laden. Then came the fatal US/NATO air strike on a Pakistani checkpost at Salala. All these episodes contributed to the inexorable downward slide.
The US invasion of Afghanistan exposed the mediocrity of the Afghan-based US commanders and intelligence officials resulting in irreparable losses to the US-led forces. The hawkish US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, put the blame on Pakistan for its strategic failures in Afghanistan. Such accusations being levied by functionaries of the US administration on a partner in war on terror that has suffered the largest number of casualties (both civilian and military) do not bode well in the context of already frayed US-Pakistan bilateral relationship.
The US must remember that it was Pakistan that supported the US stance in 1960 about shooting down of its U2 spy plane by Russians. It was also Pakistan that facilitated a secret tour of Henry Kissinger to China.
It was Pakistan again that stood as a bulwark against Soviet expansion by supporting the Afghan ‘jihad’. It is time that the US reciprocate this long history of loyalty by not jeopardising Pakistan’s interests and give it due status in the Afghan peace process and by establishing Pak-US relations on mutually beneficial terms.
ENGINEER JAVED IQBAL
Islamabad
