Harlan Ullman has rightly described the Pakistan-US relationship as in the most fragile and vulnerable condition right now.
Good and bad reasons have created a trust deficit that is still metastasising. The Operation Geronimo without permission or knowledge of Islamabad has supercharged the deep grievances. Fortunately, both sides understand that it is in our mutual interests to set the relationship on an upward trajectory.
What Prof Noam Chomsky the other day said while speaking at Gulberg Market’s Café Bol in Lahore was the apt comment that rightly depicts the American mindset and timely interprets Pakistanis’ feelings. “Stability to the US means obedience.” He also added that “the moment Pakistan stopped cowing down to the US, the talks of nuclear threat and jihadi movements would start making headlines in the US media.” He said “We’ve all heard the term ‘to stabilise the region’ from the US government. Whenever the term is used it actually means that the US will destabilise the region but ‘stabilise’ any threat to its interests.”
Chomsky also elaborated upon the situation in the Middle East and the parallels that one could, and could not, draw from it for Pakistan. “The US and its imperial allies will always prevent a functional democracy in the Middle East because that places the region beyond its control.
They like democracy on paper but the fear of ‘real’ democracy in other parts of the world is cemented in the US psyche.” He said leaders in Pakistan severely lack commitment to the land and to its people. Whether or not the US likes it, Pakistan is all it has got to keep control in the region. The country may not be its favorite ally but it is certainly one of the most important ones, if not the most. Aid will continue and support will continue. There is simply no other alternative.”
This troubled relationship has gone on for too long. Both sides are now sick of the double-gaming. Anti-Americanism is at an all-time high in Pakistan while the American suspicion of Pakistan is deepening. The paradigm of the relations must be changed if a long-term and mutually beneficial relation is to be forged out of this dysfunction.
F Z KHAN
Lahore
