Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Daily Times editorial May 11, 2011

US response

After Prime Minister (PM) Yousaf Raza Gilani’s address in parliament on the furore over the US raid to assassinate Osama bin Laden, numerous American voices have chimed in to give us an indication of the US response to the case the Pakistani authorities have made and their stance on any similar situations arising in future. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney unequivocally asserted that the US would not apologise for the unilateral intrusion into Pakistani airspace and on its soil, despite taking Pakistani complaints ‘seriously’. Carney defended the American raid by arguing that US President Barack Obama was convinced that he had the ‘right and imperative’ to mount the raid, a possible action he had already outlined during his presidential election campaign. Meanwhile, sprinkling salt on Pakistan’s wounds, a US State Department spokesman said Washington maintained the right to strike in Pakistan again if it had actionable intelligence on the presence of any high value target in the country. This punctures even the relatively restrained bluster of our PM when he asserted in his address that the consequences of a repeat of such unilateralism would be serious, without spelling out how Pakistan might respond.
As if all this was not enough, Ashton Carter, Undersecretary of Defence for acquisition, technology and logistics attempted to disabuse those in Pakistan who harbour the notion that US/NATO logistics in Afghanistan are vulnerable to disruption in Pakistan by asserting that the Pentagon has alternatives to these land routes and is not wholly dependent on them. That proposition may well be tested if Imran Khan, who held a caravan/rally to Peshawar the other day to halt that route, and threatens another rally in Karachi to stem the flow at the point of entry into Pakistan, follows through on his intent, which many critics are dubbing an establishment-backed campaign. Senator Kerry, however, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has proved a friend to Pakistan in getting the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act promising aid to Pakistan passed and at many other junctures, was of the view that keeping thousands of US troops in Afghanistan depends on an enormous supply train that requires the daily cooperation of the Pakistan state. He added the reminder that more senior al Qaeda operatives have been caught or killed in Pakistan than in any other country.
It is important to have such a powerful voice as Senator Kerry’s batting for Pakistan at a moment when angry members of Congress are asking for either a cut-off of all aid to Pakistan or at the very least a painstaking review of that aid and how it is utilised. Pakistan expects some $ 3 billion on this account in 2012. CIA chief Leon Panetta’s damaging statement that the Pakistani authorities were either complicit in harbouring Osama or incompetent, has been pounced upon by the naysayers in Congress to press home their argument that Pakistan cannot be trusted. In passing, it should be remembered that the US has given some $ 20 billion to Pakistan since 2002, of which $ 9 billion is on account of reimbursable expenditure on the war on terror.
US Ambassador Cameron Munter has also weighed in with the argument that future Pakistan-US ties hinge on the probe launched by Pakistan into the admitted intelligence failure to detect Osama’s presence in Abbottabad and the failure of our defence forces to detect, let alone respond to, the US raid. Since the military and intelligence services have come in for a rare avalanche of criticism inside Pakistan for these obvious failures, COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has been attempting to reassure his equally troubled officers and rank and file regarding the fiasco. But he has subtly shifted some of the blame onto the shoulders of the civilian government by stating that poor media handling, incomplete information and lack of technical details played their part in producing the public dismay and despondency in the aftermath of the debacle. There is of course no gainsaying the argument that it was the failure of the top civilian leadership to immediately address the Pakistani people and the world to authoritatively state Pakistan’s position that left space for the kind of wild speculations and conspiracy theories in our media. The PM’s belated address to parliament, although agreed amongst the troika of the president, PM and COAS in their meeting on Saturday, may prove too little too late.
The icing on the cake is the report that Musharraf-Bush had secretly agreed in 2001 to allow the US to mount just such an action if Osama or other high profile al Qaeda leaders were discovered hiding in Pakistan, with the latter retaining the right to vociferously denounce it. True or not, the current stance of the US implies that option remains on the table and may extend to Afghan Taliban leaders like Mulla Omar. The US is reiterating its long held view: take out these elements yourself or we will. That difficult but inescapable choice now confronts both the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan.

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