Taking aim at Pakistan

last updated 8 January 2015

“America appears to be on a collision course with Pakistan,” said Mohammad Jamil in the Peshawar Frontier Post. Relations have been strained all year, what with the CIA agent Raymond Davis murdering two Pakistanis in Lahore, and the U.S. killing Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. But since the 20-hour assault on U.S. and NATO targets in the Afghan capital of Kabul last month, “American leaders have gone berserk.” Adm. Mike Mullen, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed the Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated group supposedly based in Pakistan, for the attack, and then went on to claim that the group was “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.” He accused the ISI—the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA—of fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan and directly contributing to attacks on U.S. targets.

The U.S. is simply “desperate for a scapegoat” for its humiliation in Afghanistan, said the Lahore Nation in an editorial. After 10 years of war “waged by the world’s best equipped and best trained force,” more than 80 percent of Afghan territory is still in the hands of the resistance. Meanwhile, the rebels continue to strike NATO and U.S. targets in the heart of Kabul. How to explain this defeat? Simple: Blame Pakistan. But it’s more ominous than just scapegoating, said the Islamabad Pakistan Observer. The bellicose rhetoric from Washington is a clear sign that the U.S. “is all set for unilateral action in North Waziristan,” the Pakistani region where it claims the Haqqani network is based. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta all but openly threatened Pakistan last week, saying the U.S. would “take whatever steps are necessary to protect our forces” and adding that “it is in the best interest of Pakistan to deal with terrorists within its borders.” The U.S. has already violated Pakistani sovereignty with drone attacks. Is a U.S. invasion next?

Let’s all calm down, said the Lahore Daily Times. Pakistanis are indulging in a lot of “hollow slogans and chest thumping about our sovereignty” and how we will not stand for U.S. “boots on the ground.” Such a display is simply “delusionary, misplaced nationalism.” It is logical that if we keep irritating the U.S. by supporting extremists who attack it, the U.S. will “not look kindly on our shenanigans.” Yet the Americans, too, must take a more sober stance, said the Karachi News. Yes, Pakistan has contacts with the Haqqanis—but not because it wants to wage war on the U.S. Rather, Pakistan has a strategic interest in maintaining ties with all groups vying for power right on its border. The U.S. needs to “acknowledge that Pakistan has to be an integral part of the negotiated settlement in Afghanistan—and concretely delineate” what role our country will play.