Pakistan Needs A Long-Term Break From The US

Pakistan has reached breaking point with the United States and its replacement with a genuinely independent foreign and domestic policy.


Previously, the ruling political and military elite, for personal and institutional reasons, never truly attempted to seek separation from a bad, exploitative and increasingly humiliating marriage with Washington. But the attack on Pakistan’s military check posts on the border with Afghanistan created circumstances that forced the ruling elite’s hand and finally pushed them over the line that they had kept avoiding to cross for decades.

This event has proven beyond any doubt that the US agenda was to completely subjugate Pakistan and punch so many holes into its defense lines that these would become dysfunctional. But it is also true that while this event would have provoked Pakistan into some sort of a firm reaction, the response would not have been as wide-ranging as it has turned out to be if it was not for three other events. The first of these is the Rymond Davis case which for the first time publicly disclosed the nature of CIA’s secret war in Pakistan and proved the audacity with which US was operating on Pakistani soil in complete contempt of Islamabad’s status as an ally in the so called war against terror.


It also revealed and further generated deep-seated anti-US sentiments at the grass root level and shocked the ruling elite into accepting that their policy of total compliance with Washington’s agenda had lost all public support that is if it ever had any public support. The second event was the OBL operation. That particular event was a direct insult and injury to the core of Pakistan’s establishment which had tried so hard to cultivate close ties with Washington’s political and military bureaucracy. It showed to the Pakistani establishment that no matte how hard they tried, they would always be dispensable for Washington that would always treat them as a speck on its strategic shoe.


The incident also brought to light the possibility of US attempting a similar raid against Pakistan’s nuclear assets and then using international sanctions forcing Islamabad to accept its new ‘non’ nuclear status. But what really created an unprecedented hatred and uproar in the inner sanctum of the Pakistani establishment was the Memogate. This particular document revealed the possibility of the US attempting a change within with help of cronies and henchmen.


The Torjan horse nature of the memo’s content left little room for complacency in formulating a reaction that would cut off the multiple sources of US influence in Pakistan. The deadly attack on the check-posts provided the perfect trigger to touch off a response that had been developing for months. This response is likely to be spelt out clearly in the next couple of days starting today. It need to be close watched because this might be the most far reaching foreign policy revision that Pakistan’s ruling elite is attempting in decades.