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The relationship between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the United States has always been spotty or at best described as a romantic relationship where both parties separate albeit temporarily, only to run into each other’s arms as danger looms on the horizon. Each time the United States and Pakistan have always found themselves in a sort of marriage of convenience or inconvenience as seen in the current war in Afghanistan. The last documented separation between Pakistan and the United States was after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. When General Boris Gromov, the last Soviet soldier to leave Afghanistan, crossed the bridge out of Afghanistan on 15 February 1989, the Americans began defunding Pakistan and abandoned the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
September 11, 2001 and its aftermath aligned both countries again as General Pervez Musharraf declared his support and pledged his loyalty to the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” In exchange, Pakistan received billions of dollars both in economic aid and military reimbursements. Pakistan was also elevated to the status of a major non-NATO ally, a position that guarantees purchase of some of the finest military hardware ever built. Behind all this is the subtle and tacit approval of the Pakistani government to allow the CIA’s aerially manned drones to strike targets in the FATA region along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan. To save face at home, the Pakistani government routinely protests these attacks as an infringement of its sovereignty. Bob Woodward, a veteran Washington journalist and bestseller author summarizes Zardari’s unattributed approval in his latest book “Obama’s wars.” According to Woodward, President Zardari is alleged to have told Mike Hayden, former Director of the CIA in a meeting to “Kill the seniors. Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me.”
The last couple of months have seen the attention diverted from Islamabad to Sanaa. In fact, policy makers in Washington are talking about the center of gravity shifting to Yemen, the homeland of Osama Bin Laden’s father. Yemen itself is faced with its own internal strife’s. The Ali-Saleh led government has been battling a northern Shi’ite insurgency and trying to contain separatists in the south while Al-Qaeda too has been using Yemen to launch attacks on neighboring Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the Al-Qaeda faction in Yemen has shown its determination to strike the West as seen in the Christmas day bombing plot and the recent cargo plane bomb plot. Underwhelmed by all these battles, the United States has stepped in to assist Yemen on the crackdown of Al-Qaeda. For the 2011 fiscal year, the United States has proposed as much as $250 million in military, training and economic aid to Yemen which is a mere 1/8th of the $2 billion Pakistan gets from the United States.
Yemen becoming the new epicenter in the counter-insurgency war would be an element of joy in the Pakistani camp especially in terms of the negative publicity Pakistan has had in the past. In all fairness, Pakistan has been unlucky to be the poster child of the home of extremists in South Asia. The Mumbai attacks and the failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad may have given the international community a hunch that Pakistan is a sanctuary state for extremists. The unprecedented attention given to Yemen in recent months and the chattering from Al-Qaeda in Yemen would deflect the negative publicity from Pakistan and it would be no doubt a relief for Pakistanis who have seen their country unfairly savaged in the international press.
In the midst of all this changes lie some central questions. What does the center of gravity changes mean for Pakistan? Would this new changes reduce the CIA airstrikes in Pakistan? How does this affect the Pakistani-American relationship? While we may not know the answers to all these questions, it is fair to state that most Pakistanis would heave a sigh of relief and hope this would lead to a reduction in the drone strikes that has killed many civilians in Pakistan; after all the threat is shifting from Pakistan to Yemen. Unfortunately, this may not happen, why? There is an internal debate among U.S policy makers about the way the Yemeni threat and Pakistani threat can be handled simultaneously. Some of the policymakers are viewing Yemen as the new epicenter in the Global Counter Insurgency because they believe Al-Qaeda has been so decimated in the FATA region that its best bet is to activate its offshoot in Yemen. Some others view Yemen as the third of a concurrent two prong operation going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan with Yemen being the third. As the debates about making Yemen or Pakistan the priority goes on, the United States President, Barack Obama has not hidden his distrust for Pakistan. Woodward reports that the President stated that “We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan.” With this sort of statement, it is easier to understand why Obama has not hesitated to use the drones in Pakistan. In fact, he has been ruthless in using the drones than his predecessor, former President Bush, who was perceived as a war hawk.
Obama’s “cancer” view of Pakistan has shown that the United States would still maintain a high level of engagement with Pakistan both in military activities and through economic incentives, but at what price? Washington understands it cannot bomb its way out of these hydra headed problems, so the United States has been combining soft power with the bombing campaign. The elements of soft power was evident during the July 2010 flooding when American Chinook helicopters were dropping food and aid to victims of the catastrophe in the Sindh, Punjabi and Balochistan regions. It should be noted that all these doesn’t and wouldn’t translate into some cessation of the bombing campaigns, it basically reinforces the carrot and stick approach of the new counter-insurgency strategy currently deployed in the wars in Afghanistan which is spilling into Pakistan.
To sum up, the United States relationship with Pakistan is a complex simplicity. One in which the unknowns become knowns and the knowns become unknowns. The Obama administration’s bombing campaign has alienated the Pakistani citizenry from their government because the Pakistanis view their government as being complicit in this act. Yemen may be the new epicenter but from all indications the Obama administration has gone full throttle in using the drones in an unprecedented manner in Pakistan. Yemen’s ascension on the priority list of the United States doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Why? Pakistan’s intertwined relationship with the United States is addictive and akin to a battered and abused woman who lacks the gravitas to move on and move out of on abusive relationship. Pakistan is the battered party in this scenario and the United States is the party that comes back groveling and begging for one more chance. And just like a suitor asking for a woman’s hand in marriage, the United States has also treaded carefully not to offend Pakistan’s pride. Even during his trip to India where Obama needed Prime Minister’s Singh to open India’s market to America for job creation, Obama made sure he didn’t malign Pakistan, a country deemed as America’s only “indispensable ally” in South Asia. In all, the United States would definitely guarantee and cement Pakistan’s position as a regional player but at a very costly price. A costly price that would lead to the loss of more Pakistani civilian lives and at the same time guarantees an unfettered American access to some parts of Pakistani airspace. And what do the Pakistani people get? A mere pyrrhic victory and nationalistic statements that can only be whispered in social circles “thank goodness, it’s not Pakistan in the news again, but this time it’s Al-Qaeda in Yemen.” 
Sola Egunyomi is a member of the Council on Strategic and International Affairs and writes on U.S. foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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