Pakistan: PTI’s gimmick

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) staged a sit-in in Peshawar Saturday to initiate an anti-drone campaign countrywide. Sunday saw Lahore, Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) mobilised against drone strikes by PTI and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), while the NATO trucks were stopped at Torkham. In his speech to the participating protestors, Chairman PTI Imran Khan expectedly accused the US of sabotaging peace in Pakistan by throwing a spanner in the works of the peace process the government had decided to pursue with the terrorists. He accused the PML-N government at the same time of selling Pakistan short by not standing up to the US on the issue of drones. The panacea to every ill confronting Pakistan, according to Imran, lies in the US's complete withdrawal from the region and allowing Pakistan to follow its own destiny. Pressurising the US to halt drone strikes in Pakistan through blocking NATO supplies has not produced this result in the past and is unlikely to do so now. The supply lines at present are being used more to transport goods out of Afghanistan then sending them in. For Imran Khan, who had repeatedly demanded of the US to leave the region, this was not the time to put hurdles in the way of the NATO supply route. And if Imran Khan is not playing to the gallery, which everyone believes he is, then how does he justify the registration of a First Information Report on the drone strike in Hangu against 'unknown' persons? Is the KP government, run by the PTI, really 'oblivious' of the identity of the 'culprit'? The US is assisting the KP government through different financial aid and grant programmes, running into millions of dollars. Imran cannot run away from the allegation of playing a double game by simply saying that those were the former government’s initiatives. He can stop these as well, just as he thinks he could block the NATO supply route forever. Therefore Imran’s position on drone strikes is tilted inwards — to save the KP government from taking the direct heat of its inability to stem terrorism. The US’s position on drones is clear. They are raining hell on our country because the terrorists dangerous to the safety of the world are provided safe havens here. We had the option to eliminate them ourselves so as to avoid the question of violation of sovereignty and hold our head high in the comity of world nations. Instead, we chose to follow a policy of duality that has irretrievably weakened our case in the eyes of the world. Are we in a position to strike down the drones as is being demanded by PTI and the JI? Such affronts in the relationship with the US are even avoided by a Europe shocked by the extensive US surveillance programme over them. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, having every right to be offended by the US snooping (the US tapped her phones from 2002 until this summer) has been hesitant to show her anger beyond making a call to Obama to register her protest. She has been reported as saying that “The transatlantic alliance remains of utmost importance to us Germans.” Does Pakistan stand anywhere near Germany in terms of economic power? In fact our economic survival depends on the IMF’s assistance. We need donor agencies and lending institutions to reform our balance sheet. And all this cannot happen without the US’s approval. Realism calls for honest, pragmatic and sustainable assessment of the problem. Can Imran or his party stop NATO supplies forever throughout the country or for that matter force the US to stop drone strikes? Falling under the purview of foreign policy, this is in any case the constitutional prerogative of the federal government alone, a consideration that has kept the KP government from joining the protest in Peshawar. Imran’s accusations against the government, especially hitting the prime minister for bowing too low to the US, could at best be viewed as emotional rhetoric but not a sane man’s view. The government knows that the rage over the drone strikes is largely impotent unless the US is punished, something a country like Pakistan can only think of at the peril of the exacerbation of its political and economic weaknesses, while getting more isolated or maybe actually pushed into the Stone Age.