Let’s get real on drones

Dharnas and resolutions notwithstanding, US will not stop using drones as it is the only means of war inside Pakistan.

The only sensible thing that came out of the recent 10-hour parliamentary session on the Abbottabad incident was the need to revisit the framework of Pakistan’s relationship with America; more so from the war against terror perspective. A majority of the Pakistanis driven to a frenzy of anti-Americanism in the backdrop of a universal embarrassment thought our response to mean a severing of relations with Washington. And in the same froth of patriotic fervour, teaching the infidel an abiding lesson by denying him the pleasure of not being able to interact with Pakistan, ever. This is crass miscalculation by people of the real value of both their froth and their grey matter.

Drones, too, pushed their way into the resolution willy-nilly. The PML-N lays exclusive claim to this achievement. And why? Because this is a sure-shot winner with public opinion when their bête noire, the PML-Q, has joined hands with the PPP — that is potential trouble and a hanging sword for the PML-N in Punjab — and Imran Khan’s PTI is seen to be buoyant on the back of some institutional propping. It is time for some desperate political measures and hence, the ‘drones’ and ‘trade not American aid’ slogans. Public opinion on both these matters is made more complicated on a daily basis by anchorpersons and their willing coterie of analyst, who take sides depending on which side their bread got buttered for breakfast.

Drones are not as complicated a case as the hours on the airwaves wasted to decipher the issue make them out to be. Immediately post- 9/11, the drones flew from the Pakistani bases given to the Americans. These were three in number, though not all of them operated drone flights. Their purpose, as known and understood by the Pakistani decision-makers, was surveillance alone — armed drones till then were not in use. This involved coordinating airways, allocating block-times for operations and cooperating and sharing intelligence information through agreed and specially-formed joint mechanisms. When Afghanistan was assuredly secured, the bases were reverted to Pakistan and operations relocated to Afghanistan. At around this time, the joint bodies formed to enable coordination were discontinued and, instead, two specified corridors for drone operations were allotted to the Americans. Around 2006, the Americans began arming their drones and the first victim was Nek Muhammad in South Waziristan. Till early 2007, most drone strikes were intimated to the Pakistani military authorities before engagement; and some even carried joint intelligence efforts. In 2007, under a US presidential decree, the sharing of such information was discontinued and Pakistanis were from then on kept in the dark. This was sure to irk the Pakistani military authorities and CIA-ISI relations went downhill from that point.

Dharnas and resolutions notwithstanding, the US will not stop using drones. In America’s war against terror, it remains their only means of war inside Pakistan, with some intelligence help that they have garnered through the Kerry-Lugar facilitation of their increased presence in these regions. We will not permit the Americans to put ‘boots on the ground’; that is our red line. So they remain tied to the drones, which continue to violate Pakistan’s national sovereignty since both the militants and the Americans have violated this notion with impunity.

So what are the solutions? Blustering will not work, so cut that out and stop misleading people and scoring pathetic brownie points. We should consider drones as a subset of the ‘reset’ relationship with America which, in any case, must be defined anew. Are we friends or mere acquaintances? Shall we remain a part of this war against terror, despite the fact that it cultivates more terrorism? Do we wish to remain a part of the global solution or become a part of the problem? Do we wish isolation for ourselves a la Iran and North Korea? What do we suggest as an alternate to the use of drones, since their use is indiscriminate? Shall we take on the task that America is currently doing with the drones? Make no mistake; we can shoot these drones down but then what of the morning after, or perhaps even the same night? This is realism. Idealism will get you only so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2011.