Another US drone strike, another round of condemnations within Pakistan.
The latest attack killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in
Balochistan leaving editorial pages wondering if the Pakistan government is
doing enough to convince the United States to wean off. The US’s strategy to
employ weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as
“drones,” to kill alleged terrorists in Pakistan has fueled
sustained controversy. Pakistani outrage on these signature and
personality strikes has steadily deepened because the last strike was
targeted within the territory of Pakistan and it has also galvanized a
vigorous debate within opposition political parties to curtail the
strikes.
The American use of drones against militants in Pakistan probably began
in 2004, with a strike in South Waziristan which targeted a militant
commander named Nek Mohammad. Drone use remained sporadic for several
years: between 2004 and 2007, there were only nine attacks. Yet the Bush
administration became increasingly convinced that drone attacks were an
effective way to defeat the militants in FATA, and in 2008, it launched
33 strikes, a major increase over previous years. When Barack Obama
became President, he substantially increased the use of drone strikes,
consistent with his strategic objective of defeating al Qaeda. In 2009,
there were 53 drone strikes; in 2010, the “year of the drone,” there
were 118 drone attacks; and in 2011, there were 70 drone attacks.
While the use of armed drones clearly antagonizes segments of Pakistan’s
polity, it is only one of several issues that have caused conflict
between Pakistan and the United States. Others include the sale of
F16’s, routing out Haqqani Network, and obstacles to the US-Afghan
government and Afghan Taliban peace talks. Sitting in the background
the infamous Raymond Davis affair of early 2011 and just as Washington
and Islamabad were getting beyond the Davis-related turbulence, the May
2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani cantonment town
of Abbottabad again rocked the relationship. As both countries struggled
to overcome the resulting frost in relations, the November
2011 US–NATO attack on a Pakistani military outpost at Salala, which
led to the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the US refusal to
apologize once more brought the relationship to the breaking point.
The latest US drone strike last Sunday in Baluchistan is being seen as a
violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and Pakistan’s civilian and
military leaders face mounting pressure to cease active cooperation with the
United States, including on the drone program.
Yet despite the many sources of tension in the US–Pakistan relations, the
latest drone attack has just added to the irritant. This view is
reinforced by the belief which is so pointless in pointing out that
most Pakistanis, Pakistani and Western media know
about the drone program and they overwhelmingly oppose it. Even
proponents of the drone program also suggest that the strikes help to
create more terrorists than they eliminate. Curiously, despite the
attention on the drone program in international media, the program,
which is conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), took shape during the tenures of Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf and President Bush. It was President Musharraf who
originally authorized the drone strikes, although he restricted their
use to FATA. In order to keep his authorization secret, it was agreed
then that Pakistan would “protest” such an ostensibly flagrant
violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Such may not be the case with the
army now.
It remains contested to what degree Pakistan’s previous government or
elements thereof continued to cooperate with the United States prior to
its term ending in March 2013. While US officials maintain that the
Pakistanis cooperate on selecting some targets, Pakistani civilian and
military officials insist that there is no cooperation and that the
attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty. Throughout much of the Bush
presidency, American drones were rarely employed in Pakistan, and thus,
Pakistan’s claims of responsibility were not robustly challenged. This
changed as drone strikes became increasingly common under the first
Obama administration and as Pakistan transitioned from a military
government led by President Musharraf to one that is nominally
democratic. It remains to be seen now that how would Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif and his Chief of army Staff General Raheel Shareef will contend
with the drone program.
In the wake of the latest drone attack, Pakistan civilian and military
stakeholders are under increasing pressure from a restive population to
decreasing cooperation with United States, including their facilitation of
the F16 aircrafts. From the US point of view, it may be enough that it
conducts drone operations in Pakistan with the continued support of
Pakistan’s intelligence agency and the army. But the drone program
raises many questions for Pakistan’s citizens. For one thing, people
routinely hear that politicians decry the drones, yet the strikes
continue which causes doubts that government is colluding with the
United States, but so far, except from the COAS General Raheel Shareef’s
forceful statement few government officials have strongly condemned US
drone operations.
Politicians remain silent, even as media reports continue to reveal the
degree to which the Pakistani civilian government and military have been
complicit in the program. Pakistanis, like Americans, are generally not
privy to details about the degree to which the Pakistani security
establishment collaborates with the United States on drone operations
and, like American opponents of the program, often object to it as a
violation of Pakistani sovereignty. Moreover, while political actors
publicly question the army’s right to sell Pakistan’s sovereignty to the
United States, US State Department cables released, without
authorization to Wikileaks, show that Pakistan’s current political
elites are at most indifferent to drone strikes, and that many, in fact,
support the program.
Pakistanis who oppose drone strikes offer numerous criticisms. First and
foremost is the issue of sovereignty and secondly, the drone strikes
violate domestic and international legal norms and are not
representative of the wishes of a democratically elected government. The
Parliament has made very public statements that drone strikes on
Pakistani soil are impermissible yet at the same time, there is evidence
that the Pakistani civilian leadership has privately conveyed to the
U.S. government that some strikes are okay raising troubling questions
about civil–military relations in Pakistan. Equally, Pakistanis are
kept in dark about who is targeted and with what actual outcome, and how
effective is the military campaign likely to be? In addition, how big of
an impact is it likely to have on counter-terrorism operations, with what
eventual effect upon Pakistani or US security?