How sweet of Donald Trump not to forget about us. For a while, the fear was real. We thought that he was too busy blowing up Afghanistan — more than 450 bombs were dropped in that country, including the ‘mother’ of them all — to remember that it was us who put the Pak in Af-Pak. But we needn’t have fretted quite so much. Just a couple of weeks ago and the whole world was looking on as the US detonated the largest non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan, not too far from our shared border. Admittedly, Trump has much to do to make us feel as special as our neighbours next door. Thus far, two drone strikes in two months doesn’t really do much to reassure us that we are forever in his heart and mind. Yet, not unlike British Rail, we are getting there. We have upped our game with the help of our media that stands for compliance rather than freedom when it comes to winning the ratings war. The latest strategic manoeuvre in this regard comes in the form of a one-time Tehreek-i-Taliban and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesperson and his much-touted interview-that-never-was with a major private television channel. Since his sudden and unexpected surrender to the Pakistan Army, the security establishment has been keen to showcase this ‘reformed asset’. He provides ‘proof’, they say, of foreign intelligence agencies’ nefarious plots to destabilise this country. This is a line that Pakistan has been shouting itself hoarse over for . . . well, forever. It seems that Trump has finally begun to listen. Prior to the first two strikes of his administration, the last US drone to hit Pakistani soil was successfully aimed at taking out the then head of the Afghan Taliban. That was last May. That the US conducts targeted assassinations that may or may not be in our best interests is nothing new. Indeed, former ministers of the Musharraf regime have claimed that the President-General had thrice approached Washington with the coordinates of Baitullah Mehsud, the then TTP chief. Yet the US struck not when the iron was hot, but when the militant strongman threatened to strike the American homeland. Thus Trump’s two recent strikes are likely a promise of things to come. Meaning that by boasting of ‘proof’ of the hitherto invisible foreign hand at play, Pakistan might well be inviting the US to strike at the tail of the snake, not just its head. For the US, like any other country, is only out to serve its own interests. We have been here before. *