Another US drone strike, another round of condemnations within Pakistan. The latest attack killed the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in Balochistan leaving editorial pages wondering if Pakistan government is doing enough to convince the United States to wean off. US’s strategy to employ weaponised unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, to kill alleged terrorists in Pakistan has fuelled 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 galvanised 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 that targeted a militant commander, Nek Mohammad. Drone use remained sporadic for several years, as 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 militants in the FATA, and in 2008, it launched 33 strikes, a major increase compared to previous years. When Barack Obama became the president, he substantially increased the use of drone strikes, consistent with his strategic objective of defeating the al-Qaeda. In 2009, there were 53 drone strikes; in 2010 dubbed 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 antagonises 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 F16s, routing out the 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 apologise once more brought the relationship to the breaking point. Latest US drone strike, last Sunday, in Balochistan 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 programme.
Yet despite the many sources of tension in US-Pakistan relations, the latest drone attack has just added to the irritant. This view is reinforced by the belief that not only does most Pakistanis but also the western and Pakistani media know about the drone programme and they overwhelmingly oppose it. Even proponents of the drone programme suggest that strikes help to create more terrorists than they eliminate. Curiously, despite the attention on the drone programme in international media, the programme, which is conducted under the auspices of the US Central Intelligence Agency took shape during the tenures of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and US President George W Bush. It was President Musharraf who originally authorised drone strikes, although he restricted their use to the FATA. In order to keep his authorisation 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 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 how Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif would contend with the drone programme.
In the wake of the latest drone attack Pakistan civilian and military stakeholders are under increasing pressure from a restive population to decrease cooperation with the United States, including their facilitation of 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 programme 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 for General Sharif’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 programme. Pakistanis, like Americans, are generally not privy to details about the degree to which Pakistani security establishment collaborates with the United States on drone operations and, like American opponents of the programme, often object to it as a violation of sovereignty of Pakistan. 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 authorisation, to Wikileaks show that Pakistan’s current political elites are at most indifferent to drone strikes, and that many, in fact, support the programme.
Pakistanis who oppose drone strikes offer numerous criticisms. First and foremost is the issue of sovereignty, and secondly, drone strikes violate domestic and international legal norms and are not representative of the wishes of a democratically elected government. Parliament has made very public statements that drone strikes on Pakistani soil are impermissible yet at the same time there is evidence that Pakistani civilian leadership has privately conveyed to the US 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 military campaign is likely to be. In addition, how big of an impact is it likely to have on counterterrorism operations, and with what eventual effect upon Pakistani or US security.
The writer is a professor of psychiatry and consultant forensic psychiatrist in the UK. He can be contacted at [email protected]