ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—We knew there will be consequences. But not this fast.  Pakistan
stood firm as it received Mr. Holbrooke and Adm. Mullen last week. The
payback, it appears, came in swift succession: Balochistan erupted in
violence, and America’s B-team – Britain and India – chipped in to
unsettle Pakistan’s weak rulers:  Britain
suddenly discovered a “very big” terrorist plot involving two dozen
Pakistani students, and India claimed the Afghan Taliban were planning
to sabotage Indian elections.

 

We in Pakistan have been seeing this pattern over the past seven years of our Afghan-occupation alliance with Washington that we can now detect it with a naked eye. As always, the usual suspects are again putting Pakistan on the defensive on issues on which they can furnish no evidence.

 

Washington
can offer no evidence that OBL is in Balochistan [more on Balochistan
in a moment]. The Brits can offer no evidence linking Pakistani
students to what a British policeman described as a “very big”
terrorist plot. Since there is no evidence, Britain
has decided to arbitrarily deport the kids because British courts won’t
be convinced and the plot theory won’t stick. And there is no way that
Indian Premier Manmohan Singh’s election campaign firecracker about a
Taliban attack on India can be verified or proven.

 

What is definite, however, is that the dramatic British and Indian claims came on the heels of Mr. Holbrooke’s bumpy visit to Pakistan and served no purpose – in the absence of evidence – except to increase pressure on Pakistan.  Islamabad has asked London and New Delhi
for evidence. In case adequate proof is not furnished, Prime Minister
Gilani’s government should not hesitate in asking Washington to
restrain itself and its regional watchdogs from deliberate demonization
campaigns against Pakistan that arise every time someone here tries to
show some spine. Examples of this type of blackmail are rampant in the
seven years of bad experience that Pakistan has had with the U.S. in Afghanistan.

 

Balochistan
is an example of this blackmail, a Pakistani province that is in the
throes of a terrorist insurgency, remote-controlled from Afghanistan. The ugly murder of three Pakistani Baloch political activists and then the immediate reaction by the U.S. embassy, which appeared to complicate an already explosive situation, are intriguing to say the least.

 

John
Solecki, an American citizen and U.N. official, was kidnapped by
terrorists trained and financed by Brahamdagh Bugti who was last
sighted in Kabul. Indian ‘diplomats’ in the Afghan capital are some of his most frequent visitors. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad knows very well about Mr. Bugti’s activities. So do senior U.S. officials since Pakistan
did share startling information with them on this subject. Mr. Bugti, a
Pakistani citizen, enjoys Indian and Afghan safe houses provided by
elements in the Karzai government in return for helping recruit young
Pakistanis to wage war against their own country exploiting legitimate
grievances. The three murdered activists were in contact with all
parties including Pakistani security officials during the effort to
secure the American’s release. Pakistani intelligence agencies do not
gain anything from kidnapping the three, killing them and then throwing
the bodies in full public view.  If anything,
the murder of the three activists was designed to create forward motion
for the terrorist insurgency and put the Pakistani government in the
dock.  Contrary to the anti-state propaganda
that seeks to exploit this incident, information suggests that the
three activists became privy to a lot of information about the captors
and their chain of links outside Pakistan.
The contacts that developed between the three activists and Pakistani
security officials during the negotiations apparently unnerved the
shadowy captors.  Multiple parties benefited
from the murder of the three politicians and our security agencies are
the least of these beneficiaries.

 

This
is why the calls by some opportunists for a U.N. investigation are
malicious to say the least. And equally reprehensible is the statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad on Apr. 9 that appeared to provoke the inflamed sentiments and pour fuel on fire. For Islamabad to allow such naked displays of challenge to its authority sends a message of weakness and invites more outside interference.

 

This whole regional dynamic can be traced to a core issue: Pakistan’s right to decide its national interest. For the United States to mislead Pakistan
after 9/11 and turn the Afghan soil over to anti-Pakistan players in
the region is not what we signed up for. It is preposterous for Washington to unleash a media campaign that portrays Pakistan and its intelligence operatives as supporters of extremism.  National
institutions are not purveyors of any ideology. They simply protect the
nation’s interest using multiple tools. Imagine us in Pakistan launching a media campaign to expose how the CIA funded and armed Nicaragua’s rightwing Contra rebels in advanced terrorism tactics in the 1980s. Or how the U.S. proxy, the Unita rebels in Angola, planted landmines whose victims’ count today begins at 15,000 amputees.

 

The only way forward is for Washington to mind its Pakistani ally’s interests as it consolidates its own position in the region. Pakistan will not submit to Indian regional hegemony simply because that suits U.S. interests in this point in time.

 

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