PML(N) Quaid Mian Nawz Sharif has told the new US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, that the USA was in a position to play an active role in bringing stability and peace to the region, and has called on it to play that role. When Ambassador Munter called on him and his brother, Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif, at their Raiwind residence on Saturday, Mian Nawaz observed that the USA, being a friend to both India and Pakistan, could play that role. He also told the new Ambassador that one way of reducing the trust deficit was for the USA to stop the drone attacks. Mian Nawaz was speaking not just as the leader of Pakistan's largest opposition party but also as a former Prime Minister with prospects of returning to office and thus guiding his country's diplomacy once again. Thus, he spoke of the USA's ties with Pakistan in terms of the positives rather than the totality, such as encouraging trade not aid, by investing in the crucial sectors of power, energy, education, and agriculture. He was speaking at a time when President Barack Obama was visiting India, when he said that President Obama would have to remove the reservations of the Pakistani people. The USA must not think that the ending of the drone attacks will even stop US violations of Pakistani sovereignty. For that, the USA must wrap up all operations in Pakistan by private firms like Dyncorp and Xe International (Blackwater). More important, Pakistan must be left to stop behaving as if its laws do not apply to US citizens, and thus restore a semblance of the equality that is supposed to exist between two separate and independent states. The USA should also keep in mind that its illegal occupation of Muslim lands, like Iraq and Afghanistan, and its support for other illegal Occupiers, like India in Kashmir or Israel in Palestine, has hardly endeared it to the Pakistani people. This should have been conveyed forcefully by Mian Nawaz, who should have made it clear to the new Ambassador that he would have to deal with this issue as well, if he wished to make any progress in improving ties.