Dr Haider Medhi Scott Anderson, a 50 year-old American, has finally filed for divorce after 30 years of marriage to his high school sweetheart. The time has come to make this final choice - before it is too late. Otherwise our humane emotional demise is in sight, says Anderson. We will stay friends, though, without intervention, coercion, subjection, manipulation, one-sided demands, animosity, malice and malignant harm coming in each others way and affairs. I have realised that equality and mutual respect for each others rights has been missing in our relationship. Out of this binding relationship, as friends and equals, we will work towards that goal of respectability, and fairness, pleaded Anderson in court. What is true of Andersons three-decade marriage is perhaps true of the Pakistan-US alliance of 60 years. The time has arrived for Pakistan to make a final choice for the annulment of its present relationship with the Americans and work towards equality, mutuality, balance, evenness, equivalence, and parity in its long and counterproductive association with the US. And Pakistan must ponder the options that are available to it as procreative assets in diplomacy and inter-state alliance in the contemporary global-political landscape so as to take determined political and strategic steps towards the annulment of its longstanding subservient relationship with the US and its Western allies. In the context of the dialectical relationship between past and present, the US has inflicted ideological, social, cultural, military and psychological tensions and troubles on this nation and its people. Now finally this futile and obsequious relationship has resulted in the present-day 'all-too-obvious political neurosis of the entire Pakistani nation. The American alliance with Pakistans ruling elite (as opposed to people-centric policies) over a period of 60 years has driven this country to a gradual, but certain political abyss and an externally controlled and managed self-destruction by default. What Pakistani people want is prosperity, peace, self-respect, dignity, sovereignty, stability, socio-cultural advancement, economic progress, ideological freedom, internal independence, and an independent foreign policy with a free hand in the development of a stable and peaceful global system in which billions of Muslims and their nations are represented, accepted and treated with equality, dignity, fairness, accommodation and co-existence. Unfortunately, what we as a nation have received from our traditional friends, the US/West, is quite the opposite. We have been imposed upon with military dictatorships engineered and planned in Washington and London. We, as a nation, have been forced to accept politically manipulated sham democracies in the past and most recently the US-brokered NRO leadership. Our nationalist leaders, since 1951, have been assassinated: starting with the fiercely independent Pakistani PM Liaquat Ali Khan to the most recent gunning down of Benazir Bhutto. We have been coerced into regional pacts against other nations and their ideological doctrines, and against those non-capitalist countries that were pursuing peaceful internal reforms and plans for the advancement of their own people and the elimination of their nations poverty. We have been used in proxy wars in the service of US/West capitalism and its worldwide political-economic-military domination. We have been repeatedly asked to accept and promote American unipolar control and power in global affairs. In the USs latest post-9/11 geopolitical tirade (atrocious) we have been told to admit that we are our own enemies and the enemies of the entire world community. Concurrently, in the latest American ideological war, we the Muslims, have replaced the US self-fabricated communist menace. It is now an Islamiphobia threat, deliberately orchestrated by the US political establishment to politically manipulate and economically-militarily exploit the rich resources and vast markets of the Islamic nations in Central Asia - all at the expense of the indigenous people of these countries and in the interest of US/Western multinational corporations. Ironically, Pakistan - the gateway to Central Asian resources - is the recipient of a very special US treatment: We are now the new US/Wests self-invented 'demons. We are told that we must kill our own citizens and admit we are a threat to ourselves. We are regularly reminded to believe that our very conception as a nation was flawed. We are unabatedly advised that we need a fresh approach to evaluate our ideological existence as a nation. We are constantly told that we are the most dangerous country on the planet earth threatening world peace and stability. And concurrently and suddenly, our entire country is an inferno of organised violence, suicide bombings, drone attacks, Blackwater mercenaries, roadside blasts, and unending events of terror and destruction. Does it ring a bell? Consider Americas history of political destabilisations, covert military operations and blatant wars against many nations: Iran, Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, Columbia, Salvador, Bolivia, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the list is endless. The march of American capitalism has been brutal, merciless, and lethal. It is not going to be any different in Pakistan So, for Pakistan, the time has arrived to make a choice. Do we continue on the present course of our political alliance with the US or do we make a choice for change? This is a question that is fundamental to our continued existence and ultimate survival as a nation Consider the following in the US strategic doctrine and tactical approach in its latest foreign policy affirmations for the management of global-political affairs. India has been elevated to a special status in the US-Indo alliance. The US will provide civilian and military nuclear hardware to India. On the other hand, Pakistan, the traditional ally, deserves none of the same. The US military and political establishment is working tirelessly and relentlessly to shape a major Indian presence in Afghan affairs. Consequently, Pakistan will have its number one adversary, politically and militarily, dug-in firmly on two of its sensitive borders. Moreover, in a parallel political manoeuvre, Pakistan is accused of not doing enough for American interests. The do more mantra is a daily demand on Pakistan. In the broader spectrum of political hypocrisy and contradiction and in spite of the Hindu juntas frequent organised violence against Indian Muslims, Christians and other minority groups and the Indian militarys massive repression and killings of Kashmiri Muslims, the US claims that India is the undisputed beacon of peace and stability, and a democratic model for the world. While Pakistan, the Americans say, exports terrorism and is the hub of global terrorist training. Let us, for the sake of argument, suggest that all of the contemporary terrorist acts in Pakistan are the work of external actors adept at managing organised violence in other countries to suit their global-political agendas. In Pakistans case, the planned destabilisation of the country can provide immense military-political strategic benefits to the US-NATO alliance in its hegemonic global approach, specifically its military-economic objectives, in Central Asia. Even more convincing is the fact that Balochistans Gwadar Port can be a forward naval and air force base for the US-NATO forces against Chinas rising economic and political power in world affairs. The vital question is: Is the above-mentioned scenario far-fetched? Isnt it understandable why the US is focused on marginalising Pakistan? Contemporary American political conduct is a mirror reflection of its future intentions. I think it all makes absolute sense The fact of the matter is that Pakistan is at a crossroad. Its survival is in jeopardy. It is being politically challenged by a colossal merciless global power determined to undo its sovereign existence. On top of that, the irony is that the incumbent political leadership in Pakistan is clueless to the long-term US/Wests 21st century worldwide political objectives and its imperialist agenda. Indeed, because of the NRO, the present leadership in Pakistan is in cahoots with the US. Scott Anderson is justified in his views when he says that a failed relationship is an impediment to self-actualisation. Pakistan is failing - it is so because it is stuck in a destructive relationship with the US and its Western allies It is time for Pakistan to make a choice - before it is too late - a possible existential demise is staring us in the face Henry Kissinger once stated: To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Rightly said The writer is an academic, political analyst and conflict-resolution expert. Email: hl_mehdi@hotmail.com