Hillary Clinton has again given critical statements to the Indian NDTV against Pakistan while talking about her new memoir ‘Hard Choices’. Her book, to be honest, is short on news, but it makes clear the tilt in American foreign policy and American distrust of Pakistan. The memoir is said to show the softer side of Clinton, but for the people in Pakistan her feminine gusto and diplomatic capers are irrelevant. Most of us are just going to flip to the chapter about Osama bin Laden to read explicitly what we knew anyway. She says that during the time of the killing of Osama bin Laden, they were very suspicious of the ISI and knew that the ISI maintained ties with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other extremists. And that it was clear for President Obama that the option to cooperation with Pakistan was off the table. When concerns were raised about humiliating Pakistan, she exploded and said, “What about our national honor? What about going after the man who killed three thousand innocent people?”
With such blatant statements, it is clear that there is no friendship between Pakistan and the US. While the relationship between Pakistan and extremist elements is arguably kept alive for “strategic depth”. America has also kept up its pretentious relationship with Pakistan for its own strategic depth. Hillary Clinton since her “do more” days has been shouting this out to us, we are part of a puzzle that the US is trying to solve for itself. She has already been airing views that differ from Obama’s and has a harder stance on terrorism. This poses questions about what direction the US policy will take if she wins the 2016 elections. With Clinton being so grave about Pakistan’s ‘mistakes’, will there be a reckoning?
America can always be criticized for its role in destabilsing the region, but that’s all we can do to the US… criticize it. We have too much trouble on our hands and too far to go to become self-sufficient and self-reliant. Pakistan has to stop getting itself into ideological corners and religious debates and make realist policy to ensure national security. It should not be a fatwa that makes a military operation legitimate, but the fact that it’s an army operation and the army is an executive arm of the government. The US has been doing “national security” for decades, smashing any threats like flies. National security issues, whether Zarb-e-Azb, polio, child marriage, police brutality, Kargil or Kashmir have to be about keeping the Pakistani people alive and doing the best for their livelihoods, rather than about political ambition and winning theological battles.