Questioning the wisdom and morality of continued drone strikes, in an address at the National Defence University on May 23 President Barack Obama announced “greater oversight and accountability” over the US’ secret drone programme. Under the new Presidential Policy Guidance, signed a day earlier, the Pentagon will take the lead with lethal drones, shifting from its current stewardship under the CIA.
A recent study by the law schools of NYU and Stanford concluded that drones traumatise civilians, breed radicalism, and kill just 2pc of high value targets. According to Senator Lindsey Graham, drone attacks over Pakistan’s tribal areas have killed 4,700 Pakistanis since 2004. Referring to disproportionate civilian casualties, Obama admitted: “No words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live.”
After the president’s announcement, the frequency of strikes is likely to markedly reduce. As he noted, after the US withdraws from Afghanistan in 2014, “we will no longer have the same need for force projection.”
Pakistanis are not pleased. The foreign office spokesperson said the strikes “are counterproductive, entail loss of innocent lives, and violate the principles of national sovereignty and international law”. With Pakistani sentiment, “fiercely against the drones”, Senator Mushahid Hussain, chairman of the Defence committee in Pakistan’s senate, said that Obama’s announcement “is not good enough unless there is a cessation of drone attacks”.
But a complete end to the attacks is unlikely, which puts Pakistan’s new leadership in a bind. Most Pakistanis believe the country’s increasing and violent militant factions are a consequence of an unpopular partnership with the US in the “war on terror”.
A relatively high voter turnout in the recent elections, at 55pc, compared to 44pc in 2008, overwhelmingly voted for two parties that loudly condemn the US drone attacks: the PML-N and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Both parties are against Pakistan’s participation in the US-led war, and want new terms of engagement with Washington.
Documents presented in Pakistan’s supreme court in March reveal that Pakistan has lost over 49,000 civilians, and its military has suffered 15,681 casualties fighting this war; the totals are many times greater than the combined losses of countries fighting. The damage to infrastructure has been staggering, and the devastation to the means of daily life have caused much of the social unrest which is now commonplace.
By voting for the two major parties opposed to this war, the Pakistani public has firmly demonstrated that it has no appetite for a US-sponsored military campaign.
Nawaz Sharif believes that drone strikes over tribal areas are a direct infringement of Pakistan’s sovereignty and must stop immediately. The continuation of the programme, albeit at reduced levels and under stricter guidelines, presents a challenge to Nawaz Sharif, especially in the face of Pakistan’s increasingly active media.
His political rival, Imran Khan, has vowed to shoot down drones and blames US actions for rising extremism. Both state publicly that fighting militants is not the way to resolve terrorism. For Sharif, “talks with Taliban [are the] only option.” Sharif should be mindful that earlier agreements with militants collapsed because Islamabad was not seen as having disassociated from the war. If the capital won’t distance itself, no agreement will hold.
For Pakistanis, drones demonstrate complicity in “America’s war”. Similarly, PTI emerged as the leading party in the sensitive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, which borders Afghanistan and is seeking talks with the militants.
The US will be worried with such an approach, especially if it leads to Pakistan’s army withdrawing, will create a vacuum in which the militants could easily exploit for attacks against coalition forces. But the army cannot keep sacrificing men in a war without end, and with little public backing. And Washington should be wary of the past repeating itself, when overland Nato supplies were torched on the road to Afghanistan, with, some allege, the implicit consent of Pakistan security forces. In the process of withdrawal, this would be a nightmare for the US.
Appeasing Washington by publicly condemning and privately condoning drone attacks, like the previous regime did, will shorten Sharif’s honeymoon with the people. There are layers of interests, both local and foreign, in Pakistan’s burgeoning militancy. Its current phase corresponds to the troubles in Afghanistan. Despite campaigning on a platform of opposition to “America’s war”, a visibly chastened Nawaz Sharif hinted, that he would support “our friends” the Americans as they prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Secretary John Kerry is due to visit Pakistan “to rebuild this important partnership” as soon as the new government is in place, in early June. Kerry’s meetings with the new leadership will test Washington’s willingness to work with Pakistan, rather than around them, on “issues of common interest”.
Pakistan, too, expects that its voice, expressed through an overwhelming vote, will be heard loud and clear, and that it will be respected in Washington. The drones must stop.
Sajjad Ashraf is an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. He served in the Pakistan Foreign Service from 1973-2008. –Guardian