The ally we rely upon to save our bacon in Afghanistan
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 12:07AM 
NYT story about Pakistan's vibrant and debilitating conspiracy culture.
America competes with India and Israel as the source of all perceived woes and indignities and injustices in Pakistan--in addition to the wider Muslim world.
This is the country we're betting on to make our withdrawal from Afghanistan work.
Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.”
That is seriously infantile thinking from a group one would assume represents the best thought leadership in the country.
But it appears to be perfectly acceptable public dialogue inside Pakistan.
“When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America,” said Shaista Sirajuddin, an English professor in Lahore.
The problem is more than a peculiar domestic phenomenon for Pakistan. It has grown into a narrative of national victimhood that is a nearly impenetrable barrier to any candid discussion of the problems here. In turn, it is one of the principal obstacles for the United States in its effort to build a stronger alliance with a country to which it gives more than a billion dollars a year in aid.
The crux of the problem:
It does not help that no part of the Pakistani state — either the weak civilian government or the powerful military — is willing to risk publicly owning that relationship.
One result is that nearly all of American policy toward Pakistan is conducted in secret, a fact that serves only to further feed conspiracies. American military leaders slip quietly in and out of the capital; the Pentagon uses networks of private spies; and the main tool of American policy here, the drone program, is not even publicly acknowledged to exist.
The sad truth is that we are limited in our interactions with Pakistan to the tools and methods employed by that regime in its governance of the country.
The alternative is India, which has its own psychological peculiarities, like any long-abused colony.
But there are nothing in comparison, and virtually all of India's internal evolutions are trending in the right direction--unlike Pakistan, which seems to be regressing by the day (despite its bright future of just a few years ago). Some of that dynamic, stretching back decades now, can certainly be blamed upon the United States.
But it would appear that we are past the point of reason with this "ally."
Reader Comments (3)
Pakistan has a split personality.ME leaning , Central Asian fantasies and South East Asian geography.
The middle classes are religiously conservative and the explosion of the free media has created a toxic cloud of insighful comspiracy 'uncles' over the airwaves.
The psychic stress of passionately duelling India and being dragged through the 911 aftermath has created an incoherent 'mind set'..
A nuclear weaponised patient who refuses to get out of bed.......hard to reason with...let along prescribe medicine to.
In the long haul....India's rise will force Pakistan to up its game.
So I pray for Indias continued rise and power.Thats Paks only game changer.
Where in the world would two allies...nuclear allies... have bombing runs actively planned against each other ..Time squares vs Drones ...and the population of Pakistan believe that both are US-Israeli -Indian hidden hands.
Playing victim is the Pak's public subconscious admission that they have no say ..no power...no voice in their own affairs.
For years the US has been giving to Pakistan and now we are the bad guys.
For more years I have wondered about the process of giving and receiving. I posit that giving tends to brutalize the giver and receiving tends to infantilize the receiver. I have noticed this especially IRT the task of social work. Commonly overlooked, I believe it is a dynamic in every g/r relationship.
Better is the business rule set of 'something for something.'
Apply this to the current dilemma IRT Israel.
Not Just Pakistan ...
It's a shame that popular political culture often bows to the same infantilism that's on display in Pakistan. Postmodernism, identity politics and anti-globalism see societies as made up of oppressors and the oppressed. In this atmosphere, political discourse becomes a "narrative of ... victimhood" and is certainly "a nearly impenetrable barrier to any candid discussion of the problems..."
The Pakistanis aren't as backward as we might accuse them of being.