Imran Khan's 'dharna'

Imran Khan's two-day sit-in ('dharna') in Peshawar over the weekend blocking the Nato supplies to Afghanistan is a fairly big media event, and so is its symbolic value in terms of people's annoyance with drone strikes that the CIA refuses to halt. But the event also brings under sharper focus the perplexity of the issue of drone attacks, especially as to why Pakistan hasn't so far been able to persuade the Americans to stop it.
Some questions at the end of any discussion on this would be: Do we really oppose these strikes? Or, is it the manner in which these take place that is not acceptable to Pakistan? Imran Khan has given a one-month notice to the CIA to stop drone attacks, failing which he would block all Nato supplies route and launch a 'march' towards Islamabad. But is it the Nato supplies that Pakistan would like to interdict? Perhaps, not.
Within hours of the end of the 'dharna', a local official announced that the supplies can be resumed through the Peshawar Ring Road. Apparently, there is some kind of anxiety on the part of the officials that supplies remain uninterrupted. The issue then is: What should be the modus operandi for the drones' attacks? Pakistan wants the ownership of these attacks in terms of timing, location and nature of target. Ideally, as President Zardari has said more than once, Pakistan be given drones; and there is some talk about lending some 85 short-range unarmed intelligence gathering hand-propelled drones that go by the name 'Raven'.
Of late, however, the growing Pak-US divergence on the use of drones as weapons of war against militants is the creeping perception that, perhaps, the CIA has succeeded in putting in place in the tribal region its own ground-based network which frees it of the need of any intelligence input from the Pakistani agencies.
The said perception is reportedly the outcome of decoding various messages found recorded on some of the cell phones that police recovered from CIA contractor Raymond Davis. Obviously, if that be the case the Pakistani intelligence agencies are bound to revisit the whole gamut of co-operative relationship in the operation in the tribal region. Short of such an exercise it would be naïve to think that the intelligence agencies of the two countries can trust each other and work together in pursuance of common goals.
If the CIA is committed to saving Americans' lives, the ISI's role shouldn't be expected to be in any way less committed to security and safety of the lives of Pakistanis. No wonder then that much of the sound and fury that we heard recently as American military leadership made way to Pakistan has been blown off the palm by their Pakistani counterparts. Pakistan has its own reading of the evolving Afghan saga and it should surprise no one if it pushes its own strategic objectives.
But somehow if the military leadership of Pakistan is clearly conscious of the subtleties of the endgame in Afghanistan its civilian counterpart is not. What does Prime Minister Gilani mean by approaching some common friends to persuade the United States to halt drone attacks when the culprit is its own strategic ally? Why should parliament not follow up on its resolution seeking immediate cession of drone attacks?
Ideally, the house could have gone for a deeper debate on the nature of drone attacks, mainly enlightened by the agencies' inputs and briefings. Once the resolution against drones was adopted unanimously the parliament was required to ensure that it was followed through resolutely. But, it appears, the question of national sovereignty was taken rather lightly; a fact to some extent established by the absence of most vocal opponents of drone attacks like Jamaat-i-Islami from the 'dharna'.
That some maverick politicians turned up at Imran's sit-in while their parties held back speaks of the lack of interest in an issue which has a direct bearing on the country's sovereignty. Perhaps, for the country's political leadership issues like more provinces, 'national government' and how to rescue some prodigal sons are more important than turmoil in our tribal region. It's for the government to take lead in securing peace in the areas the military has retrieved from militancy, because the military can do only that much.