It is characteristic of the Pakistani nation that confronted with danger of external aggression or the havoc caused by hostile elements of nature it closes ranks and gets united. The same is now in the making as sound of the drums of war beaten by its erstwhile sworn ally in the war against terrorism, the United States, gets louder by the day.
One by one, the American officials are threatening 'action' - a euphemism for military incursion including boots on the ground - against Pakistan for its alleged support to the Haqqani network. Pakistan will resist such an attack with full force that has been made abundantly clear and conveyed to Washington at various levels. And if any further assertion was required it was made over the weekend when Prime Minister Gilani called up the heads of parties and groups inside and outside the parliament, and the corps commanders met in a 'special' session for the whole day.
To meet sometime during the week, the political leaders are expected to deliberate on the severity of the threat and its consequences in all of its myriad dimensions to help forge a unified stand against this unprecedented challenge to national sovereignty and country's territorial integrity. Although there had been calls by various leaders for such a roundtable conference, the government was not inclined to do so.
That Prime Minister in consultation with President Zardari has called the conference and the army gave the US threat a serious consideration. These developments are strongly indicative of the mounting danger of aggression from across the western border.
Given that the national landscape is riddled with serious political dissension, and also that the alliance with the United States has never been a popular decision stitched as it was by a military dictator behind the back of the people of Pakistan, such moves aimed at articulating a unified national response had previously failed. And if at all there was nominal success, as was the case of two parliamentary resolutions against the CIA-operated drone attacks inside the Pakistani territory, the follow-up by the government was almost non-existent. Apparently, these resolutions were more a play to the gallery than an earnest decision to take on the Americans on an issue as critical as violation of country's airspace almost on a daily basis. But that kind of two-timing has passed as the threat of aggression now emanates from all across the American political spectrum.
If the Democratic Party-led Obama administration is considering all "various options" the Republicans have committed "a lot of bipartisan support" should the US Congress decide to take military action inside Pakistan to punish the Haqqani network. Perhaps, various diplomatic exchanges and direct military-to-military interaction over the contention as what to do with the Haqqanis have failed and things are now heading for a showdown.
Indeed, the severity of the threat posed by the United States leaves the Pakistani leadership and the people with no other option but to come together and put up a unified stand. The threat posed by the superpower is too grave to brook any attempt on the part of a party or a public leader to misuse the roundtable forum for point-scoring or by raising an ante with a message that the Pakistani people stand divided even in the face of mounting threat of naked aggression. It's the time to tell the world that Pakistanis have the inherent potential to rise to the challenge. But that doesn't mean that the line of action hammered out by the participants has to be an unrealisable bravo and suicidal.
The response has to be carefully calibrated in order that not only it reflects the Pakistani leadership's capacity to think through the issues dispassionately and decide them logically, but also that no one should detect any chink of discord in that stand of national unity and cohesion. But that said we still believe that confrontation is quite preventable. We expect the United States' political and military leaderships to accept ground-realities, as they tend to obtain in Afghanistan and in the light of that rethink their future strategy and line of action. Press-ganged into the US-led expedition Pakistan has already sacrificed everything - in terms of losses of life, damage to property, a grim law and order situation and economic inertia - but didn't run away from this odd friendship. But an aggression that would be surely the turning point in that relationship.