America Needs Pakistan

Thank you, Hillary Clinton! For the first time, Clinton has realized that Pakistan will not do everything that America says and that it demands the respect that a sovereign nation deserves. She shared these sentiments in an address at a Washington D.C. university. Leon Panetta also attended and he, too, acknowledged that, despite the difficulties, good relations with Pakistan are absolutely necessary to America.

America’s anger toward Pakistan is nothing new. The sentiment simmered from 1965 to 1971, when the relationship between India and Pakistan reached a particularly weak point. They acted against us in the 1990s, as well as when we were becoming a nuclear state. But their anger did not prevent us from achieving our goals. We have survived through the years. Certain pessimistic and misguided individuals in our country say that we cannot succeed without America. The general public knows that we have survived, despite all our shortcomings and failures.

When Mao Zedong came into power in China, America didn’t like it. America did not want any countries to have relations with China without consulting them first. We ignored America’s wishes and became great friends with China. This relationship has only strengthened over the years; we have always helped the Chinese.

We became a nuclear state, even in the face of former President Clinton’s outrageous pressure on us. Not only did we become a nuclear state, we built better nuclear weapons than India. We did this in the face of all the obstacles that the Americans threw our way.

We do not need America to succeed. We have never needed America. It is America that needs us. Nixon knew this, and so did Reagan (as evidenced during the Cold War) and Clinton. Now Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta are also acknowledging this truth.

So, then, what is our problem? Why are our politicians, bureaucrats, army generals and intellectuals so afraid of America? Why do they enjoy America’s insults and abuses so much? Yes, our society is riddled with grave problems, such as poverty, hunger, lack of electricity, unemployment and a poor economy, but we can only deal with these problems if we have dignity and self-respect.

If President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Director-General of the ISI General Ahmad Shuja Pasha have demanded that they be treated with respect and have refused to obey America’s every command, why should this be made into such a big deal? We have not had drone attacks in Islamabad and our country is relatively safe. We have never needed America. It is America that has always needed us. And it has acknowledged as much now. Unfortunately, leaders such as General Parvez Musharraf have been telling us that we depend on America, but this has never been true.

Pakistanis do not want to fight unnecessarily with Americans. We are not against good relations with America. However, we want to have relations with an America that is a friend, not a bully; we want relations with an America that advises us, not one that acts as a stubborn parent. These are not unreasonable demands. I hope that our politicians, leaders and intellectuals realize what Hillary Clinton has already realized: It is not Pakistan that needs America, but America that needs Pakistan. Unfortunately, it seems that Allah has not given these people hearts and minds through which they can think and act sensibly.