Imran Khan asks, "Friends or Slaves?"

In his interview to BBC, broadcast in Japan on 27 May, Mr.Imran Khan, a great Pakistani cricketeer and now an opposition leader, was asking, "Are we America's friends or slaves?".
This is a very pertinent and timely question. Yes, Pakistan, or rather its government, was America's close friend, at least up to 9/11. Pakistan was useful, not only in the encirclement of the USSR. She was valuable in thwarting the often anti-American India. She was also a bridge between the US and China. The US made use of her to the best of her ability, except the decade after the collapse of the USSR. This was the period when the Taliban, with the collaboration of Pakistan, got hold of most of Afghanistan, and embraced Al-Qaida within its camp. Ahmed Rashid's monumental Taliban:Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia, 2000, has made it all clear.
But things changed after 9/11. On one hand Pakistan, under the US pressure, switched over to anti-terrorism in exchange for weapons, but on the other continued to ride on the political Ismam and even Al-Qaida to attack her enemies within and without. No doubt this has led to her two faces, 'the friends and slaves'. As long as this continues she will remain a magazine of Asia. Explosions are taking place every day inside and on the borders. People the world over are keenly aware that she is a nuclear power.
The proud Pakistanis are naturally anxious to get out of this. The key to doing so is to change relations with India, however difficult it may be to swallow it. I am not at all saying that India can remain as it is. But leaving aside India for a moment, Pakistan should stop sending snipers and the like to India including India-held Kashmir, and deprive Al-Qaida of the safe haven in her territory. That will be a sufficient first step. Remember the Indians' attitude is not always hostile to Pakistan. It can be even friendly. That is what I felt at a border-closing ceremony at Wagah, off Amritsar(from the Indian side), in 2008. The farmers in the Indian Punjab who live near the border very much want to sell their crops and vegetables at near-by Lahore rather than far-away Delhi. There is a large community of Indians of Pakistan origin, one Prime Minister among them, who are, by and large, surprisingly pro-Pakistan. And the common people are hungry for cricket matches, official or unofficial. You should get together to discuss Afghanistan not to fix spheres of influence but to cooperate to alleviate poverty there to bring about peace.
India is thus not a difficult problem. A far more difficult one is how to satisfy the legitimate demands of its Pashtun and Baloochi communities(see, for example, Rajmohan Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, 2004). For this Pakistan should organize herself into a democratic and federal set-up and treat them on a par with Punjabis and Sindhis. It will also soothe her relations with Iran. Thus she will be seen leading the way toward peace in the whole of South Asia.