Pakistan’s Protests Against US Strikes Fall on Deaf Ears

As the US strikes continue, so do Pakistan’s complaints about them. At a meeting last week with General David Petraeus, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari cautioned that the US strikes were causing a credibility gap, as the Pakistani government struggled to explain why one of its closest allies was continuing to launch attacks on their territory in spite of repeated warnings. Of course, that warning, as all the others, fell on deaf ears.

The warnings have been so harsh and the repeated attacks so brazen, that it has even sparked rumors that the Pakistani government is trying to pull a fast one: publicly condemning the strikes while having a “secret understanding” with the US that would allow them to continue. Pakistan has denied any such understanding.

And with Tuesday Presidential election in the books, Pakistan’s hope that the next US administration will be more receptive to complaints about the unilateral strikes seems to have flown out the window. President-elect Obama had been advocating strikes inside Pakistan for over a year prior to the election.