POREG VIEW:  On January 11, even as Pakistan army is locked in a stand off with the Zardari-Gilani combine, the United States resumed its drone attacks over the country’s tribal region, which is considered as the militant haven. The drone fired two missiles at a militant compound in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency. Four militants were killed.

While Pakistan media and official news agencies reported the drone strike, there was no formal reaction as yet from either the army or the government. Strangely, mainline political parties have also not offered a quick byte. This is interesting because the US-Pakistan relations have deteriorated since the November 26 attack by US/NATO forces on a Pakistan border post that killed 24 Pakistan soldiers. The all-powerful army used the resultant public outrage to force the US to vacate the Shamsi air base from where the drones used to take off for raids on tribal areas.

So much so, the January 11 drone fare raises several questions, like, for instance, shall Pakistanis take the establishment’s word on its face value on matters American. Is the GHQ in Rawalpindi really keen on breaking off relations with Washington? This question demands an immediate answer as the army chief Gen Pervez Kayani has made a much publicized visit to China and his PR managers projected the visit as antidote to the complications in the US-Pak equation.

Whether the drone strike presages a new round of strikes on Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants based in the Af-Pak border or whether the hit was new expression of President Obama’s resolve to demonstrate to his home audience that his foreign policy is indeed not a failure are relevant but not important.  

What is important, however, is that the two drone strikes took place in the wake of reports in the American media (NYT to be precise) that the pause in the CIA missile strikes is offering greater freedom of movement to insurgents. The nearly two-month lull in the drone hits was the longest in Pakistan in more than three years.

It doesn’t demand much intelligence to say that the lull has allowed al-Qaeda and others to regroup. The CIA had frozen drone strikes to avoid matters worse pending a wide ranging review by Pakistan of its security relationship with the US. Obviously, the Americans have an urgency to hit at the militant groups, who, going by reports in Pakistan media, have begun to patch up their differences to take on their common enemy.

The recent flurry of diplomatic activity between Islamabad and Washington and visits of high ranking NATO officials to the GHQ in Rawalpindi should be taken as signs of improvement in the ‘climate’. And Pakistan army chief Kayani is not against drone strikes, which for him, are no more than outsourcing security drill in Waziristan. His anti-American plank had nothing to do with these strikes. It was more a reaction to the sneaking of CIA personnel into Pakistan bypassing the GHQ and putting tabs on ISI plans and planks on its very own home turf.  

This is the reason why Kayani’s establishment had kicked up a row over Raymond Davis, a CIA contract employee. Davis allowed himself to become a Kayani target when he opened fire on those shadowing him in Lahore.  Hussain Haqqani, the soft spoken journalist turned diplomat became a marked man because he had issued ‘hundreds of visas’ to Americans without security check from Rawalpindi. The Memogate is only a ruse. Its real target is not President Zardari or Prime Minister Gilani but Haqqani. That is the reason why there is no breakdown of communications between PPP and GHQ notwithstanding the rumours and speculations being churned out in Islamabad and Karachi.

The Americans, who along with Allah and Saudi Arabia have been holding the key to Pakistan, have shown no undue concern over the coup rumours. Instead, the Americans delivered their usual homily on democracy.

The point, therefore, is that the Jan 11 drone hits were with the full knowledge of the GHQ and perceptions and appearances are deceptive when the players are from Pentagon and Rawalpindi.  Is this reason enough for Pakistan’s western neighbour, India, to put itself on notice? Well, experience shows that India has no reason to lower its guard whatever be the atmospherics.