By Imtiaz Ali
It has been just over a year since U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the Special Operations team of U.S. Navy Seals to conduct a unilateral operation against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. But the operation, while a major victory for Obama in the so-called War on Terror, further complicated an already teetering relationship with Pakistan. True, the relationship was already in trouble. But a year on and it’s clear the bin Laden operation only added fuel to the fire.
Despite Islamabad’s persistent denials that bin Laden was in the country, he was found in a house in a garrison town. For Washington, the next puzzle to solve was the nature of Pakistan’s military “understanding” with bin Laden. Either the military was complicit in harboring the world’s most wanted terrorist, or it was somehow so incompetent that it couldn’t find him in the neighborhood of its training academy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ruled out complicity of top-level Pakistani military or government officials. But the raid also highlighted a sense of insecurity. According to a June 2011 Pew Research poll, 73 percent of Pakistanis had an unfavorable view of the United States, while a mere 14 percent favored bin Laden’s killing. One Pakistani army officer, Brig. Ali Khan, was later arrested for “subverting the government” by stating what he thought of Pakistan’s complicity and failure to resist the United States.
Read the full story at The Diplomat