US policy on drones
By Daniel A Medina

Nawaz Sharif must have been pinching himself. Less than two decades after he was forced out of power by General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s military coup, it was him looking out to the thousands of supporters who had come to celebrate his victory in the nation’s historic election over a fortnight ago. US President Barack Obama called Mr Sharif to congratulate him a few days after his triumph and in his Monday White House news conference following the election, he praised Pakistan’s “commitment to democratic rule” as critical for the nation to achieve a future of “peace and prosperity.”
That may have been where the diplomatic pageantry and empty rhetoric ended and the real issues at hand came to the forefront. On top of Sharif’s agenda in changing the dynamic in the US-Pakistan relationship is, of course, the CIA’s drone programme.
Speaking to reporters only hours after his victory speech in Lahore, Sharif demanded an end to the drone programme, arguing that it was “challenging our sovereignty”. Although not as outspoken as rival candidate Imran Khan in his criticisms of both the Musharraf and Zardari governments’ relatively complicit relations with Washington on allowing drones to enter Pakistani airspace, Sharif has stepped up his condemnations in recent days under public pressure to establish himself as an independent leader, not subservient to American demands.
He has the public support and electoral legitimacy to demand an end to a programme that has overseen the killings of roughly 3,500 Pakistanis since 2004, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The attacks have paralysed Pakistani society killing innocent civilians largely in South Waziristan, where there remains a large concentration of the Taliban and al Qaeda members.
In an example of the United States’ paternalistic relationship with Pakistan on the issue, the Obama Administration in December 2010 publicly derided Islamabad for what it said were credible reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents had been possibly tortured or killed by the Pakistani police and security forces in South Waziristan. The denunciation came at around the same time the CIA itself was escalating the number of drone strikes in both North and South Waziristan. According to data compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 14 attacks in these regions in December 2010 alone that killed roughly 130 people, making that month one of the bloodiest in the nearly decade-long US drone campaign in Pakistan.
President Obama’s first acknowledgment on even the existence of the programme came during his much publicised speech last week on the future of US counterterrorism strategy. In the address, he defended his administration’s use of drones as “legal” instruments of military technology needed in the country’s “war” on al Qaeda, even though legal scholars have unanimously derided the strikes as illegal under international law because the US is not officially at war with either al Qaeda or any other terrorist organisation. In contending the legality of drone attacks, an increasingly hawkish Obama opened a new chapter in the oft-fraught relations with Pakistan by effectively challenging Sharif not to act on his recent promises.
President Obama may have sent further warnings to Sharif in the latest US drone attack on Pakistani soil, and the first since the election that targeted a home near the Pakistan-Afghan border. The assault killed four people and injured four others. The timing of the attacks was not coincidental, analysts say, coming on the same day that newly elected provincial assembly members of the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province took their oaths of office. Imran Khan’s PTI will lead a coalition government in the region and American intelligence officials remain greatly wary of the PTI’s strong anti-drone stance.
With a security and electricity crisis dominating the public discourse, Sharif may choose not to tackle the issue of drones as aggressively in his first 100 days in office. But, it is in this short window of time, where he can legitimately and forcefully address the issue to Washington. If he chooses not to, the relentless attacks will continue, killing more civilians and further destabilising Pakistani civil society and the public trust in his mantra of change will be shattered.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2013.