convince people in Washington that Pakistan was a looming disaster. It was harder to convince them we should do something about it.
Holbrooke understood that the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA wanted Pakistan to cut ties with the Taliban and do more to fight terrorism. But that would never happen without at least some semblance of a normal relationship between the two countries. Holbrooke favored an iceberg metaphor: “There is an above-water part to the relationship,” he would say, “and a below-water part.” The part below the water was the intelligence and security cooperation that we craved, while the part above water was the aid and assistance that we gave Pakistan. This is where the iceberg metaphor broke down. With countries, unlike floating chunks of ice, making the above-water part bigger will make the whole situation more stable—at least that is what Holbrooke was arguing. In 2011, after he was gone, it simply sank to the bottom.
Already in 2009, half the American diplomatic mission in Pakistan worked on intelligence and counterterrorism rather than diplomacy or development. Our consulate in Peshawar was basically bricks shielding antennas. And it paid big dividends. The CIA collected critical intelligence in Pakistan that made possible drone strikes on al-Qaeda targets and on more than one occasion prevented a terror strike in the West. The Obama administration began carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan on an industrial scale, decimating al-Qaeda’s command-and-control structure and crippling the organization. 22 Even with all the Pakistani double-dealing and foot dragging going on, there was still cooperation between the CIA and the ISI on al-Qaeda, and everything the administration claimed by way of success against al-Qaeda depended on it. 23
But hunting terrorists was not popular in Pakistan, and drone strikes in particular angered Pakistanis. In public the authorities denied making any deal with the United States, but it was obvious to citizens that the drones flew with their knowledge and even cooperation. Pakistanis thought the drones were daily violating their country’s sovereignty, showing it to be feeble and defenseless. There were wild rumors about collateral damage, civilians dying unnecessarily as drones targeted suspected terrorists. It did not matter that drones killed many terrorists, including TTP chieftain Baitullah Mehsud, the notorious jihadi who had claimed responsibility for scores of bombing attacks on civilians andwas believed to have killed the popular former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. The anger would only get worse as the number of drone attacks grew through 2009 and beyond.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy around drones suited Pakistani leaders but had a corrosive effect on U.S.-Pakistan relations. We knew that the drone issue was a problem on TV talk shows and in Pakistan’s big cities, but our hands were tied. There was a case to be made for the program—in the places where the drone strikes were actually happening, up in the FATA, they were less of a provocation. There the locals knew exactly where the missiles were landing and on whom, and the locals had no love for many of those being targeted. But drones were a deeply classified topic in the U.S. government. You could not talk about them in public, much less discuss who they were hitting and with what results. Embassy staffers took to calling drones “Voldemorts” after the villain in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, “he who must not be named.”
By 2012, drones had become a potent political issue in Pakistan. The populist politician and former cricket star Imran Khan built a powerful political movement in part around protesting drone strikes, which he argued were responsible for growing extremist violence inside Pakistan. Drones then had two sets of targets: “high-value” ones, meaning known al-Qaeda leaders, and “signature targets,” which meant
Holbrooke understood that the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA wanted Pakistan to cut ties with the Taliban and do more to fight terrorism. But that would never happen without at least some semblance of a normal relationship between the two countries. Holbrooke favored an iceberg metaphor: “There is an above-water part to the relationship,” he would say, “and a below-water part.” The part below the water was the intelligence and security cooperation that we craved, while the part above water was the aid and assistance that we gave Pakistan. This is where the iceberg metaphor broke down. With countries, unlike floating chunks of ice, making the above-water part bigger will make the whole situation more stable—at least that is what Holbrooke was arguing. In 2011, after he was gone, it simply sank to the bottom.
Already in 2009, half the American diplomatic mission in Pakistan worked on intelligence and counterterrorism rather than diplomacy or development. Our consulate in Peshawar was basically bricks shielding antennas. And it paid big dividends. The CIA collected critical intelligence in Pakistan that made possible drone strikes on al-Qaeda targets and on more than one occasion prevented a terror strike in the West. The Obama administration began carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan on an industrial scale, decimating al-Qaeda’s command-and-control structure and crippling the organization. 22 Even with all the Pakistani double-dealing and foot dragging going on, there was still cooperation between the CIA and the ISI on al-Qaeda, and everything the administration claimed by way of success against al-Qaeda depended on it. 23
But hunting terrorists was not popular in Pakistan, and drone strikes in particular angered Pakistanis. In public the authorities denied making any deal with the United States, but it was obvious to citizens that the drones flew with their knowledge and even cooperation. Pakistanis thought the drones were daily violating their country’s sovereignty, showing it to be feeble and defenseless. There were wild rumors about collateral damage, civilians dying unnecessarily as drones targeted suspected terrorists. It did not matter that drones killed many terrorists, including TTP chieftain Baitullah Mehsud, the notorious jihadi who had claimed responsibility for scores of bombing attacks on civilians andwas believed to have killed the popular former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. The anger would only get worse as the number of drone attacks grew through 2009 and beyond.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy around drones suited Pakistani leaders but had a corrosive effect on U.S.-Pakistan relations. We knew that the drone issue was a problem on TV talk shows and in Pakistan’s big cities, but our hands were tied. There was a case to be made for the program—in the places where the drone strikes were actually happening, up in the FATA, they were less of a provocation. There the locals knew exactly where the missiles were landing and on whom, and the locals had no love for many of those being targeted. But drones were a deeply classified topic in the U.S. government. You could not talk about them in public, much less discuss who they were hitting and with what results. Embassy staffers took to calling drones “Voldemorts” after the villain in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, “he who must not be named.”
By 2012, drones had become a potent political issue in Pakistan. The populist politician and former cricket star Imran Khan built a powerful political movement in part around protesting drone strikes, which he argued were responsible for growing extremist violence inside Pakistan. Drones then had two sets of targets: “high-value” ones, meaning known al-Qaeda leaders, and “signature targets,” which meant
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