WASHINGTON—I was visiting Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States in the spring of 2011 when the phone on his desk rang.
 
“The hotline,” he said. “Sorry, I have to take this call.” 
 
As he listened, his expression grew darker and darker. Finally, he banged down the phone and exploded: “Another US drone attack that killed our people. We were never warned the attack was coming. We are supposed to be US allies!”
 
This strongly pro-American ambassador was wrong. While the US hails Pakistan as a key non-NATO ally, America treats it like an occupied country. Islamabad’s government is left to observe increasing drone attacks and CIA ground operations with deepening embarrassment and helplessness.

Many Pakistanis tend to believe the US more or less occupied their nation after 9/11.

The Pakistani leader who allowed this to happen, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has reportedly admitted that the US demanded he allow them to use Pakistan’s army, air bases, ports, intelligence service, and airspace—or face war. Musharraf quickly caved in to the US ultimatum, something a tough predecessor, Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, would likely have rejected.

As US drone attacks intensify in Pakistan’s tribal belt and inside Afghanistan, President Asif Ali Zardari’s government, supported by Washington and sustained by US dollars, keeps imploring the US to halt the attacks that are enraging Pakistanis. Senior Pakistani diplomats have been warning that the drone strikes that keep killing civilians are fueling Pakistani extremist groups and humiliating its armed forces.

Islamabad has attempted to show some independence by halting US-NATO truck convoys from Karachi to Afghanistan for seven months after a deadly US air attack last November that killed at least two dozen of their soldiers.

But $1 billion of American aid to Islamabad was unfrozen after the blockade was recently lifted. The dollars are flowing again, many of them thought to be headed right back out into Swiss, Dubaian, or Singaporean bank accounts.

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Anti-American feelings in Pakistan have been soaring. Some polls show over 90% of respondents expressing hatred or anger against the US. These public sentiments have been worsened by Republicans in Washington who talk about seizing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, making Pakistan’s province of Balochistan a separate state, or putting Pakistan on America’s terrorist list.

There are even rumbles from the far right and pro-Israel neocons about attacking Pakistan. America’s failing war in Afghanistan is being blamed on the Pakistan-backed Haqqani Network, which is ironic because during my days in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Haqqani was a CIA favorite.

Washington’s not-so-discreet threats of punishment have abated for the moment thanks to the mess in Syria and the rising threat of war against Iran. But Pakistan remains a potent generator for anti-American jihadist sentiment and for rising anti-Muslim sentiment in America.

The US supposedly went to war in Afghanistan to punish anti-American groups, yet now it ends up creating far more enemies in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the truck craziness has reared its head again. Supply trucks for US and NATO forces are backed up at Pakistani border points supposedly because of security threats.

Trucking supplies into northern Afghanistan via the Black Sea, Russia, and Central Asia has reportedly been costing the US $100 million monthly at a time when 47 million Americans live below the poverty level.

On top of this, the Taliban and its allies are annoyed that the truck convoys have stopped. Why? Because the US was paying them off millions in baksheesh to let the convoys pass.

Talks last week in Washington between CIA Director David Petraeus and Pakistan’s new intelligence director Lt. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam were said to be cordial but not discernibly productive. Nor were talks between top Pakistani and US generals. Diplomats seem to have dropped out of the picture.

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A senior Syrian government spokesman has confirmed that his nation possesses chemical weapons and might employ them against a “foreign aggressor.”

Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime just managed to shoot itself in both feet, provide ammunition to Syria’s enemies, and give them yet another excuse to intervene in its raging civil war.

Western governments and media that have become cheerleaders for Syria’s rebels went into full trumpet mode, issuing dire warnings of Syria’s “threat of weapons of mass destruction.” Israeli and US officials warned they might have to seize Syria’s chemical arsenal lest it fall into the hands of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Shades of Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s WMDs.

The bumbling Damascus regime was too inept to explain that Syria had acquired a limited arsenal of chemical weapons over the past twenty years to counter Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons. Western media barely mentioned this important point.

During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Moscow informed Damascus that Israel was readying tactical nuclear-armed missiles, land mines, and bombs to halt what looked like a Syrian armored breakthrough on the Golan Heights. Damascus was also targeted by Israeli nuclear weapons. Syria determined to obtain a limited deterrent to forestall any future such nuclear threats.

Syria’s arsenal of mustard, cyanide, and nerve gas is loaded into air-delivered bombs, short-range Scud or SS-21 missiles, or short-range artillery shells. Chemical weapons are mislabeled as weapons of mass destruction. They have limited killing power and are subject to weather conditions.

The Western media’s cries of alarm ignored this fact, as they ignored the point that the lightly armed Hezbollah would likely be unable to obtain or employ such weapons even if it had them and decided to risk suicide.

In the kind of urban warfare now going on in Syria, chemical weapons would have little use. Far more effective and deadly would be the thermobaric fuel-air explosives employed by Russia, US, and Israel that rip apart the lungs of soldiers fighting from cover in ruined buildings or bunkers.

Israel has the Mideast’s largest arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. Its military establishment and right-wing parties have made no secret of their yearning for revenge against Hezbollah, which inflicted a short, sharp defeat on Israel’s army in southern Lebanon in 2006. Nor have Israel’s expansionist rightists given up the ambition of former leader Ariel Sharon (who remains alive but in a deep coma) of turning Lebanon into an Israeli protectorate ruled by Maronite Christian rightists.

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As fighting raged in Syria, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak disclosed that he had asked the military to prepare for a possible attack on Syrian targets to secure strategic weapons if the Assad regime collapses. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a similar threat to attack Syria.

Israeli officials also threatened to occupy what’s left of Syria’s Golan Heights to supposedly prevent the area from turning into a “terrorist haven.” Today, Israeli heavy artillery in Golan is only 40 miles from Damascus.

Is Washington giving Israel a green light to attack Syria as a consolation prize for delaying an attack against Iran? Overthrowing the Assad government has become an obsession in Washington. US neoconservatives and many bellicose Republicans chant that the road to Tehran runs through Damascus.

Further raising the temperature, Turkey is threatening to occupy a heavily Kurdish chunk of northern Syria which it claims is being used to launch attacks into Turkey. Why Turkey is thinking about acquiring additional rebellious Kurds when it can’t handle its own remains unclear. But formerly neutral Turkey is getting more deeply involved each day in Syria, arming and supplying anti-Assad rebels and now rumbling about border “security zones.” Ankara’s machinations regarding Syria threaten to undo much of the success of its former “no problems” policy with its neighbors.

The US, France, Turkey, and Israel have all finalized their contingency plans for attacking Syria. The biggest winner in such a scenario would be Israel, as it was in the US war against Iraq. Sending Syria into deeper turmoil would eliminate the most important supporter of the Palestinians’ resistance, cut off Hezbollah, leave it vulnerable to a final assault, and isolate Iran.

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