Paul Auster, one of my favourite American writers, says that we are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence. Interestingly, the most artistic explanation of ‘coincidence’ that I find comes from a scientist: Albert Einstein famously said that coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

In the case of Pakistan and the United States, whether it is mere coincidence or sheer providence, the fact of the matter remains that the two countries have stayed intertwined in a unique fashion for the last 70 years. It is very different from the far more explainable and consistent US-Saudi connection or US-Egypt relationship, the bonding between the US and Israel or the growing US-India liaison. For Pakistan and the US, some say it is a love-hate relationship between incompatible and uneasy partners. Others understand it as jilted lovers who keep coming back to stay snug in each other’s arms after having time and again cheated on each other.

Perhaps this relationship is better explained as that of an aging couple with a mixed bag of bitter and sweet memories — more bitter than sweet from the recent past — with both having a wish to deplore their partner publicly, but stopping short of divorce out of concern for the children they have produced together and the difficulties posed by the distribution of shared assets in case of a clear departure.

Incompatible or not, it is an unequal relationship which is becoming more and more unequal — mostly because of our own doing. Pakistan is a smaller country than what it originally was in 1947, a much weaker economy than other comparable developing countries, a fragile democracy with the military overshadowing civilian interludes and an increasingly confused theocracy with a contradictory desire to be recognised as a modern state in the comity of nations. The US is an empire in the classical sense for the rest of the world — except for having a robust internal democracy — being a knowledge and technology hub and an economic and military giant. The US has demonstrated its ability to be ruthless or benevolent according to its own needs, interests, wishes and will — and sometimes only on the basis of its moods and whims.

However, Pakistanis have this streak of being independent and proud despite being unequal. This makes the relationship between us and the Americans even more complicated. Here I am reminded of an American film, Stella, which was released in 1990, adapted from Olive Higgins Prouty’s 1923 novel Stella Dallas. Just as Stella fell for Dr Stephen Dallas, our relationship with the Americans is of a struggling, unfashionable, working-class woman who had fallen for a man from the other end of the social spectrum but refused to marry him even after bearing his child.

It is Amanullah Khan’s Tightrope Walk, a highly informative personal memoir, that made me think once again of the consistently awkward relationship between Pakistan and the US. Tightrope Walk has a self-explanatory subtitle: The Reminiscences of a Pakistani Insider in the US Embassy in Islamabad 1973-2003. Khan served as a foreign national employee at the US embassy in its political and public affairs departments. He narrates all the political events and upheavals in Pakistan with the eye of a keen and involved bystander, and records with clarity and a sense of responsibility the American role and response to these developments. Besides many other interesting incidents and anecdotes, the book includes descriptions of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ouster the day after the July 4 reception at the US embassy where both Bhutto and Gen Ziaul Haq were present; the stand-off between Pakistan and the US after the nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan in 1998; the reluctant visit of former president Bill Clinton soon after Gen Pervez Musharraf had taken over; and the palace intrigues that marred the decade of the 1990s in Pakistani politics.

Khan’s is a candid account which becomes extremely important today to understand how Americans have worked with Pakistan. For his person, Khan continuously tries to negotiate the divergent interests of the two states — one that he loves and the other that he served.

The writer is a poet and essayist based in Islamabad

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 18th, 2018