What is in evidence here is, in fact, the gradual emergence of inevitable fissures in whatwas, from its very inception, an extraordinarily unnatural alliance. To the extent that this is the case, anescalation of tensions between US and Pakistani armed forces on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is aninevitability, though matters have been kept from going out of hand in the immediate future. It is clear,moreover, that US troops on the ground are getting impatient with Pakistan's duplicity, and are increasinglyresentful of the visible support and accommodation that the Al Qaeda and Taliban survivors are receiving onPakistani soil.
Impatience, however, has another face as well. As one commentator in the Jung Group's The NewsInternational expressed it, "Hatred against the US is all time high in Pakistan these days"(sic). That hatred manifested itself in a rash of demonstrations right across the country - in Islamabad,Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, Bajore, Hyderabad, Kohat, Mansehra, Naushahro Feroze,Mirpurkhas, Larkana, Sukkur - after Friday prayers last week, as the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), thecoalition of fundamentalist parties that cornered an unprecedented 53 seats in the National Assembly in thedubious November 2002 elections, called upon 'the people' to wage jihad against America 'to haltinterference by imperialist forces in the affairs of the region.'