Once you hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up. Going by this dictum, US-Pakistan relations should now be on their way up. Under strain after the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces inside Pakistan in May last year, the bilateral relations hit a rock bottom last November. A US airstrike on Pakistani army outposts at Salala, on the Afghan border, led to the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers. In retaliation, Islamabad suspended NATO supply lines through Pakistan into Afghanistan, which then carried nearly 30 per cent of non-lethal supplies for NATO forces fighting the Taliban.

But Pakistan army’s hopes of bringing the US to its knees were soon dashed. The US moved more supplies through the alternative route in Central Asia and by air. The alternative routes are expensive: Central Asian route is three times and direct flights to Afghanistan ten times more expensive than the Pakistani route. Despite this, not once has the US publicly requested Pakistan to open the NATO supply lines. In fact, all the clamour for opening the supply lines has been inside Pakistan.