When she arrived in Pakistan, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared she wanted to engage directly with the people of Pakistan to remove their misunderstandings about America and its role in the region.
On the second day of her three-day visit, Ms. Clinton flew to Lahore and spent a considerable amount of time doing exactly that, and was rewarded with a first-hand feel of the suspicions and mistrust that most Pakistanis have about the U.S. and its relationship with their country.
A couple of hundred students gathered for a "town hall" meeting with Ms. Clinton at the famed Government College of Lahore on Thursday, and shot off questions at her ranging from the U.S.'s perceived partial relationship with India, to the Kerry-Lugar aid legislation and the CIA drone attacks in Pakistan, to whether the U.S. would support a treason trial of former ruler Pervez Musharraf.
On a day after more than 100 people perished in one of the deadliest bombings yet witnessed in this country, the students wanted to know what Pakistan was getting in return for its cooperation with the U.S. in the "war on terror", commonly described as America's war.
Mum on drones
Ms. Clinton's pitch was that this was Pakistan's war, but Pakistan was not in it alone. The U.S., she said, stood with Pakistan and would help defeat the extremists and the terrorists whose goal was to take over the country.
She side-stepped a question on the drone attacks, and why the U.S. was chary about sharing the intelligence and letting Pakistan do the rest.
The U.S. has never acknowledged the drone attacks, and Ms. Clinton was not about to do that either. She simply responded that "there is a war going on", and America was there to help Pakistan.
One student wanted to know why the U.S. "always" supported India despite Pakistan's cooperation with it through difficult situations. Ms. Clinton's responded that this was a wrong perception.
The Secretary of State conceded that there had been some "ups and downs" in relations with Pakistan, but described bilateral ties as "consistent" and said the U.S. had given far more aid to Pakistan.
"We are friends with both Pakistan and India, we work with both," she said.
Ms. Clinton also said that while the U.S. encouraged both countries to resolve their differences, it was up to India and Pakistan to do that through bilateral means.
India-Pakistan
"What we hope is that at some point in the future - which I would like to see in the not too distant future - Pakistan and India can resolve their outstanding differences," she said.
She predicted that Pakistan "would take off like a rocket in terms of economic development" if it had the benefit of trade and economic relations with India.
"If you had trade opening up to the north, east and west it would make a huge economic difference to your country and one of the major obstacles standing in the way is the distrust and the history between India and Pakistan, which blocks the kind of opportunities for investment that I think could make a huge difference," she said.
The students posed tough questions on the conditions imposed in the Kerry-Lugar aid legislation, and said what she repeated to Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif at a meeting with him later in the day: Pakistan has a choice to take it or leave it.
Charm offensive
Several roads in Lahore were closed for the day, so were schools. There was a heavy presence of police and other security personnel on the streets with Pakistan taking no chances over this visit.
Ms. Clinton's public relations offensive in Pakistan included visits to the famous Sufi shrine of Bari Imam in Islamabad, and in Lahore, a look-in at the historic Badshahi Mosque built by the Mughal emperor Aurangazeb, and the Lahore Fort next door to it.
