US & Pakistan: The Growing Tensions

[Galaxy]

It's Time to End Our Relationship With Pakistan

Our relations with Pakistan are like the battered wife syndrome. The country keeps doing us wrong, but promises that next time things will be different.

We're desperate for the relationship to work out, so we believe them. We take their excuses at face value, rationalizing away their behavior. We seize on the few moments when things are good, as proof that they will change we just hang on a little longer"¦.or try a little harder. But of course nothing ever changes, and we get in deeper and deeper.

We, like the battered wife, need to face the reality that things are only going to get worse, and it's time to walk away and make some new friends. But it won't be easy and it won't be without major risks.

For ten years we have had a tortured relationship with Pakistan. We've needed their help in the Afghan War, and they've wanted our money. We've needed Pakistani supply routes to get our equipment and material into landlocked, mountainous and roadless Afghanistan. We've needed Pakistan to help take out the Taliban safe havens in the tribal areas inside Pakistan. We've needed Pakistan to help us find Bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda. And we've given them some $20 billion in military and economic assistance as an incentive. And they have helped us"¦.just enough"¦. to string us along and keep the relationship going.

But they've never been committed enough to the relationship to go all in. Why?

Because they see things differently than we do, and have different goals. Above all, they want a pro-Pakistan, government in Afghanistan after our inevitable departure, to give them strategic depth against their arch-enemy India. If we leave and the Karzai government stays in power, fine, Pakistan has helped achieve that outcome.

But if we leave and the Karzai government falls, as looks ever more likely, the Pakistanis are hedged because they have given safe haven to the Taliban group most likely to succeed Karzai.

Sound complicated? Not really. They're just doing what they think is best for them.

They did the same thing with Usama bin Laden. For years the government denied that the terror mastermind was in Pakistan. Yet Bin Laden was found in a safe house near in a military complex in... Pakistan.

Shocking? Hardly.

The Pakistanis were in the "finding" Bin Laden business. Once Bin Laden was found -- dead or alive -- they'd be out of business. So they did the sensible thing -- from their perspective -- and kept him alive and hidden. They pretended to help us look for him and they continued asking us for more aid to do so.

From our viewpoint, they've been double dealing. But from Pakistan's viewpoint, they're only doing what is in their best interest: hedging their bets against our departure, hedging their bets to get our assistance.

But we've got to do what is in our best interests, too. Those in favor of sticking it out with Pakistan cite three reasons:

First, if we don't Afghanistan will descend into chaos and Al Qaeda will come back. Phooey. Al Qaeda has already moved on"¦.to Yemen"¦.to Somalia"¦. we don't have 100,000 troops there. Who needs Afghanistan if they have all of cyberspace?

Second, they point to Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal and say if we sever ties with Pakistan those nukes could fall into the hands of terrorists. Yet, by that logic we have just as much to fear from North Korea's nuclear weapons and from Iran's nuclear weapons program. Even our most militant neo-cons don't think we should invade Iran.

To a certain extent, we've been Pakistan's enablers. Hasn't our military assistance allowed them to devote more of their own resources to their rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal? Wouldn't it be better for us to take those billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan and put it towards intelligence gathering and covert operations so we can know where those nuclear weapons are and if need be stop them from falling into the hands of terrorists?

Finally, some of the aid we give Pakistan ultimately ends up supporting the Pakistani intelligence services which give safe haven to and work with the Taliban. As former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mullen said, the Haqqani Taliban network is a virtual arm of the Pakistani intelligence services. -- This is the same group responsible for a number of the recent attacks on NATO military and civilian targets.

Isn't it unconscionable that we are paying Pakistan to kill our people in Afghanistan? Don't we owe it to the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country and who are still in Afghanistan to walk away from this abusive relationship?

Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com's DefCon 3. She is a Distinguished Adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. She wrote Secretary of Defense Weinberger's November 1984 "Principles of War Speech" which laid out the Weinberger Doctrine. Be sure to watch "K.T." every Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET on FoxNews.com's "DefCon3"-- already one of the Web's most watched national security programs.


It's Time To End Our Relationship With Pakistan | Fox News

 

[JAISWAL]

US-Pak ties review:- -Finance minister warns of 'shocks' that Pakistan can't absorb
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US-Pak ties review: Finance minister warns of 'shocks' that Pakistan can't absorb – The Express Tribune
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Pakistan may face international isolation on the economic
front if drastic steps are taken during the
reviewing of bilateral terms with the United States, the country's finance minister cautioned on Thursday.
The warning from Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh came at a meeting of the Parliamentary
Committee on National Security, which on Thursday finalised its draft recommendations for its review of ties with the US.
"There are some shocks Pakistan can absorb but
there are others it can't," Sheikh was quoted as
saying at the parliamentary committee meeting.
The review was ordered by the government
following the November 26 Nato airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in Mohmand Agency and led to a new low in relations between the
allies.
"A single incident must not determine our
relations with the US," Sheikh said in an apparent
reference to the steps taken by the government
following the Nato airstrikes.
"Any decision should be taken while keeping in
mind the multidimensional paradigm of security,
prosperity of the country and economic
diplomacy," he added.
The minister, while spelling out alternatives,
argued that the country should adopt a 'balanced'
approach towards its relations with the US.
Briefing the 17-member all-party bicameral
parliamentary panel, Sheikh was quoted as
saying that Washington might use its influence
over international financial institutions to hurt the country's economic interests.
The minister went on to give a detailed briefing
about the likely implications the country may face in the event of a move to pull out of the US
alliance.
A committee member, who asked to remain
anonymous, said that, according to the finance
minister, the country's fragile economy would
face a daunting task if the relationship between
Pakistan and the US deteriorated further.
"It is not about American aid but its clout over the
IMF, World Bank and other financial institutions
that can pose a real challenge for us," said the
committee member referring to the elaborate
briefing given by the finance minister.
However, some of the members present questioned the finance minister's wisdom,
arguing that in the past Pakistan's economy had
survived 'crippling sanctions' imposed by the US– referring to sanctions placed on Pakistan after it tested nuclear devices in 1998 in a tit-for-tat
response to tests carried out in India.
"Pakistan survived then and can survive now," said an opposition lawmaker, who drafted his
own proposals for the review of ties with the US.
The committee headed by Senator Mian Raza Rabbani has finalised the draft recommendations and forwarded them to the defence and foreign ministries for their input.
Rabbani told reporters that the committee will meet next Tuesday to fine-tune the final
recommendations before they are handed over
to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
The government will then present the committee's proposals before a joint session of
Parliament to seek its approval. The joint sitting is
expected to be convened in mid-January.
The review is being eagerly awaited and closely watched by local and international observers
since it is meant to reshape and herald a new era
in Pakistan's relations with the US and more
significantly have a major impact on the Afghan endgame.

 

[SpArK]

Pakistan rejects U.S. envoy visit: official



(Reuters) - Pakistan has rejected U.S. special envoy Marc Grossman's request to visit the country, a senior official said on Wednesday, highlighting the increased tensions between the uneasy allies.

He did not elaborate on the reasons.

"Ambassador Grossman asked to visit Pakistan but we conveyed to him that it was not possible at the moment," a senior government official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

Relations between Islamabad and Washington are at the lowest point in years, dragged down by a NATO cross-border air attack which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26.

The growing tension threatens to set back peace efforts in neighboring Afghanistan, where the United States is gradually withdrawing troops after a decade of war.

Pakistan's cooperation is regarded as crucial, because of its long history of association with militant groups, to efforts to persuade the Taliban to join negotiations.

Grossman, U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is due to visit Afghanistan and Qatar this week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Wednesday.

Pakistan said in early December it had decided to review cooperation with the United States and NATO. The review is currently before parliament with no firm timeline on when recommendations will be presented to the government.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday Pakistan had decided the review should be completed before Grossman's next visit.

Ties between Washington and Islamabad were severely hurt in January 2011 by the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor.

The United States further infuriated and embarrassed Pakistan's powerful military in May with a unilateral special forces raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan said the raid, of which it wasn't informed, was a violation of its sovereignty.

Relations between Pakistan's civilian leadership and military are also at their worst since a 1999 coup following reports of a disputed memo allegedly from President Asif Ali Zardari's government seeking U.S. help in reining in Pakistan's powerful generals.

Pakistan rejects U.S. envoy visit: official | Reuters

 

[LurkerBaba]

The begging bowl has been refilled yet again

Pakistan allows Nato supplies to Afghanistan, secures $1 billion aid from US - The Times of India

ISLAMABAD: After weeks of hard talk, Pakistan inked a new deal with the US on Tuesday to govern arrangements for Nato supplies to Afghanistan, replacing the vague memorandum of understanding that existed between the two countries since 2004.