Understanding What the United States Wants from Pakistan

. . . the Pakistani military is organized for warfare against its arch-nemesis India, and many of its mid-level officers are sympathetic to the Taliban and, at best, wary of the United States. When the United States argues that smashing militants along Pakistan’s northwest border will improve the security of both countries, officials in Islamabad are often skeptical.

[Excerpts--in not the original order--from "Islamabad Boys" at The New Republic]

***

"The United States need[s] Pakistan’s army to take on the militants flourishing along the border . . . . The days of Pakistan looking the other way--cutting deals and playing double games with the radicals--ha[s] to end."

***

". . . anti-Americanism is rife in Pakistan, where the continued campaign of U.S. drone strikes against militants has driven Barack Obama’s approval ratings to an abysmal 13 percent."

***

"Many Pakistanis fail to understand why their army is fighting its own people--and incurring severe casualties (2,400 dead so far, more than double the U.S. toll in Afghanistan)--when they consider India their true enemy and an existential threat to their nation. The perception that Washington is forcing Pakistan’s government to do its bidding doesn’t help."

***

"'We have to get at the Haqqani [al Qaeda ally*] network . . . . we have to get at the Al Qaeda safe havens.'. . . Ultimately, however, that step serves America’s interests far more than those of Pakistan. Haqqani targets Americans, not Pakistanis. With their past ties to him, the Pakistanis also see Haqqani as a useful ally against possible Indian influence in Afghanistan, should the United States abandon the country as it did after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal."
_____________________
*Haqqani has longstanding ties to the Pakistani military, which supported him during the Soviet era in Afghanistan
_____________________

***

“Pakistan will drive the hardest bargain they can” . . . . If this sounds familiar, it’s because it was the same dynamic that defined the relationship between Musharraf and George W. Bush, who sold Pakistan 36 F-16s in 2005--only to find that Pakistan was again cutting deals with the tribal-area radicals. “We have been telling ourselves for years that the Pakistanis are finally coming around. The hard truth is that the Pakistani army has played us very well,” says a U.S. government official who focuses on the region.

***

[The U.S.] Congress severed all military ties to Pakistan in 1990 to punish the country for its pursuit of nuclear weapons . . . Those ties were restored when the United States re-embraced Pakistan after September 11 . . . . many American officials fret that a “lost generation” of mid-level Pakistani military officers has been created, one whose members loathe the United States

***

Musharraf . . . . . placed Kayani** in charge of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 2004, then named him his successor as army chief three years later. Kayani’s term expires in October, but American officials don’t rule out the possibility that he will be granted an extension or another top military job.

Though he holds no political rank, Kayani** may be Pakistan’s most powerful man--perhaps more so than the country’s embattled president, Asif Ali Zardari. After the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, for instance, Zardari promised India that he would send the current ISI chief, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, to New Delhi to cooperate with the investigation, according to Daniel Markey, a former Bush State Department official and Pakistan specialist. Kayani objected and, Markey says, “That [promise] had to be walked back.”
____________________________
**Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff,and Pakistan’s most important general, commanding its 550,000-man army
____________________________

[bold emphasis mine. lw]

Foregoing rearranged excerpts from Islamabad Boys - An American admiral, a Pakistani general, and he ultimate anti-terror adventure.
Are the Pakistanis on Our Side? The Tale of Admiral Mullen. at The New Republic

Read the whole article . . .

YOU ALSO WILL BE INTERESTED IN . . .

Pakistan: Conspiracy talk stokes anti-American Sentiment