US stuck with Pakistan because "it's complicated"
Chidanand Rajghatta,
Chidanand Rajghatta,
May 12, 2011, 09.30pm IST
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WASHINGTON: Any expectation that the United States will bear down on Pakistan's pursuit of terrorism as a policy instrument aimed at undermining India is receding quickly with the Obama administration easing into the familiar course of not pushing its dodgy ally too hard because of fears that it will collapse.
A recent Hollywood movie titled "It's Complicated" has become the stock phrase to express Washington's difficult relationship with Islamabad, even though there is across the board agreement in US policy circles that Pakistan has become a toxic mess of home-grown terrorism based on false grievances and groundless fear of India and the west.
A State Department spokesman gave voice to the emerging view in the administration that Pakistan needs to be coddled when he was asked on Wednesday about Congressional moves to curtail aid to Pakistan because of the shifty nature of its alliance.
"They are legitimate concerns, given the circumstances of where bin Ladin was found," intoned Mark Toner about the Congressional anger, while implicitly rejecting demands for cutting assistance to Pakistan. "But we believe...that our counterterrorism cooperation and our assistance to Pakistan is in the long-term national security interests of the US as well as in the interest of building a stronger, more prosperous, and more democratic Pakistan."
The fact that Pakistan's civilian government itself is backing away from this expressed goal by kow-towing to a rapacious military (articulated in Prime Minister Gilani's speech to Parliament in which he described the terrorist-designated outfit ISI as a "national asset") hasn't been missed in Washington, but US mandarins and policy mavens shrug helplessly and point to Washington's exigencies in maintaining a supply route to Afghanistan and fears of a nuclear Pakistan collapsing.
Senator John Kerry is the principal proponent of the "let's-not-push-Pakistan-too-hard" line of thinking despite the growing recognition that Islamabad is not meeting any of the metrics laid out in his bill that ladles out $ 7.5 billion of US taxpayer money to Pakistan. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton on March 18 certified that Islamabad was meeting conditions for aid despite her own charges a few weeks before Pakistan was protecting terrorists.
Toner also skirted a question about the prospects of putting other terrorists named in India's 50 most wanted list in the US designated global terrorist list, merely saying "options obviously remain on the table." But despite the death of Americans in the 26/11 mayhem attributed to ISI and LeT, US officials are not particularly inclined to hold Pakistan's feet to the fire in the matter of apprehending those accused of masterminding the Mumbai carnage.
Asked what message he had for India in its seeking of terrorists wanted for the Mumbai attack, Toner intoned, "Our message is that we sympathize with India, which has also been the victims of terrorism, and we are committed to bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice, and we call on other countries to do the same."
The US Justice Department offered a plea bargain to David Headley aka Daaod Gilani, a Pakistani-American expat who scouted targets for the 26/11 attacks in exchange for his testimony that eventually implicated ISI and its officials, but the Obama administration has shown no sign of formally calling the outfit to account, although WikiLeaks cable shows Washington secretly dubbed it a "terrorist support entity."
The broad impression the administration gave on Thursday was it was backing down from its initial effort to call Pakistan to account. After pulverizing Pakistan for a week after the Abbottabad raid for its alleged sheltering of Osama bin Laden, the US media reached out for the usual bromides about Washington's helplessness in the face of country that was both a failed state and a rogue state. "Why we are stuck with Pakistan," was the pitiful headline for a story in Time magazine.
In indications that the two sides would continue the same dog-and-pony show, the US on Thursday launched another Drone attack inside Pakistan (which attracted no condemnation in Islamabad) even as a Pakistan said it was expecting a $ 300 million payout from Washington as reimbursement under Coalition Support Funds.
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WASHINGTON: Any expectation that the United States will bear down on Pakistan's pursuit of terrorism as a policy instrument aimed at undermining India is receding quickly with the Obama administration easing into the familiar course of not pushing its dodgy ally too hard because of fears that it will collapse.
A recent Hollywood movie titled "It's Complicated" has become the stock phrase to express Washington's difficult relationship with Islamabad, even though there is across the board agreement in US policy circles that Pakistan has become a toxic mess of home-grown terrorism based on false grievances and groundless fear of India and the west.
A State Department spokesman gave voice to the emerging view in the administration that Pakistan needs to be coddled when he was asked on Wednesday about Congressional moves to curtail aid to Pakistan because of the shifty nature of its alliance.
"They are legitimate concerns, given the circumstances of where bin Ladin was found," intoned Mark Toner about the Congressional anger, while implicitly rejecting demands for cutting assistance to Pakistan. "But we believe...that our counterterrorism cooperation and our assistance to Pakistan is in the long-term national security interests of the US as well as in the interest of building a stronger, more prosperous, and more democratic Pakistan."
The fact that Pakistan's civilian government itself is backing away from this expressed goal by kow-towing to a rapacious military (articulated in Prime Minister Gilani's speech to Parliament in which he described the terrorist-designated outfit ISI as a "national asset") hasn't been missed in Washington, but US mandarins and policy mavens shrug helplessly and point to Washington's exigencies in maintaining a supply route to Afghanistan and fears of a nuclear Pakistan collapsing.
Senator John Kerry is the principal proponent of the "let's-not-push-Pakistan-too-hard" line of thinking despite the growing recognition that Islamabad is not meeting any of the metrics laid out in his bill that ladles out $ 7.5 billion of US taxpayer money to Pakistan. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton on March 18 certified that Islamabad was meeting conditions for aid despite her own charges a few weeks before Pakistan was protecting terrorists.
Toner also skirted a question about the prospects of putting other terrorists named in India's 50 most wanted list in the US designated global terrorist list, merely saying "options obviously remain on the table." But despite the death of Americans in the 26/11 mayhem attributed to ISI and LeT, US officials are not particularly inclined to hold Pakistan's feet to the fire in the matter of apprehending those accused of masterminding the Mumbai carnage.
Asked what message he had for India in its seeking of terrorists wanted for the Mumbai attack, Toner intoned, "Our message is that we sympathize with India, which has also been the victims of terrorism, and we are committed to bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice, and we call on other countries to do the same."
The US Justice Department offered a plea bargain to David Headley aka Daaod Gilani, a Pakistani-American expat who scouted targets for the 26/11 attacks in exchange for his testimony that eventually implicated ISI and its officials, but the Obama administration has shown no sign of formally calling the outfit to account, although WikiLeaks cable shows Washington secretly dubbed it a "terrorist support entity."
The broad impression the administration gave on Thursday was it was backing down from its initial effort to call Pakistan to account. After pulverizing Pakistan for a week after the Abbottabad raid for its alleged sheltering of Osama bin Laden, the US media reached out for the usual bromides about Washington's helplessness in the face of country that was both a failed state and a rogue state. "Why we are stuck with Pakistan," was the pitiful headline for a story in Time magazine.
In indications that the two sides would continue the same dog-and-pony show, the US on Thursday launched another Drone attack inside Pakistan (which attracted no condemnation in Islamabad) even as a Pakistan said it was expecting a $ 300 million payout from Washington as reimbursement under Coalition Support Funds.
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