So How's That Strategic Partnership With Pakistan Going? Posted by Michael Cohen

This is perhaps the least surprising development to come out of Pakistan - recipient of billions of dollars in US military and economic assistance and supporter of the Taliban insurgency killing American soldiers in Afghanistan:

Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and that it put on hold C.I.A. drone strikes aimed at militants in northwest Pakistan, a sign of the near collapse of cooperation between the two testy allies.

Pakistani and American officials said in interviews that the demand that the United States scale back its presence was the immediate fallout from the arrest in Pakistan of Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. security officer who killed two men in January during what he said was an attempt to rob him.

In all, about 335 American personnel — C.I.A. officers and contractors and Special Operations forces — were being asked to leave the country, said a Pakistani official closely involved in the decision.

Honestly, who could have seen this coming? It's not as if the United States hasn't plied Pakistan with military assistance for the past ten years and it's not as if the Pakistanis have pretty much refused to take any critical steps to further US strategic interests (that don't also directly benefit Pakistan). You can't really blame the Pakistanis for being annoyed at the US, particularly after the Raymond Davis incident, but this whole decline in cooperation is indicative of how fragile the "partnership" between the US and Pakistan remains - and always has been.

Back in December 2009 one of the key elements of the Obama Administration's Afghanistan strategy was to strengthen ties with Islamabad. In fact, in some key respects it's almost more important than the war in Afghanistan. Since then relations between the two countries have gotten worse, particularly on a host of issues crucial to US security interests. And because of the US reliance on Pakistan as a transit point for resources into Afghanistan our ability to put pressure on Islamabad is even more constrained. 

For what it's worth, color me skeptical that drone strikes in the FATA will cease; the Pakistanis benefit too much from them to cut them out completely. But the critical issue in US-Pakistan relations is the Afghan Taliban safe havens - and on that front we've of course seen no progress and no shift in Pakistan's strategic calculus. One can imagine that this latest downturn in relations only makes it less likely that anything positive is about to happen.

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Seems like the most powerful man in Pakistan right now is whoever can tell the U.S. where to strike next.

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Pakistan is a terrorist country it supports terrorists for a long time against India so no other country will believe that country. The U.S. only supports Pakistan for its own benefits after that America will not support Pakistan in any circumstances.

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Well if the United States hasn't plied Pakistan with military assistance for the past ten years and it's not as if the Pakistanis have pretty much refused to take any critical steps to further US strategic interests..Thanks for the post..

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It is encouraging that the security establishment has been able to rollback the legacy of Musharraf through a little crack available to them in Raymond Davis’ arrest and exposé. However, this has not gone down well with the US, which is the biggest aid-giver to Pakistan. Apprehensions have been expressed that the Obama administration might not be able to convince a Congress that sees Pakistan as being part of the problem rather than the solution to give it the $ 1.5 billion in economic assistance under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act. In the current situation, when Pakistan is facing multifarious crises and is barely managing its economy, this will put a lot of pressure on Pakistan to slacken its approach. Also, whatever tensions and problems the two countries are facing, they realise that they are locked in a relationship of strategic nature. The US needs Pakistan’s help in extricating itself from Afghanistan, while Pakistan is dependent on economic assistance from the US. It seems these compulsions will help tide over their differences and hopefully a new balance in relations will be achieved sooner rather than later.

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It was not clear how many C.I.A. personnel that would leave behind; the total number in Pakistan has not been disclosed. But the cuts demanded by the Pakistanis amounted to 25 to 40 percent of United States Special Operations forces in the country, the officials said. The number also included the removal of all the American contractors used by the C.I.A. in Pakistan.

The demands appeared severe enough to badly hamper American efforts — either through drone strikes or Pakistani military training — to combat militants who use Pakistan as a base to fight American forces in Afghanistan and plot terrorist attacks abroad.

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Well if the United States hasn't plied Pakistan with military assistance for the past ten years and it's not as if the Pakistanis have pretty much refused to take any critical steps to further US strategic interests..Thanks for the post.. ;)

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