Pakistan and US

Friends or Foes?

How to make sense of the issue of the growing Afghanistan insurgency base in north-west Pakistan? Following the rhetoric leads to utter confusion.

The first thing that has crystallized is that Pakistan has seen that a growing insurgency base aims itself at Pakistan, not just Afghanistan. There are two consequences of this realization. Firstly the Pakistan government cannot remain complacent and let the problem blow away – or blow into Afghanistan. The second consequence is that if the United States were to escalate its operations into the Pakistan frontier regions than this would have less resistance on the Pakistan side: because Pakistan has sorted out that they have a problem on their own turf and is tacitly thankful for the help.

The Pakistan government tells their people that they think the US is not really very nice, and surreptitiously tells the US, thanks for the help.

The US has been inclined to increase its cross-border operations in large part also because the Pakistan people are becoming more ambivalent due to the pervasive incursion of militancy and terrorism into their society.