It’s Time for a New Smart Power Approach To chart the deterioration of ties between Washington and Islamabad over the last two years, as well as the conundrums gnawing at Obama administration officials, consider the following: Despite Pakistan’s official designation as a “major non-NATO ally,” its egregious double game in Afghanistan is increasingly fueling talk […]
Fresh tests await the epically dysfunctional partnership Last month’s agreement on NATO supply routes provided some hope that the two-year long free fall in U.S.-Pakistani relations was at an end. But new serious tests await the epically dysfunctional partnership. One sign of the tensions that remain is Islamabad’s mounting accusations that the U.S.-led NATO coalition […]
The agreement reopening NATO supply routes lays bare Pakistan’s strategic isolation. But is anyone in Islamabad paying attention? Some are spinning last week’s deal ending Pakistan’s seven-month closure of key NATO supply routes into Afghanistan as a triumph of Islamabad’s resolve. The reverse is much closer to the mark, however. Pakistan overplayed its hand in […]
Winning over Pakistani hearts and minds is proving difficult Two new reports provide further insight into the breakdown of U.S.-Pakistan relations. The first, put out by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, charts the growing hostility of Pakistani public opinion toward the United States. The second, issued by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a respected non-governmental […]
A long summer of political turmoil has begun that makes harder the search for a new equilibrium with Washington A tale of two capital cities in the grip of political uncertainty unfolded in South Asia last week. Islamabad was the scene of a fast-paced soap opera that throws into further doubt the future of the […]
However justified, the public berating of Islamabad has become counterproductive. The comments made by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta during his swing through South Asia last week once again raise the question of how coordinated the Obama administration’s regional policy is. An earlier post flagged this issue two months ago by noting the curious timing […]
Events lay bare just how strategically isolated Islamabad has become. As my last post noted, the events of the past week show that New Delhi is sitting pretty diplomatically, being courted ardently by both Washington and Beijing. Conversely, they also laid bare just how strategically isolated Islamabad has become. Pakistan’s most recent troubles began with […]
The curious timing of the bounty on Hafiz Saeed raises the issue of whether U.S. policies toward New Delhi and Islamabad are in sync. If anything, the $10 million bounty the Obama administration offered last week for information leading to the capture and arrest of Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, a high-profile jihadi leader in Pakistan, is […]
Islamabad’s embarrassing rhetoric towards Beijing is a sign of strategic desperation The playing off of two stronger patrons by a smaller or weaker country is a time-honored tactic in international politics. So it is no surprise that Pakistan seeks to create geopolitical leverage by nuzzling up to China whenever a downdraft occurs in its relations with […]