US is looking for improved relationship with Pakistan – Ben Rhodes
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012 3:05:02 by Yasir Hashmi
US is looking for improved relationship with Pakistan – Ben Rhodes
US Deputy National Security Adviser, Ben Rhodes has expressed that the US wants to stabilize the relations with Pakistan as it has been a major player in the on-going war on terror.
Pakistan and the US have not shared friendly relations since last couple of years as a sequence of events has led to bitterness between the two countries. The US has been urging Pakistan to conduct a military operation in North Waziristan, which the US feels
is a ‘safe heaven’ for the terrorists. However, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership has not given any positive signals in this regard.
On top of that, the Raymond Davis episode and the incident of Osama Bin Laden caused a trust-deficit between the allies. However, the matters got worse last year after the attack of the NATO forces on the Salala Check-Post, where 24 Pakistani soldiers were
killed.
Rhodes admits that the Pak-US relations have deteriorated recently but he believes that the two countries will be close to each other very soon.
He said, “There obviously has been a fairly turbulent period in US-Pakistan relations over the course of the last several months. We’ll want to address the state of the relationship.”
He feels that Pakistan has to play a major role if the world has to beat Al-Qaeda and for that, the US and Pakistan must have better a relation, which should be based on mutual trust.
“When we step back, we’ve continued to make significant progress against our core interest with regard to Pakistan, which is putting al Qaeda on a path to defeat. And that remains our focus,” Rhodes believes.
Rhodes further added that Pak-Afghan border has immense importance in international politics and this is the reason why NATO or the US cannot afford to have poor relations with Pakistan at the present moment, because the US is now planning to evacuate Afghanistan.
“I think NATO has had a relationship since the beginning of the Afghan war, because we have a shared interest with Pakistan and there not being violent extremist groups within their border and instability in Afghanistan,” Rhodes said.
Pakistan is expected to reopen the NATO supplies from its soil and it remains to be seen that how the situation shapes up because the public sentiment in the country is not in favour of NATO or the US.
Tags: Afghanistan, Ben Rhodes, North Waziristan, Osama bin Laden, Raymond Davis, USShort URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=17287
Posted by Yasir Hashmi
on Mar 27 2012. Filed under Pakistan, World.
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The U.S. cannot improve its relationship with Pakistan for these reasons: a) 98% of Pakistanis hate the U.S., and don’t want to have any relations at all – according to published polls. b) The Pakistanis believe their government is corrupt, and that its politicians work with the U.S. to fatten their wallets. c) The U.S. believe that the Pakistani ISI is colluding with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, finances them, arms them, and keep them well-trained militarily to use as proxies in a war with India scenario. d) The U.S. wants to maintain a foothold presence in Afghanistan to have some influence in Central Asia, but Pakistan doesn’t, and the Afghans won’t allow that. The U.S. is still in Afghanistan because it spend $ 10 billions a month in the military effort and in bribes to Afghan and Pakistani officials. But the bribes won’t last forever! e) The anti-American hostility in the Muslim world is too high to allow any good relations between any Muslim country and the U.S., and it will get worse as the war in Afghanistan, the threats against Iran, the U.S. depiction of any anti-American Muslims as terrorists continue, and as Muslim clerics blast those U.S. tactics in mosques and the mandrassas.
Conclusion: The U.S. and Pakistan are “unfit partners,” and the relations can get only worse – not better! This is an indisputable fact supported by history, culture and religion. Nikos Retsos, retired professor