Any country that uses threat or use of force for policy ends cannot be termed as an ally.
KARACHI: This is with reference to the announcement by US President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley, that the US will be holding back some military aid to Pakistan for this year.
Any country that uses threat or use of force for policy ends cannot be termed as an ally. Unfortunately, the US is using both tools in dealing with Pakistan. The best way forward for both countries would have been to mutually conclude desirable policy ends.
The US needs to understand that the Pakistan Army fights the terrorists not as the US would want it to but rather as it must and as the people of Pakistan would want it to. Given the ups and downs of the US-Pakistan relationship of late, it was only a matter of time before something like this was going to happen.
As far as fighting the militants in Fata is concerned, Pakistan will maintain a military presence in the area with or without military aid from America. Also, the action by the US suggests that Pakistan’s civilian and military rulers, for a change, are not taking orders from Washington. The holding back of some military aid also suggest that perhaps Pakistan’s belief that its ties with America would be different this time around was incorrect.
One principle of war taught and practiced by armies all over the world is to ‘cut off any routes through which outside help can reach your enemy’. What this cutback in US military aid will, however, do is to strengthen the militants that the Pakistan military is fighting on its western borders.
Lt-Col (retd) Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2011.
