WASHINGTON:
Assistant Secretary of Defence for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflicts Michael Sheehan claims, “Pakistan has an addiction to playing around with militia groups to achieve certain interests, particularly vis-à-vis India. That gets them in all kinds of trouble.”
Speaking at a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services subcommittee, Sheehan said that the US has had conversations with Pakistan “forever” about this, but he does not see it changing. “I don’t see any set of talking points that’s going to be delivered by some new diplomat that’s going to change their mind.”
Calling the US-Pakistan relationship as the most complicated relationship in the world that the United States has, Mr. Sheehan said that they have no choice but to work with Pakistan, and that he believes the US will. “It’s very troubling and can be so frustrating in dealing with the Pakistani government on so many levels, but at the end of the day we’re going to find confluence of interest and we’re going to work together as best we can and get these issues resolved.”
Addressing the subcommittee, he said that there are “new parliamentary decisions that are going to further complicate our ability to work with the Pakistani government.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 30th, 2012.
COMMENTS (5)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
and also cry victim. "bad terrorists attacking pakistan" anybody?
Its better the US leaves the region. The world is sick and tired of this death and destruction.
I doubt the US will remain a Pakistani ally once they move out of Afghanistan. We all know economic interests primarily drive the US foreign policy and India with its growing economy serves it greater than Pakistan ever will. What use will Pakistan be to them once they pull out?
US only wants to work with Pakistan because mission to destroy Pakistan is not over yet. That's the only truth
The India fixation is well known i only hope “I don’t see any set of talking points that’s going to be delivered by some new diplomat that’s going to change their mind.” is not true. Continuing with more of the same is not good for either of us.The policies fowled so far have not worked in the last 64yrs maybe we need to think of a new approach .