This is with reference to the announcement by President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley that the United States is holding back some military aid to Pakistan.
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. But that was not to be and now it has decided to stop giving (some) military aid to Pakistan, at least for the time being.
Pakistan Army wages war on terror not as the US would like but as it must. It was only a matter of time that US stopped the military aid to Pakistan. From the US perspective it is being done at a very appropriate time. Pakistan military today has entrenched itself in fighting the extremists along the western border. Even if it does not have resources/funds to fight this war, it cannot stop fighting.
With the stoppage of military aid to Pakistan army, the US will lose the authority as well as the moral high ground to use Pakistan Army as a fighting tool that can be used in any regional dispensation that it is planning in future. It matters a lot to Pakistan army at this stage to lose US military aid.
LT COL (retd) M ALI EHSAN
Karachi
