US should act against Haqqani Network: Levin

US Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, significantly upped the pressure on Pakistan to act against the Haqqani network on Tuesday, saying the United States had the right to target the Haqqani network itself because it killed American troops stationed in Afghanistan.
In a major policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Levin, who is one of the most cerebral foreign policy experts, took a hefty swipe at Pakistan.
“If Pakistan will not take on the threat posed by the Haqqanis and other extremist groups then we should be prepared to take steps to defend our troops. It is consistent with established principles of international law for the US to defend itself and Afghanistan against cross-border attacks by insurgents based in Pakistan,” he added.
According to Levin, the US has the right not only to target forces and artillery attacking Afghanistan, but to also target people controlling those forces as well. He said as “Defence Secretary (Leon) Panetta has said, the message that the Pakistanis need to know is that the US is going to do everything that we can to defend our forces”.
NORMAL TIES: “We should inform Pakistan that it should not expect to normalise its relationship with the US so long as it provides safe haven for violent extremist groups or uses terrorists as proxies against other countries. We may not be able to persuade Pakistan that its activities are counterproductive for its own security and stability in the region, but we must let them know clearly that this is a show-stopper to a normal relationship with the United States,” Levin added. Levin said that even if the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan had the will to improve governance, it could not succeed without security. “The greatest threat to security in Afghanistan is that posed by the safe havens that harbour insurgents across the border in Pakistan. The Haqqani network in North Waziristan in particular has used its sanctuary in Pakistan to launch deadly attacks on Afghan, US and other coalition forces in Afghanistan,” he said.
“Now, what has been apparent for years is that the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) maintains ties with the Haqqani network and provides support to this group,” he said. “We owe it to our military, the men and women who put on the uniform of the US, that when we send them into harm’s way that we challenge Pakistan over its support for the extremist groups.”