Blowup

Bruce Riedel: America’s Pakistan Mess

If you’ve been listening to foreign policy pundits, you knew the U.S. relationship with Pakistan was careening toward a messy public breakup. The Daily Beast’s Bruce Riedel sums up their rocky partnership, a mutual diplomatic strategy built on lies and distrust and left shattered by a NATO airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers Saturday. “Pakistan proclaimed it was our ally against communism or Al Qaeda or whatever, when what it really just wanted was arms and help to fight India. America promised to help democracy in Pakistan and instead backed four brutal military dictators.” The reality behind all the furtive double-crossing is that the two countries just don’t have the same interests, and can no longer pretend they do.