'Divorcing Pakistan'

Apropos 'Divorcing Pakistan' opined in Los Angeles Times by Professor Andrew J. Bacevich, it is quite true that the history of US-Pakistani relations is one of wild swings between feigned friendship and ill-disguised mistrust. When the United States needs Pakistan, Washington showers Islamabad with money, weapons and expressions of high esteem. Once the need wanes, the gratuities cease, often with brutal abruptness. Instead of largesse, Pakistan gets lectures, with the instruction seldom well received.
Professor Bacevich has rightly argued that the US stayed in this unhappy marriage for the last decade in large part because Pakistan provided the transit route for supplies sustaining Nato's ongoing war in landlocked Afghanistan. However, he made a mistake in his argument in relation to US' dependence on supply routes to Afghanistan. He erroneously forecast that a recently negotiated agreement with several former-Soviet Central Asian republics creates alternatives, removing Pakistan's grip on Nato's logistical windpipe. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between US and Pakistan on resumption of Nato/Isaf supplies is a strong case in point. That Pakistan is still very crucial in an Afghan context is a universal truth.