Assessments

In the fight against Islamic extremism, Islamabad follows its own path for its own reasons.

In the late 1980s, I was part of a small U.S. team sent to investigate the crash of Zia-ul-Haq's C-130, a tricky case made more complex by the atmosphere we found in Pakistan. First, Zia-ul-Haq belonged to the Pakistani army, but the country's air force was the branch tasked with coordinating our investigation. As in any nation's armed forces, interbranch rivalries ran deep there.

Pakistan: The Indispensable, Unreliable U.S. Ally

Highlights

United States

Pakistan

Military & Security

Pakistan: A Military With a Country

Lessons From Old Case Files

When it comes to combating terrorism, Pakistan is an indispensable ally for the United States. But as the two countries' checkered history shows, it is also an unreliable one. Two cases recently in the news demonstrate the duality of Pakistan's relationship with the United States: The arrest of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, wanted by the United States but respected by many Pakistanis, and the imprisonment of Shakil Afridi, who helped pinpoint the location of Osama bin Laden.

ASSESSMENTS

Pakistan: The Indispensable, Unreliable U.S. Ally

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