‘Pak can no longer expect ‘blank cheques’ from US’
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s decision to block US $300 million+ military aid to Pakistan for its failure to take sufficient action against Haqqani network shows that Islamabad can no longer expect “blank checks” from the US, according to experts.
“The blank-check approach to soliciting Pakistan’s support against terrorism no longer holds in Washington among both legislative and executive branches of government – a development primarily the result of repeated American requests for Pakistani action against the Haqqani Network which has been implicated in attacks against Americans in Afghanistan,” Shamila Chaudhary, a former White House official and now a senior South Asia fellow, International Security Programme at New America, a think-tank, told PTI.
The Obama administration’s decision to withhold a portion of the Coalition Support Funds from Pakistan shows just how much US-Pakistan ties have changed since the days following the 9/11 attacks, when the Bush administration initiated a counter-terrorism-based assistance relationship with relatively few strings attached, she said.