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Pakistan-backed attacks have killed countless Americans—sometimes in cold blood. It is now known that the 2007 attack by Pakistani troops on U.S. forces, which occurred at the conclusion of a collegial meeting to hash out a border issue, was not carried out by some rogue soldier. Rather, it was a cold-blooded ambush. Details of the attack prompted The New York Times to conclude that Pakistan “behave[s] as an enemy.”
“The support of terrorism is part of their national strategy,” Mullen bluntly concludes.
This is something neighboring India knows all too well—and has never doubted. Elements of ISI are reported to have provided support to the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group involved in the Mumbai siege, which killed 183 people. ISI’s fingerprints are also on the attack against India’s embassy in Kabul, which killed 54 people in 2008.
Since 9/11, there has been a debate in Washington over the dysfunctional Pakistani government, with one side arguing that Islamabad is doing its best to rein in its unwieldy intelligence service and military, and the other arguing that the Pakistani government is complicit in what its intelligence operatives do—and what its military won’t do.
That debate is an academic exercise—and a meaningless one given what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan. Whether Pakistan’s government is unable to control its intelligence services and military (an unlikely and, given Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, unsettling prospect) or tacitly supports what the ISI is doing (the more plausible possibility), the result is the same: Elements from inside Pakistan are killing Americans, arming and training people who are killing Americans, hiding America’s enemies, and undermining an independent, democratic, civilized Afghanistan.
After ten years of trying, it’s clear that America cannot change Pakistan. In fact, the roles of Afghanistan and Pakistan have effectively reversed in the past decade, as Afghanistan’s territory is increasingly used by U.S. forces to launch strikes into Pakistan. What America can change is how it interacts with, treats and identifies Pakistan. Labeling Pakistan what it is—an enemy regime—is a good place to start.
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