WASHINGTON – I cannot imagine what might unravel in Pakistan if the U.S. doesn’t stay deeply engaged.
Steve Clemons in a quick moment with ABC News talks about Pakistan becoming the most dangerous nation on earth if it becomes “untethered.” Looks like to me like it already has, with the help of $20 billion of U.S. aid.
But Pakistan’s latest treachery is as ugly as it gets and it’s not the first time either, the last just 6 months ago. Talk about petty, especially since we’re a benefactor. From the Washington Post’s Pakistanis disclose name of CIA operative:
The public outing of the CIA station chief here threatened on Monday to deepen the rift between the United States and Pakistan, with U.S. officials saying they believed the disclosure had been made deliberately by Pakistan’s main spy agency.
If true, the leak would be a sign that Pakistan’s powerful security establishment, far from feeling chastened by the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison city last week, is seeking to demonstrate its leverage over Washington and retaliate for the unilateral U.S. operation.
You know it’s getting very serious when someone like Sen. Diane Feinstein questions U.S. and Pakistani financial relations, saying it “makes less and less sense.”
In challenging the financial relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, Feinstein broke with the top two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana — who have defended American aide to country where the world’s most-wanted terrorist was hiding out for six years.
“Either we’re going to be allies in fighting terror, or the relationship makes less and less sense to me,” Feinstein told reporters outside the Senate chamber Monday evening. “Everyone knew that bin Laden was the head of al Qaeda. Everybody knew that he was the leader of the attack on New York City. And to enable him to live in Pakistan in a military community for six years, I just don’t believe it was done without some form of complicity.”
When pressed on the fact that her views diverged from other top lawmakers, like those of Lugar and Kerry, Feinstein did not waver from her position.
“I understand that. I feel a little differently,” said the California Democrat. Lugar and Kerry defended American aid to Pakistan on Sunday television shows, with Lugar staking out an even stronger stance on the value of the alliance between the two counties.
After what’s happened, with bin Laden, then the CIA station chief, it’s clear a reevaluation is in order, because we don’t look very smart giving $20 billion in aid to a country who burns us this badly. China is sure paying attention to this one.
Oh, if only Joe Biden could publicly say I told you so.
Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s been writing on the web since 1996. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.