Pakistan the "greatest single challenge" to the next United States administration

Finally some common sense. Asia Times

WASHINGTON - Calling Pakistan the "greatest single challenge" to the next United States administration, a bipartisan group of South Asia experts recommends cutting aid to the Pakistani army unless it commits itself to the counter-insurgency struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

"The Pakistan military should understand that its failure to embrace this fundamental shift in outlook will significantly reduce US military assistance," according to the report by the "Pakistan Policy Working Group" of the government-supported US Institute of Peace (USIP) that was released with little fanfare in Washington late last week.

"While Washington has muted this warning to Pakistan in the past, the next administration must convey this message explicitly and convincingly and then be prepared to follow through," the 13-member group concluded in its 46-page report, entitled "The Next Chapter: The United States and Pakistan".

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The report, which also endorsed a pending congressional package that would provide Pakistan with US$1.5 billion a year in non-military aid, also insisted that Washington is justified in carrying out unilateral cross-border attacks into Pakistan against terrorist targets until Islamabad shows "that it is ready and willing to act aggressively" against them on its own.

At the same, however, "the US will need to be circumspect on the extent to which it relies on such strikes, recognizing that each strike carries the cost of undermining US long-term objectives of stabilizing Pakistan and preventing radical forces from strengthening in the country," according to the report, which noted that Islamabad halted all fuel shipments to US forces in Afghanistan in the aftermath of a cross-border attack by US special forces in South Waziristan last month.

"Any sustained interruption of supplies would seriously hamper our ability to operate in Afghanistan because 80% of the logistical support for the US military operating in Afghanistan flows through Pakistan," it said, noting that Washington should explore alternative supply routes into Afghanistan in the event that ties with Islamabad worsen.