Five myths about Pakistan

Late last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said there was no evidence that Pakistani officials had known that Osama bin Laden lived undetected blocks from the country’s equivalent to West Point. But after the al-Qaeda leader was killed in Abbottabad on May 1, others were skeptical. “How could they not know?” said Sen. John Kerry (D. - Mass.). “Did nobody have some questions about who the hell was living behind those walls?”

In the war on terrorism, where does Pakistan’s loyalty lie? If this nation is our ally, why can’t we trust it? To answer these questions, let’s first tackle some widespread misconceptions about a troubled country torn between the Taliban and the West.

Late last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said there was no evidence that Pakistani officials had known that Osama bin Laden lived undetected blocks from the country’s equivalent to West Point. But after the al-Qaeda leader was killed in Abbottabad on May 1, others were skeptical. “How could they not know?” said Sen. John Kerry (D. - Mass.). “Did nobody have some questions about who the hell was living behind those walls?”

In the war on terrorism, where does Pakistan’s loyalty lie? If this nation is our ally, why can’t we trust it? To answer these questions, let’s first tackle some widespread misconceptions about a troubled country torn between the Taliban and the West.

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Five Myths

A feature from The Post’s Outlook section that dismantles myths, clarifies common misconceptions and makes you think again about what you thought you already knew.

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1.Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

Pakistan pursues only its national interests — or whatever its military high command decides is in the county’s national interests. The security establishment likes to work with the United States when possible and certainly likes receiving U.S. aid, but its perception of Pakistan’s interests always comes first.

During the Cold War, Washington considered Pakistan an ally against the Soviet Union. Under President Ayub Khan in the 1960s and President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s, the United States gave Pakistan substantial aid — $3.2 billion in a five-year package in the early ’80s, or about $8 billion in 2011 dollars. Yet, Pakistan followed its own path. When Ayub went to war with India in 1965 and Pakistan launched its savage crackdown in East Bengal in 1971, Washington wasn’t consulted.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan has sometimes helped the United States, and sometimes not. Though some U.S. legislators believe that its intelligence community sheltered bin Laden, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) arrested al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh and helped foil terrorist plots by Pakistanis living in Britain. Though they don’t want to promote anti-Western terrorism, Pakistan’s generals do want to cultivate the Afghan Taliban for an expected civil war with anti-Pakistani Tajiks backed by India. Our enemies might turn out to be their friends.

2. Pakistan is an ally of the Taliban.

Just as Pakistan isn’t an unconditional ally in the West’s war on terrorism, it isn’t always in the Taliban’s corner, either. Pakistan’s military gives the Afghan Taliban shelter, but it does not provide the fighters with sophisticated weapons such as antitank rockets or antiaircraft missiles. If Pakistan were fully on the Taliban’s side, the Taliban would be much more militarily effective.

The Taliban doesn’t trust the Pakistanis. “Pakistan is so famous for treachery that it is said that they can get milk from a bull,” wrote Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was the ambassador to Pakistan for Afghanistan’s Taliban government until 2001. “They have two tongues in one mouth, and two faces on one head, so that they can speak everybody’s language. They use everybody, deceive everybody.”

And this suspicion runs both ways. Pakistan’s military remembers that the Afghan Taliban spurned its advice before 9/11, refusing to moderate its radical ideology and expel al-Qaeda. Pakistani generals disapprove of Islamist revolution — whether in Afghanistan or their own country — but most back the Afghan Taliban because they think they have no choice, given the bitter anti-Pakistan sentiment of powerful forces within Hamid Karzai’s government and India’s links to those forces.