A Critical Look At US-Pakistan Relations
Ajay Darshan Behera
DEADLY EMBRACE: PAKISTAN, AMERICA AND THE FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL JIHAD by Bruce Riedel Harper Collins Publishers, 2011, 180 pp., 499
August 2017, volume 35, No 8/9

The nature of the US-Pakistan relationship has been very difficult for many analysts to fathom. Is it a relationship based on some broad principles and common objectives or is it an opportunistic alliance—from which neither is able to disengage? That there is little trust between the two countries has been obvious over the years. It was made amply clear by the American raid on a compound located near the premier Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden. And since then US-Pakistan relations have been on a downward spiral. A review of the current US-Pakistan relations points to the deep mistrust that exists between the two. Bruce Riedel’s book predates the discovery of bin Laden holed up in Pakistan for five years probably with the knowledge of the Pakistan Army and in many senses forewarns of a coming crisis. It is a harsh account of Pakistan’s role in the war on terrorism. Riedel, a former CIA official and now a Senior Fellow at the Saban Centre at the Brookings Institute, Washington, DC, served the US administration under four Presidents

He first came into limelight with his account of the meeting between President Clinton and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on 4 July 1999 at Blair House in an attempt to diffuse the Kargil crisis. More recently in 2009, he conducted the strategic review of policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan for President Obama. Riedel in his public positions does not hold much sympathy for the Pakistani ruling elites.

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