Q. What is the biggest misconception Pakistanis have about the United States?

The suspicion in Pakistan is that the United States wants to defang Pakistan’s nuclear program, that the United States cannot accept a Muslim country having a strong military, and that America wants Pakistan to be subservient to India, just as it wants the Arabs to be subservient to Israel. It is ironic that a lot of this is based on conspiracy theories that are rampant in Pakistan. Recently, the vice chancellor of Pakistan’s largest university came out with a book that says that the British and American governments are controlled by a high cabal, which manipulates each one of us by putting microchips in our brains.

Q. What is the biggest misconception Americans have about Pakistan?

The biggest misconception the Americans have had is that they can somehow bend Pakistan to their will simply with the leverage of aid. Aid has never given the Americans the leverage they thought they would have. As far as the American public is concerned, it has never really seriously engaged with Pakistan, and the understanding of most Americans about Pakistan is through single-issue prisms: nuclear program one day, terrorism the other. There has never been an effort to understand 180 million people and their aspirations.

Q. Critics of the United States say that Pakistanis feel the United States cultivates Pakistan when it needs it, and abandons it when it no longer needs it. Is that valid?

It is partially valid. Each time, Pakistan also has failed to fulfill promises it made to the United States. However, Pakistanis complain louder than Americans, so therefore, the sequence of who abandoned who is not always fully understood. One of the things I speak of in my book is how Pakistan’s elites almost always misled their people about what they had promised the Americans in private.

Image Husain Haqqani Credit... Anjum Naveed/Associated Press

Q. The late [special envoy] Richard Holbrooke was among those who tried to broaden the U.S.-Pakistan relationship beyond counterterrorism and military aid. Yet those efforts did not outlive him. Is that a valid model for putting the relationship on a firmer footing?