Trump's pressure on Pakistan is major test of new strategy to end war in Afghanistan

Jim Michaels | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Nikki Haley on Pakistan and Afghanistan Nikki Haley on Pakistan and Afghanistan

The Trump administration’s strategy for ending the war in Afghanistan and defeating terror groups in the region faces its first major test in its confrontation with Pakistan.

In a tweet this week, President Trump said Pakistan’s government has played the United States for “fools” and received nothing but “lies & deceit” in return for $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years.

On Thursday the administration said it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan, including $255 million in military aid this year.

Putting pressure on Pakistan’s government to change its policies toward neighboring Afghanistan is central to the Trump administration’s strategy, announced in August, to stabilize the region and bring an end to America's longest war, now in its 17th year.

Pakistan is considered critical because its links to the Taliban insurgents fighting the U.S.-backed Afghan government could help convince the militants to reach a political reconciliation.

"The senior (Taliban) leadership still resides in Pakistan," said Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Nicholson said the U.S. military would like to see the Pakistanis eliminate the Taliban's sanctuary across the Afghan border.

"We have got to see movement on this reduction of sanctuary and support for those insurgents and terrorists operating from Pakistan who are attacking our forces and our coalition diplomats and forces, as well as the Afghans, inside this country," Nicholson told reporters in November.

Pakistan has been frustrating successive administrations since 2001, when U.S. troops ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.

Bin Laden was killed in 2011 by U.S. commandos who raided his compound in Pakistan, raising questions about whether the Pakistani government knew he was there and protected him. Pakistan has refused to cut links with the Taliban and other terror groups.

Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, has long had close ties to the Taliban.

Pakistan's officials "work with us at times, and they also harbor the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan," said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

On Thursday, the Trump administration notched up its criticism of Pakistan when the State Department included Pakistan on a list of countries that violate religious freedoms.

The political standoff with Pakistan comes in the wake of a push by the administration to get Pakistan’s cooperation as part of its southwest Asia strategy launched last year. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traveled to Pakistan to meet with government officials.

The United States has continually hoped the Pakistanis would change their behavior, but “the evidence is all on the other side,” said David Sedney, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and former top Pentagon official under President Barack Obama.

Pakistan’s government denies it has ties to terror groups and has pointed to military offensives it has conducted against insurgents in remote parts of the country.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called Trump’s criticism “incomprehensible.”

It’s not clear the threat to cut off funding will be enough to influence Pakistan. The $33 billion Trump referred to represents all U.S. military and economic aid to Pakistan since 2002.

The amount of U.S. aid to the country has been declining, however, so the United States has less leverage over Pakistan, said Michael O’Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

The $255 million currently being withheld is annual military aid that the United States still provides directly to Pakistan in return for fighting terrorism. The money is the most direct leverage the United States has at its disposal.

Sedney say Pakistan is misusing the money: “They only fight the terrorists they want to fight and they don’t fight the terrorists that we want them to fight.”

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