The Horns Of America And Pakistan Separate (Daniel 7)

Pakistan threatens to buy Russian or Chinese jets in spat with US

Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad and Victor Mallet in New Delhi

©AFP

 

Pakistan has threatened to buy advanced Russian or Chinese combat jets after Washington withdrew financing for a US arms purchase amid a weakening of its strategic relationship with Islamabad.

“If funding is arranged, Pakistan will get the F16,” said Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs adviser to Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister. “Otherwise, we will opt for jets from some other place.”

The Pakistan Air Force is looking at other options including the Russian SU35, the Chinese J10 and the Chinese J20 stealth fighter, according to a senior foreign ministry official.

The US and Pakistan have long had close ties and jointly supported the Taliban rebels who drove Soviet invaders out of Afghanistan in 1989. But the 9/11 terror attacks, masterminded by al-Qaeda from Afghan soil, ushered in a more complex period in which US forces helped overthrow the Taliban regime. The US continues to fight the group’s militants while Pakistan gives them haven.
Washington is also upset by Pakistan’s support for other Islamist terror organisations, while President Barack Obama has said Islamabad is moving “in the wrong direction” by adopting battlefield atomic weapons that increase the risk of a nuclear conflict with India.

Although the US has not cancelled the sale of the eight additional F16s for $700m, it has withdrawn the offer of US credit for the contract because members of Congress from both main parties are demanding what one called “behavioural changes” from Pakistan so that it stops supporting terrorism.

“Given congressional objections, we have told the Pakistanis that they should put forward national funds for that purpose,” the US State Department said.

India, Pakistan’s neighbour and regional rival, is delighted with the turn of events because it has been the victim of terror attacks and cross-border incursions by Pakistan-based Islamist militant groups.

Western diplomats say US-Pakistan relations have come under strain in the past year mainly for two reasons. First, advances made by the Taliban in Afghanistan have prompted US officials to demand more action by Pakistan to rein in Afghan Taliban and other extremist leaders based on its territory. Lt Gen John Nicholson, US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, told a Senate committee that Pakistan was not putting “adequate pressure” on the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network.

Second, the US is concerned by reports that Pakistan is inducting tactical nuclear weapons into its armoury, a development that lowers the threshold of their use and raises the spectre of an exchange with India. Islamabad responded that India’s superiority in conventional forces has raised the threat for Pakistan. “We have no option but to raise our defences,” says one Pakistani government official.

Additionally, public demands by US politicians and officials for the release of Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who led a fake vaccination programme that may have helped the US track and kill Osama bin Laden in 2011, have prompted a backlash in Pakistan.

“Linking Shakil Afridi to continued co-operation with Pakistan has totally backfired for the Americans,” says Zaffar Hilaly, a former Pakistani diplomat. “A rupture in Pakistan relations with the US is now seriously on the cards. The Americans seem to have lost the plot in Afghanistan and Pakistan, given that Afghanistan is heading for a collapse.”

Others link a hardening of US attitudes towards Pakistan to the withdrawal of the bulk of US forces from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. “American priorities in our region are changing. The old warmth towards Pakistan is just not there any more,” says Ayaz Amir, a former member of parliament and newspaper commentator.

Warnings to Pakistan by competing candidates for the White House in a US election year have also added to the strains.

“Contrary to Mr Trump’s misconception, Pakistan is not a colony of the United States of America,” said Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, Pakistan’s interior minister, following Donald Trump’s remarks on Fox News that if elected he would get Pakistan to free Dr Afridi “in two minutes”.

Pakistan and the US have had frequent ups and downs. In 1990, Washington suspended sales of F16s on the grounds that Pakistan was producing nuclear weapons.

“First the Americans gave us F16s in the 1980s when Pakistan was a close ally and suspended their sale in 1990 only to resume the sale after the 9/11 attacks,” says one former Pakistan Air Force general. “Even if this immediate matter is resolved, no one in Islamabad will trust the Americans. I fear the feeling in Pakistan’s policy circles is increasingly to go to the Russians and the Chinese for other planes that come with a more reliable supply assurance.”