US cannot afford to ignore Pakistan's dangerous double games: Report

Jerusalem, Aug 13 The United States cannot afford to ignore "dangerous double games" of Pakistan, particularly when they threaten global security and strain ties with steadfast ally India, a leading Israeli daily reported on Wednesday.

During his recent visit to the US, Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir had reportedly threatened to "take half the world down" alongside India, in comments which reflected reckless brinkmanship that no ally should tolerate.

Highlighting the "audacious remarks", Michael Arizanti, an expert on Middle East Affairs, wrote in The Times of Israel that Pakistan's history as an ally of the US is filled with betrayal and the Trump administration's apparent leniency towards Islamabad risks empowering a nation which has a history of enabling terrorism and destabilising the region,

"Pakistan’s track record as a US ally is riddled with deceit. Declassified US documents from 2010, cited by Reuters, reveal that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) paid $200,000 to the Haqqani network for the 2009 Khost attack, which killed seven CIA officers. This act of treachery, funded by a supposed partner receiving billions in US aid, casts serious doubt on Pakistan’s reliability," wrote Arizanti.

He also spotlighted the 2008 Mumbai attacks, planned by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative and a Pakistani-American David Headley which killed 166 people, including six Americans.

Pakistani Al-Qaeda operative, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) had also planned the 9/11 attacks, which remains the deadliest attack in the US, claiming lives of 2977 people, particularly Americans. KSM's nephew, Ramzi Yousef, also a Pakistani, was the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. These attacks, enabled by Pakistan's non-restrictive environment for jihadist groups, demonstrates nation's failure to curb terrorism or its active support for it, as per the report.

The Trump administration’s apparent warming toward Pakistan, the report states, is baffling and suggests a troubling prioritization.

“Why is the United States tolerating this thuggery on its own soil? When Iran threatens to wipe Israel off the map, the US responds decisively, yet Pakistan’s similar rhetoric elicits little reaction," the writer questioned.

The report states that if the United States wants to pull Pakistan away from China, it cannot be done at the cost of losing a permanent and non-bothering ally like India.

Pakistan, the report mentions while quoting the words from Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is behaving like "a rogue state".

"Pakistan's actions reflect a deeper ideological challenge. Rubin’s stark assessment — 'Asim Munir is Osama bin Laden in a suit' — captures the danger of Pakistan's military leadership embracing a worldview that justifies nuclear threats and terrorism," the report stated.

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