Reframing the Broken U.S. Relationship With Pakistan: View

The events of the past week are acold shower for any who hold out hope that the U.S.-Pakistanrelationship is on the mend. The latest round of bad newsstarted June 11, when the Washington Post reported that membersof the Pakistani military might have tipped off terrorists thatthe U.S. had identified the location of their bomb-makingfactories, allowing them to elude capture.

Yesterday brought word of the arrest of several Pakistanissuspected of helping the Central Intelligence Agency gatherinformation for the May 1 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.These betrayals came only weeks after Secretary of State HillaryClinton and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, AdmiralMike Mullen, traveled to Islamabad and sought a promise ofurgent action against Islamic extremists targeting Americanforces in Afghanistan. The CIA director, Leon Panetta, droppedby the Pakistani capital a week later to reinforce the message.