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Washington: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has a clear agenda for his inaugural visit to Washington this week: He wants more aid, more patience, and less pressure from the US as his four month-old coalition government develops a strategy to combat Taliban and Al Qaida forces in the tribal areas along his country's border with Afghanistan.
But while Gilani may leave town with more money - targeted toward education, development and assistance to cope with rising food and fuel prices - US patience is likely to be in short supply, with the Bush administration publicly chastising the new Pakistani leadership for its reluctance to move aggressively against terrorist redoubts inside its territory.
"Pakistan is a friend, Pakistan is an ally," President Bush said this month, but the rise in cross-border infiltration "ought to be troubling" to its government.
Border woes
Other officials were more blunt: "We need Pakistan to put more pressure on that border," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen said last week, while on Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed that Pakistan "needs to do more."
Congress, in rare bipartisan accord on foreign policy, has grown increasingly outspoken against Pakistan's preference for negotiating with tribal leaders.
Current legislative proposals make any new US counterterrorism aid - the bulk of more than $10 billion (Dh36.7 billion) Washington has provided Pakistan since 2001 - conditional on demonstrated results.
"I'm not sure they're ready for what they're walking into," one US official said in anticipation of a testy reception for Gilani from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Pakistani officials say they understand that the seven-year-old Afghan war is not going well for US and Nato forces. But far from accepting blame for the worsening situation, the new government harbours its own suspicions about Washington's impatience.
Some question whether the Bush administration was simply more comfortable dealing with Pervez Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan singlehandedly for more than a decade, than it is with the admittedly messy democratic government that replaced him.
One of ours
"The tendency in Washington is always to think about foreign rulers as 'ours' and 'not ours,'" said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador here. "Then, when one of 'ours' is weakened, people in Washington tend to think 'Oh, God, there goes our policy.'"
Reports that the US and Nato are considering the deployment of ground forces across the border from Afghanistan to raid terrorist camps in Pakistan have increased tension on both sides.
"If you keep saying 'Let's do it together, but if you won't then we'll do it alone,' then what you're doing is undermining the spirit of working together to begin with," Haqqani said.
- Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
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