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America would stop aiding Pakistan unless it terminates its policy of covertly using terrorism to further its frontiers, the Obama administration has conveyed to Islamabad, amid indications that the US is also making Prime Minister <keyword id="6576" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Nawaz-Sharif">Nawaz Sharif</keyword>'s proposed visit to Washington conditional to meeting this objective. A key administration official on Thursday told TNN that there has been no announcements about a Sharif visit to Washington in October although the trip had been widely reported in the Pakistani media based on briefings from diplomats in Islamabad. "This is news to me. We have not made any statements about that (Sharif's visit to Washington)," <keyword id="1088783" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Peter-Lavoy">Peter Lavoy</keyword>, special assistant to the US president and senior director for south asian affairs at the national security council of the White House, told PTI. "If it is pakka (final) you would be the first to hear." 

	The rethink — or at least holding back the announcement — of the visit comes after the administration conveyed to Islamabad that it will not certify the effectiveness of Pakistan counterterrorism operation to Congress to enable passage of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), the military reimbursement aid that goes towards keeping Pakistan solvent.
 

	As part of its rentier-state ethos, Pakistan provides logistical support to US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and in turn bills Washington for reimbursement. Pakistan has extracted more than $13 billion from the US since the coalition forces swooped into Afghanistan. 
 

	The CSF was scheduled to end following the US drawdown from Afghanistan in December 2014, but the Obama government extended the program for another year through a legislation containing additional conditions, including a requirement for certification by the defence secretary that Pakistani military operations are rolling up terrorist networks, including the Haqqani group in North Waziristan.
 But true to form, Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment has again suckered Washington fooling the US by keeping the death from illnesses of <keyword id="16945" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Taliban">Taliban</keyword> supremo Mullah Omar and Jalalludin Haqqani while trying to manage their succession. The manipulation, coming after <keyword id="41240" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Osama-bin-Laden">Osama bin Laden</keyword> being sheltered in Abbottabad, has further eroded trust in a country with a long history of lying and dissembling. Although US policy of forbearance is centered around its fear of Pakistan's collapse, that tolerance is being tested in the face of the Pakistani military-intelligence's serial malfeasance, including its continued patronage of terrorists associated with the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in which six Americans died. "The US move is politically more damaging for Islamabad than its financial impact, which is significant nevertheless for being an important source for narrowing the current account deficit. More importantly, it coincided with the deterioration in ties with Afghanistan because of Kabul's allegations that Islamabad continued to harbor Taliban bases from where attacks were being launched," <keyword id="6587" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="karachi">Karachi</keyword>'s Dawn newspaper, which first reported the rupture, said on Thursday. 

	"The US decision is also likely to sour ties in the run-up to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's scheduled visit to White House in October," it added.
 

	Pakistan's economy is both parlous and perilously-poised, despite frequent juggling of numbers in a country that does not even conduct a regular census. With economic growth barely matching projected population growth, it is reduced to living on aid and remittances. Even aid is starting to dwindle after its familiar patrons in the Gulf have pulled the plug and its sugar daddy China has not come through with the expected bail-outs.
 

	Desperate to keep the US pipeline open, the Pakistani military, which runs the country's foreign policy on behalf of the nominal civilian government, has been decimating its civilian population with every-day air-strikes this week in North Waziristan, announcing dozens of dead "militants" which no one is able to authenticate due to lack of access.
 

	However, the country's continued patronage of terrorists on its eastern flank with India, including its protection of UN designated terrorists such as Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, indicates there has been no fundamental change in its policy.
 

	With Pakistan's salience to American objectives declining in the context of US outreach to Iran and the drawdown in Afghanistan, some scholars are now pressing for a review of Washington's ties with Islamabad. In a Foreign Affairs magazine piece headlined "An Unworthy Ally," C Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly have argued that the time has come for Washington to "cut Pakistan loose," going as far as to suggest punitive sanctions against Pakistani elite, including visa denials to its top generals and officials who support terrorism.
 

	Extracts from Foreign Affairs article by C Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly:
 

	* "Since the current approach has little chance of aligning Pakistan's interests with those of the United States, the time has come for Washington to change course. If Washington cannot end Pakistan's noxious behaviors, it should at least stop sponsoring them."
 * "Despite <keyword id="15962" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Barack-Obama">Barack Obama</keyword>'s understanding of Pakistan's misdeeds ... his administration, like his predecessor's, has failed to develop policies that limit American complicity in them. As a result, Washington has continued to pay Pakistan to do what any sovereign state should do: eliminate terrorists exploiting its territory." 

	* "All the while, the United States has not required Pakistan to stop backing militant groups, such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, even as Islamabad battles those militants who have turned against the state. Indeed, Islamabad has created a permanent revenue stream by arguing that so long as it is fighting militants, it should be entitled to US aid. The United States has been willing to comply because it considers the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons a core national interest."
 

	* "The strategic demands of today's South Asia are distinct from those of the Cold War era, but the central dynamic of US-Pakistani relations remains constant. The United States turns a blind eye to Pakistan's misdeeds because it depends on the country's leaders to counter US enemies in the region-first the Soviets, now the melange of militant groups active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a result, the United States has subsidized both the expansion of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and its stable of Islamist terrorists through programs ostensibly created to manage those same concerns."
 

	* "Past attempts to induce Pakistan to change its behavior have largely failed, and there is little reason to believe that a change in course is imminent. Indeed, what little convergence of interests existed between Washington and Islamabad during the Cold War has long since disappeared. After six decades of policy predicated on Pakistani blackmail, it should be possible to achieve US interests with a different approach."
 

	* "A strategy of containment is the United States' best option. Above all, US relations with Pakistan should be premised on the understanding that Pakistan is a hostile state, rather than an ally or a partner."
 
 
(Image credits: pakpassion)

America to stop its aid to
Pakistan, withholds Sharif visit to Washington if terrorism policies not
terminated

India has become the fourth country - after Russia, Britain and China - with which the US has a hotline. The hotlines or secure lines of communication between <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Prime+Minister+Narendra+Modi+">Prime Minister Narendra Modi</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=US+President+Barack+Obama+">US President Barack Obama</a> and their national security advisers have recently become operational. 
 
This is the first hotline for India at the level of head of state, though it has not been put to use during its short lifespan so far. 
 "It (hotline has) just recently been established," said <keyword id="3012678" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Peter-R-Lavoy">Peter R Lavoy</keyword>, special assistant to US President and senior director for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=South+Asian+">South Asian</a> Affairs at the National Security Council of the <keyword id="6356037" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="white-house">White House</keyword>. 
 
When asked if the two leaders have used this latest tool of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=secure+communication">secure communication</a>, Lavoy said: "It (hotline) has not been used so far." 
 
"This is a secure line between two very very close partners so that they can exchange views at the heads of state level...exchange views and co-ordinate approaches to solving real problems," said the top White House official. 
 In 2004, India and Pakistan agreed to establish hotlines at the level of foreign secretaries, and in 2010 New Delhi and <keyword id="1333" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Beijing">Beijing</keyword> announced to establish a hotline at the foreign minister level. 
 
It has been reportedly said that the hotline between India and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Pakistan+">Pakistan</a> was established with the help of <keyword id="57545" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="US-military">US military</keyword>. 
 
India-China hotline is yet to become operational. 
 
The establishment of hotline between leaders of the two largest democracies of the world is part of efforts of Obama and Modi to increase the frequency of level of communication and frequent discussion between them on key bilateral, regional and global issues. 
 
At a joint press meet with Obama in New Delhi on January 25, after their meeting, Modi said the two leaders have decided to give this critical partnership its due trust and sustained attention. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

A hotline between Barack Obama and Modi! Imagine the issues that can be discussed, unhindered

You know you’ve arrived when you can pick up the phone and call the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=President+of+the+United+States">President of the United States</a> directly. India is the fourth name on the list after Russia, Britain and China. The decision to establish a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Modi-Obama">Modi-Obama</a> <keyword id="6482770" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="hotline">hotline</keyword> was finalized during Obama’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Republic+Day">Republic Day</a> visit to India on January 26th. 
 
 Peter R Lavoy, Special Assistant to US President and Senior Director for South Asian Affairs at the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=National+Security+Council">National Security Council</a> of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=White+House">White House</a> explained why it’s being set up. “This is a secure line between two very very close partners so that they can exchange views at the heads of state level…exchange views and co-ordinate approaches to solving real problems”, he said. 
 
Business Insider India ponders on the possible conversations this hotline might witness very soon. Mind, this is just to tickle the funny bone, so take it easy. Now brace yourself. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
That's all Folks!

Possible Modi-Obama hotline conversations

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Cliven Bundy - the father of now-arrested Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who were part of the Oregon "militia" that took over a federal wildlife refuge for 25 days - said his son's arrest and the killing of another group member "will be a wake-up call to America.""This is a total disaster to be happening in America," <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/rancher-cliven-bundy-responds-sons-arrests-oregon-standoff-video%20;">he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal</a>. "We have, I'm guessing, federal people killing innocent people. I'll tell you one thing, my sons and those who were there were there to do good, no harm was intended, they would never threaten anybody, they was trying to teach people about the Constitution and trying to help the Hammond family, trying to make sure this type of abuse didn't happen in America and yet, it did."Ammon, the leader of the self-styled militia occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, was arrested after the FBI conducted a traffic stop. His brother Ryan and five others were in the vehicle at the time of the stop.&#xa0;Shots were fired during the arrest. One man, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, was killed, according to a militia spokesman. Officials have not yet publicly confirm Finicum's death.&#xa0;Ryan suffered a minor gunshot wound during the traffic stop as well, <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/bundys_in_custody_one_militant.html#incart_maj-story-1">according to The Oregonian</a>. The brothers and four other associates were arrested on scene while another man, Peter Santilli,&#xa0;an independent broadcaster who live-streamed the occupation, was also arrested later.<div></div>The group of occupiers was on their way to a community meeting in John Day, Oregon, <a href="http://katu.com/news/local/leader-of-oregon-occupation-ammon-bundy-three-others-arrested">per KATU News</a>.&#xa0;The remaining occupiers at the refuge have no plans to leave, per The Oregonian.<div></div>The standoff in Oregon began January 2 when an armed group led by Ammon&#xa0;took control of the refuge&#xa0;to protest the sentences of two men who set fire to federal land, Dwight and Steven Hammond.Cliven&#xa0;made national headlines for a similar standoff with federal officials in Nevada during 2014.

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America to stop its aid to Pakistan, withholds Sharif visit to Washington if terrorism policies not terminated

BI India Bureau

A hotline between Barack Obama and Modi! Imagine the issues that can be discussed, unhindered

BI India Bureau

Possible Modi-Obama hotline conversations

Saikat Pyne

Father of arrested Oregon 'militia' leader: 'This is a total disaster to be happening in America'

Allan Smith

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