Even as relations between the United States and Pakistan continue to deteriorate over cross-border attacks carried out by US aircraft within Pakistan, the Chairman of the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee has accused Pakistan of hypocrisy with regard to its government’s protests over the attacks.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, Senator Carl Levin, who chairs that important committee, made it clear that the Pakistan Government had different messages in private and in public. He said, “I have real problems with the Pakistan government publicly attacking us when we accurately hit a target, when it is clear that they don’t object. Privately they don’t object.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister SM Qureshi had met with Senator Levin on Thursday.
Levin also made it clear that such rhetoric from Pakistan was leading to a widening trust deficit between the two nations at a critical juncture of their relationship.
He said that he “had problems with the public attack which then creates that huge animosity” towards the US. He said that was even more troubling since such attacks were undertaken “with at least the acquiescence of the Pakistan government” and when “they are failing to go after those targets.”