European Journal of Scientific Research - EuroJournals

Reflection of US Policy Towards Pakistan in Pakistani Press 327
In the mid-1970s, new strains arose over Pakistan’s efforts to respond to India’s 1974
underground nuclear test by seeking its own nuclear weapons capability. U.S. aid was suspended in
1979 in response to Pakistan’s covert construction of a uranium enrichment facility. However,
following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year, Pakistan again was viewed as a front line
ally in the effort to block Soviet expansionism. In 1981, the Reagan Administration offered Islamabad
a five-year, $3.2 billion aid package. Pakistan became a key transit country for arms supplies to the
Afghan resistance, as well as home for some three million Afghan refugees, most of whom have yet to
return. Despite this renewal of U.S. aid and close security ties, many in Congress remained troubled by
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program With the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s nuclear
activities again came under intensive U.S. scrutiny and, in 1990; Bush (senior) again suspended aid to
Pakistan. Under the provisions of the Pressler’ amendment, most bilateral economic and all military aid
ended, and deliveries of major military equipment ceased (Hanan, 2006; and King & Lester, 2005)
In 1992, Congress partially relaxed the scope of sanctions to allow for food assistance and
continuing support for nongovernmental organizations. Among the notable results of the aid cutoff was
the non delivery of F-16 fighter aircraft purchased by Pakistan in 1989. Nine years later, the United
States agreed to compensate Pakistan with a $325 million cash payment and $140 million in goods,
including surplus wheat, but the episode engendered lingering Pakistani resentments. During the
1990s, with U.S. attention shifted away from the region, Islamabad further consolidated its nuclear
weapons capability, fanned the flames of a growing separatist insurgency in neighboring Indiancontrolled
Kashmir, and nurtured the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, where the radical Islamist
group took control of Kabul in 1996. After more than a decade of alienation, U.S. relations with
Pakistan were once again transformed in dramatic fashion, this time by the September 2001 terrorist
attacks on the United States and the ensuing enlistment of Pakistan as a pivotal ally in U.S.-led
counterterrorism efforts. A small trickle of foreign assistance to Pakistan again became a prodigious
flow and, in a sign of renewed U.S. recognition of the country’s importance, President George W.
Bush designated Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally of the United States in June 2004. One month
later, a Congressional Pakistan Caucus was formed (p. 11)
Rose, L. E., and, Noor A. H (1987) write in their book "United States-Pakistan Forum" that
American foreign policy in a global sense is focused on the two central issues of our times (a) the
problem of seeking more just and equitable social, economic, and political progress, can be subsumed
by the single word "development", and (b) focused on the questions of war and peace. On the
preservation in effect of the human race in the nuclear age, and on the difficult and complex problems
of regional and strategic stability that can be subsumed by the single word, "security." Development
and security are thus the foci of American global involvement. After Vietnam, an equally significant
development has been a greater awareness by the American people vis-à-vis the outside world and their
country's role in it. Congress, with its control of the purse and the power of the veto, has been
exercising its authority over the chief executive's foreign policy actions. The media continue to be a
powerful instrument in U.S. politics, both at home and abroad and are fast overtaking the role of
traditional opinion-makers, thus influencing major decisions (p.108).
In recent years, Pakistan has learned firsthand about the reality of the key role that institutions
such as Congress, the media, and academia play in shaping U.S-Pakistan relations. The experience
since 1971 has been educative. Consequently, many Pakistanis recognize the fact that no matter how
supportive a given administration is toward Pakistan, the support of these and other institutions is
equally and, at times more, important for the smooth conduct of relations between the two countries.
Indeed, it is in these areas that Pakistan needs to impress its positions and explain its national interests.
Pakistan focus its full intention on the South West Asia-Middle East region, an area where Pakistan has
far greater stakes. U.S-Pakistan relations could be more enduring and tangible if Washington perceived
and treated Islamabad as an independent entity, not as its neighbor's coattails. (p.109)