The May 2^nd Navy Seal raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad led to a crisis in relations between the United States and Pakistan that is still being felt. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in Islamabad now, is the latest high level envoy sent to try to mend fences. Officials say he is on a mission to "bridge the trust gap and repair ties" with his Pakistani counterparts in the intelligence world. But, as part of its fence-mending initiative, did the United States really promise Pakistan's government they wouldn't take a similar unilateral action again in the future?

That's what Pakistan's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, is claiming in an interview today with the Guardian.

"They have assured us in future there will be no unilateral actions in Pakistan, and there would be co-operation between both agencies," he said, identifying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as personally pledging that to him.

Pakistan's President made a similar -- though less explicit -- statement after he met with Secretary Clinton back in May.  He said, both sides agreed to "work together in any future actions against high-value targets in Pakistan."

No similar statements have come from the American side, however. In fact, public comments from Clinton and others would seem to contradict Pakistan's understanding. After the raid, Clinton told CBS News, "We've made it clear to people around the world that if we locate someone who has been part of the al Qaeda leadership, then you get him or we will get him."

President Obama has also said, given similar circumstances, the United States would act the same way.

"Our job is to secure the United States," he told the BBC in May. "We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to kill our people or our allies' people."

In his interview with the Guardian, Gilani said the United States could have trusted Pakistan's intelligence service to help in May's raid, but since that didn't happen, the country "had a lot of reservations" about the operation.

He told the Guardian any future operation in its territory would be "totally unacceptable."

Public opinion would further aggravate against the United States and you cannot fight a war without the support of the masses. You need the masses to support military actions against militants.

Perhaps as a sign of the fraying relationship, last night Gilani told an audience of British and Pakistani business leaders in London that China -- not the United States -- was his country's most important foreign relationship.

"China is a rising power and Pakistan's all-weather friend. This is a relationship that has no parallel. Uniquely, there are no downs but only ups in Pakistan-China relations. China is a source of pride and strength for us," the prime minister said.

As defense analysts focus on escalating tensions in the South China Sea, recent events in Nepal confirm that China's geopolitical influence is growing in South Asia as well. From a report yesterday by the AP:

Nepalese authorities prevented exiled Tibetans from celebrating their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's birthday on Wednesday over concerns that gatherings would turn anti-Chinese.…

Nepal says it cannot allow protests on its soil against any friendly nations, including China.

Police guarded the Chinese Embassy and its visa office in Katmandu against any protests, and areas populated by Tibetans were put under heavy security.

Authorities earlier said they would allow celebrations inside monasteries provided there are no banners or slogans against China.

Read on

While the revelation about the cell-phone contacts are interesting, there's nothing new about the group's longtime connection to bin Laden's terror network.

The links go all the way back to the founding of al Qaeda. Fazlur Khalil, one of HUM's leaders, even signed bin Laden's fatwa in 1998 calling for attacks on the United States and U.S. citizens around the world as part as the "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders." And when the United States launched retaliatory airstrikes against al Qaeda after the embassy bombings in East Africa that same year, some of those missiles struck a HUM training camp in Afghanistan, killing 11 of its militants. At the time, the Clinton administration said the camps were "part of a terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden," according to a Times story from 1998.

According to Robert Grenier, the former CIA station chief in Islamabad, it's not clear if HUM and al Qaeda "shared camps on an organizational level," but there were definitely personal links forged at HUM camps between fighters of both groups.

The State Department put the group on its list of foreign terrorists after the 9/11 attacks (its precursor group, which went by a different name, had been placed on the list in 1997).

WikiLeaks offers more evidence of a connection. In one leaked threat assessment document about a detainee at Guantánamo with ties to HUM, an "analyst note" says: "Kamran Atif, a terrorist who was recently arrested by the Pakistani Crime Investigation Department (CID) Police revealed that [HUM] has links with Al-Qaida and that [HUM] and AQ are ‘in complete contact with each other.'" 

In a threat assessment for another detainee with ties to both groups, HUM is described as "a Pakistani extremist group known to help al Qaeda members escape from Afghanistan." 

HUM is also tied to the 2002 kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed in Pakistan, reportedly by al Qaeda's 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. According to a report released this year on the kidnapping from the Center for Public Integrity and Georgetown University, the mastermind of the operation, Omar Sheikh, had ties to HUM, among other militant groups in Pakistan. 

Also, Pearl's remains were found in a shed owned by Saud Memon, reportedly HUM's chief financial backer who was later killed, according to the Associated Press. 

The Times article says that Khalil, HUM's leader is living "unbothered by Pakistani authorities on the outskirts of Islamabad."

When the Associated Press called Khalil on his cell phone last month, he said that reports that he was in touch with bin Laden in Abottabad were "100 percent wrong, it's rubbish."

"Osama did not have contact with anybody," he said. How would he know?

Pakistan rounded up five informants who provided information to the C.I.A. that helped lead to the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, according to the New York Times. The arrests, which reportedly include a Pakistani Army major who copied the license plates of cars visiting the compound, highlight once again how strained the relationship is between Washington and Islamabad. As Pakistan's powerful Inter-Service Intelligence directorate (ISI) was able to uncover and arrest the alleged C.I.A. informants very soon after the killing, one might wonder what they could do if they put as much energy into locating some of the world's other most wanted people believed to be hiding out in the country.

Here are a few bad guys who remain at large.

Sajid Mir

The man believed to be behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 is a shadowy figure with ties to militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and reportedly to the ISI, though they deny it. He directed the Mumbai operation as it was happening and can be heard on recorded phone conversations instructing the terrorists on the ground where to go, whom to kill, and when to go out in a storm of bullets. He also recruited the American David Headley to act as a scout for the group.

Ayman al-Zawahiri

Bin Laden's longtime deputy, the Egyptian-born doctor is one of America's prime targets in Pakistan. Since bin Laden's death, the United States has upped the pressure on the Pakistani government, military and ISI to provide more information on his whereabouts, according to reports.

Siraj Haqqani

The current leader of the powerful Haqqani network sends weapons, recruits, and supplies to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The group is closely allied to the Taliban. Some analysts say it works as a proxy force used by the ISI, elements of which are accused of providing financial and operational support for their attacks in Afghanistan.

 ‘Major Iqbal'

Perhaps the most mysterious fugitive in Pakistan, Iqbal is an officer in the ISI who helped plan the 2008 Mumbai attacks, according to testimony from David Headley, who claimed that he provided money and helped choose targets. He's named as Headley's ISI handler in a Justice Department indictment. But very little is known about him--including his real identity and how high up in the ISI he was.

Dawood Ibrahim

In 2009, Forbes Magazine named. Ibrahim the 50^th most powerful person in the world. The head of the Mumbai-based crime syndicate D-Company, he is also India's most wanted man, believed to be involved in everything from drug and weapons trafficking to terrorism (he's suspected of organizing attacks in Bombay in 1993 that killed 257 people and the U.S. says he has links to al Qaeda). He's reportedly hiding out in Pakistan, using plastic surgery to help avoid detection--as well as his connections in the ISI.

The White House is currently holding a press conference on the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in Pakistan. (FP's David Kenner is liveblogging.) The images below are from a background briefing for reporters.

A front-page story in Pakistan's The News today reports that new WikiLeaks cables have confirmed what reads like a laundry list of Pakistani suspicions and grievances against India:

A cable from US Embassy in Islamabad leaked by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks disclosed that there were enough evidences of Indian involvement in Waziristan and other tribal areas of Pakistan as well as Balochistan.[...]

An earlier cable ruled out any direct or indirect involvement of ISI in 26/11 under Pasha's command while Mumbai's dossier, based on prime accused Ajmal Kasab's confessional statement was termed funny and "shockingly immature."

WikiLeaks revealed that a cable sent from a US mission in India termed former Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor as an incompetent combat leader and rather a geek.
His war doctrine, suggesting eliminating China and Pakistan in a simultaneous war front was termed as "much far from reality." Another cable indicates that General Kapoor was dubbed as a general who was least bothered about security challenges to the country but was more concerned about making personal assets and strengthening his own cult in the army. The cable also suggested that a tug-of-war between Kapoor and the current Indian Army chief had divided the Indian Army into two groups. [...]

An earlier cable described Indian Army involved in gross human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir while some Lt Gen HS Panag, the then GOC-in-Chief of the Northern Command of the Indian Army, was equated with General Milosevic of Bosnia with regard to butchering Muslims through war crimes.

The only problem is that none of these cables appear to be real. The Guardian, which has full access to the unreleased WikiLeaks cables, can't find any of them. The story, which ran in four Pakistani newspapers, isn't bylined and was credited only to Online Agency, an Islamabad-based pro-army news service.

It's actually surprising this hasn't happened yet. The vast majority of the cables are still unreleased, but the newspapers which have access to them have often reported on some of the more salacious details before the original cables are actually available. (Take for instance, the famous "Batman and Robin" description of Putin and Medvedev, which appeared in newspapers days before the actual cable was available). 

So, it's pretty easy to just make up cables to serve your political agenda. If the Pakistani forgers had been more sophisticated they would have invented quotes or even mocked up fake cables rather than just paraphrasing. This, in my opinion, is an argument for just releasing the full archive now rather than trickling them out at the newspapers' pace. It will be a lot easier to fact check false claims if we no longer have to rely on the Guardian as WikiLeaks' gatekeeper. 

On another note, while the Pakistani revelations seem cartoonish, it wouldn't be surprising if some damaging cables from New Delhi are coming soon. In working to improve the political and economic relationship with India, both the Bush and Obama administrations have papered over a number of unpleasant facts, from India's tacit support to the Burmese military junta to still rampant governmental corruption. I'm guessing the embassy staff in New Delhi has probably been a lot blunter. 

The WikiLeaks revelations about Pakistan mostly just confirmed how both governments not-so-privately already feel about each other. In the case of U.S.-India relations, there's a lot more to lose. 

Violence has engulfed Karachi since Oct. 16, with close to 90 dead across the city. An Oct. 17 special election to replace assassinated Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) legislator Raza Haider boiled over long-held tensions between the MQM and the Awami National Party (ANP). Haider was shot dead at the Jamia Mosque in Nazimabad, a suburb of Karachi, on Aug. 2.

Street violence is nothing new to Karachi; the army was forced to restore order in the 90's, and clashes have oft-occurred in the last few years. After Haider's death, MQM leaders insinuated that the ANP was responsible, sparking street clashes which left dozens dead. (The MQM and ANP, along with the Pakistan People's Party [PPP], rule Sindh province in a coalition government; on the national level, the PPP and the MQM rule together.) The MQM retained the seat as the ANP boycotted the poll.

While affairs in Pakistan's northwest grab the Western headlines, the street battles in Karachi are more important to the Pakistani state. The MQM-ANP violence is not merely political, but carries ethnic undertones. The MQM is largely composed of muhajirs, Urdu-speakers who fled India during the 1947 partition, while the ANP is backed by Pashtuns. Karachi has long been overwhelmingly muhajir, and politically dominated by the MQM, but Pashtuns -- including Afghan refugees and internally displaced Pakistanis, as well as economic migrants -- have entered the city in increasing numbers over the last three decades. Apparently, familiarity does breed contempt in Pakistan's most important city.

Karachi has been spared the widespread suicide bombings that have hit cities like Peshawar and Lahore, but the MQM has blamed increasing levels of violence on Pashtun migrants, alleging that they've both brought Taliban elements with them and are not doing enough to prevent the "Talibanization" of Karachi. The ANP, not suprisingly, disputes this. (For an example of MQM feelings towards the ANP, read this press release on the recent violence from its head, Altaf Hussain -- the ethnic code isn't very subtle.)

So while the attention paid by the U.S. military, politicians, and media to Pakistan focuses almost solely on the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), it is ethnic conflict, not militant Islam, that is a bigger danger to the stability of the Pakistani state. For now, the killings are alleged to be targeted -- though this round-up from Dawn seems to point to randomized violence as well. Karachi was entirely shut down Wednesday, and Pakistan can ill afford a situation in which its most vital economic hub is cut off.

The Pakistani military seems to have come to the conclusion that if they can keep the Afghan Taliban onsides by neglecting to crack down, they're willing to pay the cost of whatever the Pakistani Taliban -- at the moment, outside their nominal control -- dishes out. But the ethnic conflict exploding on the streets of Karachi this week may turn out to be the far more serious threat. 

With the likely withdrawal Saturday of the Palestinians from their ill-advised direct talks with Israel, it looks increasingly like Barack Obama's foreign policy is headed for catastrophic failure.

Nearly across the board, the president's initiatives are going down in flames. Nowhere is this more true than in Pakistan where, Jane Perlez reported Wednesday, the civilian government in which the U.S. has invested billions is perilously close to collapse -- if not facing a military coup.

Now comes word that Pakistan is cutting off NATO's supply lines into Afghanistan in retaliation for U.S. helicopter strikes in Pakistani territory -- strikes made necessary because the Pakistani military can't, or won't, crack down on militants unless they threaten the Pakistani state directly.

As for the war in Afghanistan, it's going very badly.

Further east, the United States seems headed for a disastrous currency war with China, although Beijing's recent diplomatic blunders have sent Asian countries running into Uncle Sam's loving arms.

To the west, Iraq still has yet to form a government after seven months of post-election deadlock, and attacks on the Green Zone are metastasizing in a frightening way.

One rare bright spot is Russia where, despite the complaints of Cold Warriors and human rights campaigners, relations are at their highest point since the Yeltsin era. But much of the good work Obama's team has done could easily unravel, especially if the Senate deep-sixes the new nuke treaty.

As for Iran, it's a mixed bag. Obama has kept Europe on board with tough sanctions, and brought along a few other players. But China is likely to undercut those efforts and relieve the economic pressure, leaving the United States and Israel with few options for stopping Iran's nuclear drive. Meanwhile, the drums of war are beginning to beat in Congress.

Of course, if Obama really wants to make a hash of the world, I can think of no better way than to start launch airstrikes on Iran. But I doubt he's going to do that.

Thousands of politicians all over the world are now on Twitter, and not all are using the social networking tool wisely. Take Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, a businessman who owns the Daily Times newspaper and is said to have been close to Benazir Bhutto, the late prime minister.

On Saturday, he tweeted this ill-conceived joke:

"One of first politicians to condemn mad Florida pastor Terry Jones was Sara Palin who said 'it was inhuman to burn a Korean'! God bless USA"

Apparently not everyone got it, because he later tweeted:

"I'm amazed that the simplistic pathetic remarks to my JOKE that Sarah Palin can't tell difference between a KOREAN and QORAN! Humour?"

He followed up that tweet with this winner:

"My farms rice crop has never been better because of the rains.Almost ready now ,huge robust grain practically no canal water was required"

A bit insensitive, perhaps, given how the vast swaths of the country have been inundated by catastrophic flooding, not to mention the inherently sensitive politics of land ownership in Pakistan? No matter. When criticized by journalist Dean Nelson (@delhidean) of the Daily Telegraph, who asked, "will you give ur crop to farmers whose land was flooded by Sindh landowners?," Taseer tweeted resignedly: "These r retards i have 2 deal wth."

Nice.

This week's list collects the best recent nonfiction about one of the most complex and misunderstood countries in the world, from Fatima Bhutto, niece of Benazir Bhutto and author of the forthcoming Songs of Blood and Sword.

Mubashir Hasan, Mirage of Power

Dr. Hasan is a national treasure -- a founding member of the Pakistan People's Party (in its original, leftist socialist form), former finance minister, founding member of the Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy, and a committed social activist. This book offers a rare insight into the power of the Pakistani civil and military establishment during its first democratically elected government, and takes apart the International Monetary Fund and its debt dealings with Pakistan, among many other hobgoblins.

Guernica Magazine

Guernica is a politics and arts magazine that covers alternate narratives and voices the world over; their pieces on Pakistan are provocative and fresh.

The News newspaper

This Pakistani newspaper takes no prisoners, most of the time. The News took out full page ads against the Pervez Musharraf dictatorship, prints front page salvos every time the current Asif Ali Zardari government attacks the media and comes out with a new censorship initiative, has the best reporting from the northern fronts of the country in the form of brave and thorough journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, and doesn't let political politeness or friendships get in the way of their work. When the News is good, and allowed to operate freely, it's really, really good.

Tariq Ali, The Duel

Pakistan and America's dirty relationship archived by Pakistan's foremost historian and political commentator. You don't get much better than Ali when it comes to the murky waters of Pakistani politics.

Granta Magazine issue 112

The respected journal does a Pakistan issue, out in September. Fresh essays from Pakistani novelists, poets, and journalists with a few honorary Pakistanis in the mix. Daniyal Mueenudin, Kamila Shamsie, and more. Should be hard to find the words "most dangerous country on earth" -- hopefully.

Basharat Peer, Curfewed Night

Understanding Kashmir is central to understanding Pakistan, the horrors of Partition, and the country's relationship with India today. Peer, himself Kashmiri, chronicles life under the most militarized zone in the world. His writing is courageous, his style part memoir part reportage, and his politics passionate and critically argued -- a must-read for anyone interested in South Asia.

Three news organizations -- the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel -- today published explosive reports on a treasure trove of more than 91,000 documents that were obtained by Wikileaks, the self-proclaimed whistleblower site.

I've now gone through the reporting and most of the selected documents (though not the larger data dump), and I think there's less here than meets the eye. The story that seems to be getting the most attention, repeating the longstanding allegation that Pakistani intelligence might be aiding the Afghan insurgents, offers a few new details but not much greater clarity. Both the Times and the Guardian are careful to point out that the raw reports in the Wikileaks archive often seem poorly sourced and present implausible information.

"[F]or all their eye-popping details," writes the Guardian's Declan Walsh, "the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity."

The Times' reporters seem somewhat more persuaded, noting that "many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable" and that their sources told them that "the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence."

Der Spiegel's reporting adds little, though the magazine's stories will probably have great political impact in Germany, as the Wikileaks folks no doubt intended. One story hones in on how an elite U.S. task force charged with hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda targets operates from within a German base; another alleges that "The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict," and that northern Afghanistan, where the bulk of German troops are based, is more violent than has been previously portrayed.

Otherwise, I'd say that so far the documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan.

I do think that the stories will provoke a fresh round of Pakistan-bashing in Congress, and possibly hearings. But the administration seems inclined to continue with its strategy of nudging Pakistan in the right direction, and is sending the message: Move along, nothing to see here.

A U.S. military official in Islamabad told the American Forces Press Service: "The Pakistani military deserves our respect, and frankly, they deserve our support." Special Representative Richard Holbrooke endorsed the recent warming of ties between Islamabad and Kabul. In his statement condeming the leak of the documents, National Security Advisor Jim Jones said, "[T]he Pakistani government – and Pakistan’s military and intelligence services – must continue their strategic shift against insurgent groups." And finally, the White House sent around an eight-page document containing examples of President Obama and other U.S. officials urging Pakistan to turn decisively against the militants.

The other message coming from the administration, as noted in an email from White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, is: It's not our fault. "The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy," Vietor wrote in an email published by the Times.

In this case, I'd say that's spin I can believe in.

Steve Coll's new magnum opus for the New Yorker on whether it's possible to negotiate with the Taliban has a wealth of interesting nuggets, but this was the most interesting bit to me (the entire article is not online, alas). Coll discusses a key Pakistani document whose existence was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, and says it shows a singular focus:

In [January and February], high-ranking Pakistani officials met with Holbrooke, Mullen, McChrystal, and General David Petraeus, and, at the invitation of the U.S., submitted a fifty-six-page briefing on its security interests in the region. The paper, according to officials familiar with its contents, reflects one overriding concern: India.

For years, Pakistan has maintained that India has used its Embassy and Consulates in Afghanistan to foster separatist insurgencies inside Pakistan. The Indian government rejects this accusation as paranoia, and, in reality, the official Indian presence in Afghanistan is not formidable; it includes about a hundred Embassy and Consulate employees, plus local hires, a security team, and a construction team that is erecting a new Afghan parliament building. But India has opened two consulates near the Pakistan border, in Jalalabad and Kandahar, which I.S.I. officers believe have been used to aid anti-Pakistan groups. [...]

In March, two Pakistani generals-Ashfaq Kayani, the Army chief, and Ahmed Pasha, the head of I.S.I., met with Karzai in Islamabad, and signalled that they could help that they could help cool down the Taliban insurgency. In exchange, Kayani said, the Karzai government must "end" India's presence in Afghanistan. According to a senior Afghan intelligence official, he said, "There cannot be any type of Indian presence in Afghanistan-any type." (A senior Pakistani official said that the generals' message was more restrained, demanding only that India not use Afghanistan as a platform for guerrilla war against Pakistan.)

Kayani is certainly a step up from his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, and was recently described to me by one former U.S. official as "the most reality-based Pakistan general" ever to visit Washington, but the lack of strategic thought on display here is quite amazing. Here you've got an impoverished, dysfunctional country next door to one of the most dynamic economies on Earth, and it can't imagine a paradigm in which India is an economic partner and an ally, not a threat. Convincing Pakistan to set aside its traditional paranoia about its larger, more successful neighbor has got to be one of the top priorities of U.S. foreign policy for years to come.

McClatchy's Saeed Shah is reporting that Faisal Shahzad, the alleged Times Square bomber, is the son of a retired Pakistani Air Force officer living in an upscale area outside Peshawar.

"Said to be a retired air vice marshall, Haq hurriedly left the large family home in the Hayatabad suburb Tuesday, along with the rest of the family, when Pakistani media found the house," Shah writes, noting that a U.S. official confirmed that Shahzad's father is a "retired Pakistani Air Force officer." The BBC adds that Haq may have formerly been head of the country's Civil Aviation Authority. 

The AP's Ashraf and Riaz Khan tracked down Kifyat Ali, Haq's cousin, who told them Shahzad's arrest was "a conspiracy so the (Americans) can bomb more Pashtuns," and that the 30-year-old accused terrorist often went to Peshawar to visit his family. 

One possibly shaky Pakistani report says that Shahzad's uncle is Maj. Gen. Tajul Haq, who was inspector general of the Frontier Corps, the paramilitary border force, from 2000 to 2003.

If all this is true, it's pretty interesting. There seems to be a pattern of mediocre sons from elite families becoming terrorists. Osama bin Laden's dad was a wildly succesful contractor with close ties to Saudi royalty. Underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father was a prominent Nigerian banker and one of the wealthiest men in Africa. Perhaps they feel like failures next to their successful dads, and militancy offers a pathway toward self-respect.

Also noteworthy is what Shahzad studied in Connecticut. You guessed it: engineering.

U.S.-Pakistani relations tend to be defined by a certain set of core issues, which include the ISI's double-dealing with the CIA, the 2005 Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement, and Pakistani nuclear security. While these issues are undoubtedly important, sometimes it's refreshing to see something new crop up, if only for variety's sake.

This is just what happened at Reagan National Airport on Sunday, Feb. 7, when a delegation of Pakistani legislators visiting Washington to meet with senior administration officials refused to submit to a full body X-ray scan. As a result, the legislators, who had already concluded their business in Washington and were attempting to fly to New Orleans, were prohibited from boarding the airplane. Insulted, the legislators promptly left on the next flight for Pakistan, leaving behind a public relations nightmare for the State Department, which had assisted the American Embassy in Islamabad with organizing the trip.

While the fallout from this episode is certain to be short-lived, the anecdote nevertheless serves as a nice illustration of the challenge the United States faces in trying to balance its national security interests with its need to improve relations with the Pakistani government.