WASHINGTON- As U.S. ambassador to Pakistan more than a decade ago, RyanCrocker spent much of his time trying to convince the government inIslamabad to take action against militants moving freely inside the countryand plotting attacks on U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

In 2007, toward the end of his three-year tenure, Crocker spoke with thehead of the Pakistani army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who explained whyIslamabad was not ready to reverse course.

The United States had a short attention span, the general said, accordingto Crocker. “How long are you staying this time? Because you come and yougo,” Kayani told Crocker.

“If you think we are going to turn the Taliban and Haqqanis and others intomortal enemies of ours and watch you walk out the door, you are completelycrazy. Are we hedging our bets? You bet we are.”

The two men’s exchange captures the mutual frustration and misunderstandingthat have plagued relations between Pakistan and the United States, nominalallies with little strategic common ground. Previous U.S. presidents triedand failed to persuade Pakistan to rein in the Taliban and the Haqqanimilitants on the Afghan border. Now President Donald Trump faces the samechallenge, and officials inside his administration are debating how far topress Pakistan.

Despite a suspension of $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid in January,Pakistan has failed to take decisive action to crack down on Afghanmilitants on its territory, either by arresting known militants orrestricting the flow of fighters and weapons across its border withAfghanistan, U.S. officials said. “What I would say is they’ve done thebare minimum to appear responsive to our requests,” a senior administrationofficial told reporters this month.

Amid growing frustration on Capitol Hill, Trump’s deputies are weighingunprecedented political penalties on Islamabad for harboring Afghanmilitants waging war on the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. Theoptions under consideration include revoking Pakistan’s status as a majornon-NATO ally, permanently cutting off the U.S. military aid that wassuspended two months ago, and even imposing visa bans or other sanctions onindividuals in the Pakistani government deemed responsible for providingsupport to the militants.

Yet the Trump White House is now engaged in an internal debate about thetempo and scale of possible punitive steps against Pakistan, echoingarguments under previous U.S. presidents. Some officials and militaryofficers favor a hard line with Pakistan, maintaining that years of aid andaccommodation have produced little in return. But other voices in theadministration worry about alienating a nuclear-armed country of 200million people bordering China.

The appointment last week of a fervent hawk as national security advisor,John Bolton, and the nomination of another for secretary of state, MikePompeo, could tilt the discussion in favor of tougher measures againstIslamabad.

The suspension of military aid in January is not the first time the UnitedStates has withheld security funding to Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks.But unlike previous administrations, Trump’s deputies are looking atpermanently cutting off the annual flow of military aid this year, whichcould put a strain on Pakistan’s defense budget and deprive it of covetedU.S. military hardware.

The White House is also weighing even more drastic measures to include visabans or other punitive measures against individual members of the Pakistanigovernment, military, or ISI intelligence service suspected of allowing theTaliban and Haqqani militants to operate from sanctuaries inside Pakistan,current and former officials told Foreign Policy. “We are prepared to dowhatever is necessary to protect U.S. personnel and interests in theregion,” the senior administration official, who spoke on condition ofanonymity, told reporters last week.

India had termed as “very shocking” a Pakistani court’s order to thecountry’s election commission to hear the case of JuD chief Hafiz Saeed’spolitical party for registration (File)If carried out, the combined measures would represent a clear rebuke ofPakistan and signal the unraveling of an uneasy military alliance that wasborn during the Cold War and renewed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also pressed Pakistan totake action against the Taliban and their Haqqani comrades but stoppedshort of a full-blown confrontation. Under previous administrations,officials were reluctant to push too far, fearing Pakistan could sabotageany peace negotiation in Afghanistan, cut off supply lines to U.S.-ledforces there, or that American pressure would embolden jihadis seeking toseize control of the country’s nuclear weapons.

Two lethal attacks in Kabul in January claimed by the Taliban, occurringonly days after the suspension of U.S. aid was announced and after a tweetby Trump castigating Pakistan, have added urgency to the debate. Forcritics of Islamabad, the attacks – including a suicide bombing thatclaimed the lives of 95 people – represented a familiar pattern from yearspast: Washington threatens to punish Pakistan, and its proxies inAfghanistan retaliate.

The attacks were “ISI-directed retaliation,” one former CIA officer said.

The political climate for Pakistan on Capitol Hill – and in other Westerncapitals – has also grown increasingly hostile. As recently as 2009,members of Congress were ready to back multiyear, multibillion-dollarcommitments for security aid to Pakistan. But those days are over, as bothparties have run out of patience with Islamabad.

“Pakistan is at risk of miscalculating the level of frustration both inWashington and other foreign governments,” said a senior State Departmentofficial. “In the past, Pakistan has sought to take the minimum actionrequired to placate U.S. concerns without fundamentally altering theirpolicy and strategy,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak onthe record.

In addition to unilateral steps, Washington last month successfully lobbiedan international money-laundering watchdog to place Pakistan on a terroristfinancing watchlist. The move set off alarm bells in Islamabad, which hadcounted on China and Saudi Arabia to defeat the measure. Pakistan, however,denied it was giving shelter to militant leaders plotting attacks on U.S.forces and the Afghan government.

“There is today no organized presence of any Afghan Taliban or Haqqanisinside Pakistan,” Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the Pakistani ambassador to theUnited States, told FP in an email.

“Pakistan remains committed to working with the United States to bringpeace to Afghanistan. We do believe, however, that blaming allies does notserve our shared objectives of achieving lasting regional peace andstability,” Chaudhry said.

Western intelligence agencies, however, insist that Pakistan’s spy agency,the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has long served as a vitallifeline to the Afghan Taliban and their partners in the Haqqani network.With arms, cash, and advice, the ISI helped the Taliban come to powerduring Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s. And after the Taliban regimewas toppled with the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, it maintained support forthe militants’ insurgency against the internationally recognized governmentin Kabul.

The Trump administration has accused Pakistan of doing little againstAfghan terrorists on its soil (Reuters)With a singular focus on archfoe India, Pakistan sees a friendly partner inAfghanistan as a way of countering Indian influence in its backyard andproviding “strategic depth” in the event of an all-out war. While Islamabaddenies that it lends any assistance to the militants, privately Pakistaniintelligence and military officers have acknowledged their links to theTaliban as a hedge against the perceived threat posed by India, former U.S.officials said.

Andrew Liepman, who worked for 30 years at the CIA and served as the deputydirector of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Pakistan providedinvaluable help in hunting down al Qaeda leaders but was also behind theresurgence of insurgents attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

“The substantial progress we made in dismantling the al Qaida network couldnot have been accomplished without help from ISI,” said Liepman, now asenior analyst at Rand Corp. “At the same time, bad things happened.Haqqani grew and became the most effective and lethal force against us inAfghanistan, with the direct assistance of the Pakistan government.”

In discussions with his Pakistani counterparts, there was a “huge cloud inthe air,” he said. “There was an undercurrent – both sides distrusted theother pretty deeply.”

Some former diplomats worry that piling pressure on Pakistan – throughsanctions or even unilateral drone strikes against militants – could haveunintended consequences. Given its history with the Taliban, Pakistan couldeffectively wreck any prospect of peace talks. And with the country’sstrategic location and nuclear arsenal, a confrontation could risk abacklash by extremists and even a nightmare scenario where jihadis get holdof Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

However, resentment of Pakistan tends to runs deep among U.S. military andintelligence officers who have deployed to Afghanistan, including Gen. JohnNicholson, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

Lisa Curtis, a senior U.S. official on the National Security Councilhelping to shape policy on Pakistan, has long argued for a more hawkishline on the country. Before she took the job, Curtis co-authored a policypaper calling for stepping up political pressure on Pakistan, includingsuspending military aid. Her paper also proposed retaining the option ofunilateral military action and drone strikes against militant leadersoperating from safe havens inside the country.

A little over a year ago, the Trump administration resumed CIA dronestrikes on Afghan Taliban and Haqqani extremists in Pakistan after a10-month lull. The first raid struck a motorcycle near the Afghan border,reportedly killing an Afghan Taliban leader. But the tempo has beensporadic, with 12 bombing raids since Trump took office, according to atally by the Long War Journal.

Under Obama, the drone strikes in Pakistan, which targeted mainly al Qaidaleaders, reached a peak in 2010 with an estimated 117 bombing raids. As alQaida’s core leadership was weakened and dispersed, and as a large U.S.force began to draw down in Afghanistan, the strikes – which were carriedout with Pakistan’s quiet cooperation – dwindled and then tapered offcompletely in his final months as president.

It remains unclear if Trump will opt for more drone raids if Pakistan failsto clamp down on the militant sanctuaries. For the moment, the White Houseis ready to see if political measures alter Pakistan’s calculus, thoughthere is no clear timetable. The administration official who spoke toreporters earlier this month did not specify how and when the United Stateswould respond to Pakistan’s inaction.

As distrust between Washington and Islamabad grows, America’s ties withPakistan’s rival, India, continue to warm. The United States sees India asa country increasingly aligned with Washington’s goals and that shares itsconcerns about China’s military buildup. The two countries – once at oddsduring the Cold War – have stepped up defense cooperation, and theirmilitaries now hold numerous joint exercises.

An outspoken critic of Pakistan’s military, Husain Haqqani, who served asthe country’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011, portraysthe U.S.-Pakistani relationship as a dysfunctional and unsustainablemarriage in his book Magnificent Delusions. The two countries have neverreally shared the same interests, Haqqani argues, and it’s time to facethat harsh reality.

“The alliance with Pakistan no longer makes sense for the United Statesbecause it undercuts U.S. policy in Afghanistan as well as its effort tobuild a strategic relationship with India against China,” Haqqani told FP.”It doesn’t make sense for Pakistan either.” – Washington Post