Pak-US Hookup in Afghanistan: A Blame Game to End the Game?

Abstract

Pakistan has experienced US policy towards her shifting from that of a most allied ally to that of utter negligence and even that of hostility. A diverse and variegated spectrum of ostensible explanations exists for inconsistence, confusion, reactive nature, and therefore, vacillation of US foreign Policy towards Pakistan; ranging from hackneyed clichés to unnerving conspiracy theories, each endowed with respective reasoning. One of these explanations considers Afghan conundrum a key factor in this vacillation. Afghanistan has almost always been crucial, to say the least, in shaping US foreign policy towards Pakistan, at least since 1979. The prevalent mist over Pak-US relations, resulted from the flagrant blame-game between the two states, has heralded yet another shift in cyclic dialecticism of their mutual relations. The paper identifies this blame game as a prelude to end game in Afghanistan, harbingering the end of yet another Pak-US alliance made in the wake of 9/11; and appraises the role of Afghan conundrum in shaping already complex Pak-US hookup in Afghanistan.