The White House's attempts to set a fresh course with Pakistan are being hobbled by bad options, bureaucratic tensions and the desire to avoid severing a vexing but critical relationship. In the wake of a blunt and public accusation by the top US military officer that Pakistani intelligence supported a militant attack on the US Embassy in Kabul, officials at the Pentagon, State Department and White House are urgently debating an array of unattractive choices.
Washington desperately wants to tighten the screws on the Haqqani network, a militant group US officials say was supported by Pakistan's powerful ISI intelligence agency in the embassy attack and in other violence that threatens a smooth US withdrawal from Afghanistan. In an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Friday, president Asif Ali Zardri attempted to push back against US pressure to act against the Haqqani network.