"It is difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan as long as there is safe haven for terrorists in Pakistan," said Panetta, speaking in the Afghan capital Kabul where he arrived for talks with military leaders amid rising violence in the war against the Taliban and a spate of deadly attacks, including a NATO air strike said to have killed 18 villagers.
"It is very important for Pakistan to take steps. It is an increasing concern, the issue of safe haven, and we are reaching the limits of our patience," he told reporters.
The frustration has been there a long time. What is changing is what we can do about it.
Pakistan cut off our land lines of supply, but we have alternate routes to the north that we will use to withdraw from Afghanistan. When we had no alternative supply line, we had to moderate our pressure on Pakistan. Now we will put more pressure on Pakistan to go after North Waziristan where jihadis have a sanctuary. We can afford to use more of a stick--including closer military ties with India--to get Pakistan to fight jihadis effectively.
Get our troops strength down enough and even in a worst case scenario, we could airlift our people out. Lord knows, that's been a worry of mine the last three years.
Mind you, this doesn't mean we can push Pakistan around at will. As uneven an ally Pakistan is, on net they are a help. Face it, if Iran behaved like Pakistan we'd consider it a triumph of diplomacy rather than being a frustrating headache.
And we do have objectives with Pakistan that we should not forfeit by pushing Pakistan too fast, as Secretary Panetta stated:
[Just] as India views the relationship with Pakistan as complicated, so do we. (Laughter.) And it is. It's a -- it's a complicated relationship, oftentimes frustrating, oftentimes difficult. But at the same time, it is a necessary relationship.
India shares a border with Pakistan. It's important that you continue to try to make what progress you can in dealing with Pakistan in trying to resolve your differences. The same thing is true for the United States. We are fighting a war in the FATA. We are fighting a war against terrorism. We have -- I think what I try to stress with the Pakistanis is that terrorism is just as much a threat to their country as it is for ours. They have lost many lives in their country as a result of terrorist attacks.
They also happen to be a nuclear power, and it's extremely important that we maintain the relationship with them.
They had been cooperative oftentimes in the efforts that we've engaged with as far as what we've done in going after those that threaten our country. They, they have provided some cooperation. There are other times when, frankly, that cooperation is not there.
The United States cannot just walk away from that relationship. We have to continue to try to do what we can, to try to improve what -- you know, areas where we can find some mutual cooperation. We are now engaged in negotiations to try to see if we can open up the transit centers; it's an important area for us. We're engaging in negotiations with them to try to see if we can arrive at an agreement that would reopen those areas.
We've been going through the north right now. We have the northern transit center. It, you know, obviously meets our needs. It's a little more expensive because we do have to go farther in terms of the routes that we're involved with. We would prefer -- we don't prefer, we would -- we would like to have the additional transit centers through Pakistan as well.
So we'll continue to negotiate on that. We'll continue to discuss with them the drone operations. We'll continue to discuss with them other forms of assistance. Our goal is to try to do what we can to try to improve the relationship with them. That is not easy, but it is necessary that we continue that effort.
Lord knows, Pakistan could be much better. It would feel good to tell the Pakistanis to take a flying leap or lay down an ultimatum to shape up or else. For about 5 minutes until we remembered they have nuclear weapons and too many jihadis to let run free without any pressure at all. As much as I draw satisfaction that we still vaporize jihadis with our drones, don't forget that our drone strikes are a limited weapons rather than a silver bullet.
Just because we have more leverage with Pakistan because they no longer have a monopoly on our land supply lines and because our troops strength is dropping as Afghan capabilities go up doesn't mean we should recklessly use that increased leverage.
Pakistan could be much worse. Work the problem.
