Anger in Pakistan over US-led strikes

Updated September 5, 2008 18:42:18

Pakistan is furious with the United States over a ground raid by American led forces in its border area. At least 20 people are believed to have died in the attack in what's believed to be the first ground assault into Pakistan by foreign forces based in Afghanistan.

Presenter: Tom Fayle
Speaker: Dan Markey, specialist on US policy towards South Asia, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington.

MARKEY: I don't think we know quite yet whether this is something fundamentally different, qualitatively different from what has come before, or whether this is an exception to what has emerged as a basic rule of US operations along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in which there have clearly been air-based assaults on specific targets on the Pakistani-side of the border at various points throughout the years which have been protested, but accepted essentially by the Pakistani-side after the fact. I think it's still a little too early to tell if this is something fundamentally different.

FAYLE: But this ground rate has really upset the Pakistanis, hasn't it, I mean far more so than any of the previous airborne attacks in the border region. Washington must have known what sort of reaction it would produce. Why carry it out now, just before the presidential elections?

MARKEY: Well, I think there are a variety of reasons that Washington may have done this and I have to admit at this point they are all speculative. But the first and foremost would be because there may have been a target that had been identified on the Pakistani-side that was of significantly high value that Washington judged that it was worth taking the political risk of upsetting the Pakistanis. That may or may not be true and we should know about that quite soon, if in fact this was the case.

Other alternative explanations are that Washington has essentially become frustrated enough with the level of cross border attacks from Pakistan into Afghanistan that it felt like it absolutely needed to essentially lash out in this particular instance that enough was enough. And the third possibility and one that I don't think we'll quite know for awhile if it's true is that the Pakistanis have essentially despite their public rejection of this attack have privately accepted that the United States needed to extend its activities across the border on various occasions and will essentially establish a new set of working relationships with the US and with NATO in which this will become a more regular occurrence and not so much out of the norm.

FAYLE: Yet some influential commentators in Pakistan are accusing the Bush administration of a, if you want, a last desperate act of point scoring against the civilians that ousted their preferred man, General Musharraf and have called for retaliation. What could the Pakistanis do in response?

MARKEY: Well, first of all, let me say that I think that it's not very likely that the Bush administration has done this for anything related to the new civilian leadership in Pakistan. I think that's one of the least likely reasons why this would have taken place. But that aside, the Pakistanis I think it should be recognised and I think it is recognised here in Washington Pakistani assistance and even passive support for US operations on the Afghanistan side of the border is essential to US and Coalition efforts there. It's only by way of Pakistan through Karachi that the vast majority of the supplies that make operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and NATO operations there. They all have to pass through Pakistan in order to get there. So without Pakistan's help, Afghanistan is going to be a much tougher nut to crack.