Thread by @SyedIHusain

#Thread
"Who lost Pakistan?"
Pakistan' s finance minister @HinaRKhar gave Holbrooke a tutorial on U.S. aid to Pakistan.
she said:
People can point to Chinese bridge, they cannot identify a single thing your aid has done.
@vali_nasr

Most of the money never gets to Pakistan; it is spent in Washington. Of every $ you say you give to Pakistan, maybe 10 cents makes it to Pakistan. You never ask us what we need and what you should give aid to. Your aid does nothing for your image.
You have to fix it. @HinaRKhar

The Bush administration had treated Pakistan and Afghanistan as if they were on two different continents. The Obama administration changed that. Afghanistan and Pakistan belonged together: they were in fact one policy area—AfPak.

#Holbrooke argued that we had important interests in Afghanistan but vital interests in Pakistan. If we did that, it would be better for us and for the world. We will live to regret our insouciance, he warned, and consequent loss of an opportunity to set things right track

In the end, we settled for far more modest assistance to Pakistan, the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation of 2009, $7.5 billion aid to Pakistan over a 5 year period—the first long term all-CIVILIAN aid Package.

But after the US-Pakistan strategic Dialogue finally got going, Holbrooke passed away and following the first crisis of 2011, Washington quickly froze the talks. Holbrooke’s successor Marc Grossman told Pakistani press, we have no common interests.

Pakistan was always going to be a hard case. My point is that we made it harder than it had to be. We failed when it came to strategic vision, we failed in our commitment to diplomacy. We have less influence in Pakistan in 2012 after a year of confrontation.
Writes @vali_nasr

We acted as if we could walk away from which of course we cannot and will not do, and they knew it all along.
We could’ve managed Pakistan better. We didn’t have to break the relationship and put Pakistan’s stability at risk.
@vali_nasr