One thing we have to remember about Pakistan. The only road into Afghanistan runs thru Pakistan. Without Pakistani permission, the only way into Afghanistan is by air. We do NOT want to support our 40,000 man army in Afghanistan by air. So we have to make nice to the Pakis.
The Pakistani establishment, the landowners, the businessmen, the Army, the upper class, are inclined to side with the US. They fear India, which is five-ten times their size and which still bears grudges going back to 1947. They want an American connection to keep the Indians at bay.
The regular Pakistani's are sharecroppers, illiterate, poor, and scratching out a living farming with hand tools. They are Muslim fundamentalists, anti American, anti Indian , pro Al Quada, pro Bin Ladin, what education they have comes from madrassas, and they are all kinds of touchy about Islam, Paki sovereignty, and four or five other obscure issues that I don't understand.
The Paki establishment has to pander to the regular Pakis, lest revolution happen. Up until 9/11, the Paki establishment was attempting to take over Afghanistan using the Taliban as a cats paw. After 9/11 Bush told the Pakis they had a choice, dump the Taliban and support the US, or suffer the consequences. General Pervez Musharref, the Paki leader at the time, threw his lot with the Americans, and told his security apparatus, the ISI, to cool it with the Taliban.
So we have today's Pakistan, an ally with mixed feeling about everything. They have to cope with elements of the establishment who used to deal with the Taliban and wish they still could. They have to pander to the ordinary Pakis in the street, and they are putting up with American affronts to their sovereignty (Predator strikes and helicopter raids). That Bin Ladin was able to operate from a compound in Abbotabad for years is not surprising.
But we have to put up with it. We cannot break off relations and tell the Pakis to stuff it, so long as we need road access to Afghanistan.
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