When Barack Obama assumes the Presidency in January,
Pakistan
will be one his administration's biggest foreign policy challenges. During the campaign, Obama favored the use of more aggressive anti-terrorism tactics in
Pakistan
, rejecting the Bush administrations' warm relations with the country.
Obama claimed he would make hundreds of millions of dollars in
U.S.
military aid to
Pakistan
conditional on the country closing down Taliban camps inside its borders. His policy in
Pakistan
will be just the latest of the
United States
' half-century long involvement in
Pakistan
's politics and military.
Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani writer and historian. His most recent book is The Duel:
Pakistan
on the Flight Path of American Power.
The Bush Administration's policies in
Pakistan
were built around the
U.S.
relationship with Pakistani former President Pervez Musharraf.
One of the reasons Musharraf was forced to step down this August was the strength of the lawyer's movement in
Pakistan
against him. The movement protested for over a year against Musharraf's dismissal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
Former Chief Justice Chaudry is in the
United States
now to receive an award. But his visit is getting almost no press here.
Tariq Ali explained the
United States
' complex relationship with Chaudry…
