Do Pakistan’s leaders lack an instinct for survival?

This week, President Barack Obama declared that he was “gravely concerned” about the stability of Pakistan’s government. And with good reason. As Obama expressed his concerns, … the Pakistani Army was engaged in heavy combat with Taliban forces near the town of Ambala, just 60 miles from Islamabad. After previously ignoring the Taliban’s seizure of Buner district, the seemingly passive-aggressive Pakistani government responded with airstrikes and helicopter gunship attacks against several Taliban-held villages.

U.S. officials seem baffled by a Pakistani government that does not appear to take the Taliban threat very seriously. When the Pakistani Army finally does move, its response frequently includes artillery and airstrikes against Taliban forces mixed into civilian areas, a highly questionable counterinsurgency tactic.

On April 23, David Kilcullen, one of Gen. David Petraeus’s top counterinsurgency advisors in Iraq …testified on the situation to the House Armed Services Committee, which is considering a bill to increase aid to Pakistan. Kilcullen unloaded a broadside on the Pakistani government for its incompetence and duplicity. After reviewing a long list of government failures and Taliban successes, Kilcullen summed up with this scathing assertion:

Suffice to say that there is overwhelming evidence of:

* a Pakistani civilian government that does not control its own national security establishment,

* security services that have been complicit in allowing the takeover of parts of the country by militants,

* direct or indirect sponsorship of international terrorism by elements of the Pakistani national security establishment,

* ongoing support by the same national security establishment for insurgents who are killing Americans in Afghanistan, and

* a militant movement that is growing in reach and intensity week by week.

This has occurred during the same time period when we have given the Pakistani military $10 billion dollars for what this bill describes as “invaluable” assistance and partnership against extremism and terrorism. U.S. officials, including members of Congress contemplating foreign-aid requests, should not assume that the Pakistani government, or at least significant parts of it, are allied with the United States and its interests. Some measure of duplicity has always been a feature of international alliances, but the Pakistani government’s seemingly casual indifference to the Taliban’s progress toward Islamabad appears completely illogical.