The unscheduled visit by United States Vice President Joe Biden to Islamabad this week underscores Washingtons embarrassment and anxiety that it stands excluded from a regional initiative on Afghan peace process that could be about to take off. The rapid sequence of events over the past fortnight has taken Washington by surprise.
The Pakistanis use an earthy metaphor when they want to put their American interlocutors on the defensive. They complain that the United States used Pakistan like a condom, simply discarded it when it is no longer useful, as has happened time and again in the Cold War era. By saying so, they urge the Americans to be constant in friendship.
The Indian embassy in Kabul has been targeted for bomb attack for a second time in the past 15 months. A least 17 people were killed in Thursday′s attack, when a car loaded with explosives rammed into the embassy′s compound wall.
FORMER US vice-president Dick Cheney has been accused of almost wishing America suffered another terrorist attack to prove a point against Barack Obama, in extraordinary remarks by the CIA′s new director.
CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.
