AFGHANISTAN/MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump’s appeal for India’s help on Afghanistan set off alarm bells on Tuesday [8-22-17] in Pakistan, where officials warned that the approach risked jolting a tumultuous relationship. They also expressed relief that Mr. Trump did not call for abrupt reductions in military aid to Pakistan, which the United States has long accused of going easy on militants.
As part of Mr. Trump’s new plan for addressing the 16-year United States conflict in Afghanistan, he asked India — which Pakistan has historically seen as its enemy — to ‘help us more,’ especially with economic assistance.
Mr. Trump also reiterated his predecessors’ calls that Islamabad crack down on militant groups that have waged attacks from bases in Pakistani territory.
‘We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting,’ Mr. Trump said on Monday, although he stopped short of cutting off military aid, as some Pakistani elites had feared.
Pakistan and United States have long had a troubled relationship, increasingly strained by differences over Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan. Even before American military and intelligence operatives tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, American officials chided the Pakistan’s military and intelligence agency as harboring or turning a blind eye to militants.”
-Salman Masood, “Trump’s Request for India’s Help in Afghanistan Rattles Pakistan,” The New York Times online, Aug, 22, 2017