U.S. – Pakistan Relations Are Not Going Well

January 24th, 2010 Bookyards

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (left) talks with Pakistani President Asif ali Zardari in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Jan. 21, 2010. Gates met with the country's top military leadership and his Pakistani counterpart to discuss Washington's new Afghan policy and other issues of mutual interest. DoD photo by Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

Gates Sees Fallout From Troubled Ties With Pakistan -- New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Nobody else in the Obama administration has been mired in Pakistan for as long as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. So on a trip here this past week to try to soothe the country’s growing rancor toward the United States, he served as a punching bag tested over a quarter-century.

“Are you with us or against us?” a senior military officer demanded of Mr. Gates at Pakistan’s National Defense University, according to a Pentagon official who recounted the remark made during a closed-door session after Mr. Gates gave a speech at the school on Friday. Mr. Gates, who could hardly miss that the officer was mimicking former President George W. Bush’s warning to nations harboring militants, simply replied, “Of course we’re with you.”