New Congressional Bill: "Designate Pakistan A State Sponsor of Terrorism"

So we are now going to pick a fight with an allied nation, what the hell is congress thinking? Yes Taliban, Al Qaeda has free range in the bad lands of Pakistan, but that falls under the control of local governors.

Our relationship with Pakistan was and remains very complicated. Nominally, we're allies and have been for some time. That said, they are also allied with PRC and squarely against their neighbors in India. They fought something like three wars that never escalated to the nuclear stage, but there's nothing to say that it couldn't. Islamabad's biggest concern isn't what's going on in Afghan or even their own Federally Administered Tribal Areas (specifically Waziristan). They're much more concerned with what's going on in the other direction, i.e., what's coming out of Dehli. They also harbored, willingly I might add, UBL in Abbotabad for years before we had to violate their soverignty (again, this is one of our allies) and whack that guy. I don't know that they're necessarily a state sponsor of terrorists (not terrorism which is a concept), but there are obviously elements within that nation, state actors or otherwise, who have a rouge notion of how things oughta be. Think ISI.

The U.S.-Pakistani relationship has a checkered history. The U.S. interests for most of Pakistan’s history have been driven by Cold War considerations, while Pakistan’s interests have been driven by fear of India and the fate of the contested province of Kashmir.

In part the strained relationship with Pakistan is the legacy of many previous administration's foreign policies going way back to '50's. But in regards to the future of this relationship the simple fact that Pakistan has played a leading role in the Russian-Afghan war and has now once again reemerged as a major point of contention in their supporting of the Taliban leads me to believe that our diplomacy with Pakistan should be considered carefully.

One needs to consider what happens to Pakistan in the days of a post NATO A'stan. Pakistan is hedging on this relationship they have developed with the Taliban to foster stability/control of A'stan's southern border. As well you have to remember the quagmire that developed after our support evaporated in the late 80's. This resulted in al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and similarly in Iraq with ISIS. I fear such a label, while justified in many circumstances, might severely effect our diplomatic relationship with Pakistan. Going cold turkey on Pakistan might result in more unfavorable outcomes as China and Russia are their next door neighbors.