The former CIA analyst, senior National Security Council staffer under President Clinton, an Obama campaign advisor, Bruce Riedel sees the terrorist networks’ base in the mountains of Pakistan as America’s greatest threat. In his forthcoming book The Search for Al Qaeda, he speaks of the Pakistani government’s savvy campaign under General Musharraf to fleece Washington for billions of dollars even as it allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan’s tribal lands. Riedel says in an interview to The New York Times, December 21 — “we had a partner that was double-dealing us.Anyone can be snookered and double-dealt. But after six years you have to start to figure it out.”

According to him, the terrorist networks believe that the ‘bleeding wars’ offer the best opportunity to defeat the US. Winning in Pakistan , says  Riedel, requires a tough love approach: overhauling the military aid to Pakistan and cutting sales of the big ticket weapons it has used to keep pace with India. It was Washington’s too cozy relationship with Musharraf’s military government that fuelled the intense hatred for the US in Pakistan. He cites polls that more Pakistanis blame the United States than either India or Al Qaeda for the recent surge in violence in the country and adds that ‘any time in Pakistan where  more people blame you than India for the country’s problems, you are in trouble”

The terrorist attack on Mumbai ,followed by  false allegations of India escalating tension, publicity about possible Pakistani troop transfers from the western to eastern border, destruction of convoys intended for US forces in Afghanistan at Peshawar and the latest stoppage of US convoys on the excuse of fighting militants in the Kabul Agency are all ruses practiced over the long Musharraf years, now being repeated by General Kiyani. The continuing double-dealing is based on the basic belief shared by the jihadis and the Pakistani Army and Intelligence that, as Riedel points out ,’bleeding wars ‘ are the best way to defeat the US, as happened with the much larger Soviet forces in Afghanistan supported by a more effective Khalq-Parcham government in Kabul. Correctly understanding why a war fought  by the US  over seven years has not only not produced any successful results but has increased the strength of the adversary in the territory of the ally, Pakistan should become the foremost priority of the Obama administration.

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