Eideard

Fuel tankers crammed into a compound in Karachi
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

As the Taliban kicks off its spring fighting season in Afghanistan, an agreement with Pakistan that would help NATO supply its troops there could be weeks or months away, forcing military leaders to spend two-and-a-half times as much to ship some supplies through Central Asia.

The Obama administration remains locked in negotiations with Pakistan to reopen the key supply routes into Afghanistan, and officials do not expect talks bogged down over proposed tariffs and U.S. military assistance to reach resolution anytime soon…

A deal is almost certainly impossible before May 20-21, when Obama will host NATO leaders in his hometown of Chicago. There, Western leaders will define plans for moving out of Afghanistan and for funding local troops they hope can contain a resilient insurgency when NATO withdraws…

A deal would require agreement on Pakistan’s proposal to impose tariffs on NATO supplies, including how tariffs would be formulated, where that money would go, and how the West would ensure those funds were being used appropriately.

Another issue stalling the talks is disagreement over how much the United States should reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism activity by Pakistani forces…

In a report released this week, the Defense Department warned that a prolonged closure of the supply routes could “significantly degrade” withdrawal operations as NATO nations try to establish a modicum of stability in Afghanistan before most of their troops are pulled out at the end of 2014…

“Certainly the domestic situation in Pakistan has a role to play” in the negotiations, the U.S. official said.

That’s putting it mildly. We’re paying off the leaders of a country – who have little control over that country. They haven’t civil management of much of the nation – especially those tribal portions sharing the border with Afghanistan.

What is being discussed in practice is how much of a bribe in US taxpayer dollars will be slipped to the paper leadership of Pakistan to aid us in our continuing war in Afghanistan. And in the process, occasionally kill off some of the tribal warlords who attack Pakistani soldiers as often as they do American and NATO forces. The dollar amount is all that counts.