Magnificent delusions: Pakistan, the United States and an Epic history of misunderstanding

The relationship between America and Pakistan is based on mutual incomprehension and always has been. Pakistan?to American eyes?has gone from being a quirky irrelevance, to a stabilizing friend, to an essential military ally, to a seedbed of terror. America?to Pakistani eyes?has been a guarantee of security, a coldly distant scold, an enthusiastic military enabler, and is now a threat to national security and a source of humiliation. The countries are not merely at odds. Each believes it can play the other?with sometimes absurd, sometimes tragic, results. The conventional narrative about the war in Afghanistan, for instance, has revolved around the Soviet invasion in 1979. But President Jimmy Carter signed the first authorization to help the Pakistani-backed mujahedeen covertly on July 3?almost six months before the Soviets invaded. Americans were told, and like to believe, that what followed was Charlie Wilson's war of Afghani liberation, with which they remain embroiled to this day. It was not. It was General Zia-ul-Haq's vicious regional power play.