NOREF - Reluctant ally: Islamabad, the Pakistani media and public response to President Obama’s Afghan surge

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Authors

Robert Matthews

is a consultant on Afghanistan, Pakistan and US foreign policy with the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre (Noref) in Oslo. He holds a PhD in Latin American history from New York University. A former professor of history and politics at New York University, Matthews has been a researcher on United St...
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Sana Majeed

Sana Majeed is an assistant researcher with Fafo and the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre, both in Oslo. She holds an MPhil in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research currently focuses on Pakistan and Afghanistan. By monitoring local and international media and...
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Reluctant ally: Islamabad, the Pakistani media and public response to President Obama’s Afghan surge

Robert Matthews , Sana Majeed , 12 January 2010

Conventional wisdom regarding the political and military crisis in Afghanistan contends that Pakistan is key to any lasting resolution of the conflict. When US president Barack Obama announced a surge of 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan, he referred to Pakistan’s tribal areas as the epicentre of global terrorism and declared that the country was “at the core” of Washington’s new Afghanistan strategy.

However, Pakistan and the US interpret the situation differently and have separate regional agendas; the cooperation of the Pakistani government with the new strategy cannot be taken for granted and its military is reluctant to play the role of anvil to the US hammer. This article examines the responses of the Pakistani government, media and public opinion to Obama’s Afghan surge.