First it was F-16s and now attack helicopters to Pakistan by USA in the face of opposition from India the Obama administration awarding a $170 million contract to Bell Helicopter of Texas to manufacture and deliver nine AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters to Pakistan is intriguing. The US is arming a country that many of its lawmakers say is two-faced about fighting terrorism. The American reward for Pakistan came even as Islamabad continued to protect Masood Azhar, leader of the terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, with Chinese support, while subverting New Delhi’s efforts to bring to justice Pakistani perpetrators of terrorists’ attacks in India. Part of the US policy of continuing to arm Pakistan amid pious lectures about military doctrines and arms race has to do with the nature of the bloated US arms industry itself that feeds off such foreign military sales for profit and for creating local US jobs. All these piecemeal supplies to Pakistan is aimed at keeping the country’s tin-pot generals happy while ensuring access and cooperation on the Afghan front, even at the risk of offending India. The deal comes at a time when a US Think Tank has questioned India’s capability of facing both Pakistan and China simultaneously in view of its reduced squadron strength. Compared to India’s slow and cumbersome aircraft acquisition programme Pakistan has been going on a faster pace to acquire modern fighting machines. Now with Afghanistan situation easing out and US withdrawing from the region the focus would shift on the development of India-Pakistan relations which has been built on the platform of distrust since over six decades. Pakistan charges that India is staging terrorist attacks on itself to malign Islamabad evoked little interest in Washington, as the Pentagon signed off yet another consignment of lethal arms to the country that claims it is also a victim of terrorism, even as it continues to foster terrorist groups and protect leaders of such outfits. Interestingly Islamabad has no money to pay for any of these arms it asks for, and they are usually supplied under concessional foreign military sales agreements.
