The differences between the United States and Pakistan that broke into the open last week over the scale of C.I.A. operations here signaled a fundamental rift, plunging the relationship, sometimes strained, sometimes warm, to its lowest point in memory.
The rupture over Pakistan’s demands that the Americans end drone strikes, which the Obama administration rejected and scale back their intelligence presence within Pakistan exposed the tentative nature of the alliance forged after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And it is increasingly apparent that the two countries have differing, even irreconcilable, aims in Afghanistan, a report in the New York Times said on Monday.
With the Afghan endgame looming, suspicion is overwhelming faint cooperation between the United States and Pakistan, as each side seeks to secure its interests, increase its leverage to obtain them, and even cut out the other if need be, American and Pakistani officials say.
No one in Pakistan or in Washington now speaks of returning to the strategic alliance made by President George W. Bush and Gen. Pervez Musharraf immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the primary goal was to operate joint intelligence efforts to capture operatives of Al Qaeda. Military officials from both sides say that arrangement was never bound to be a longstanding affair.
“There was never a level of trust,” said a former American military official who served in a senior position in Pakistan. “I’m convinced now they don’t want our help.”
The American official did not want to be identified while discussing the delicate nature of a relationship that, whatever its failings, both nations are reluctant to jettison completely.
But politicians on both sides are disappointed with the results of billions of dollars in American military and civilian assistance since 2001, and the Obama administration acknowledged to Congress in a report this month that the results of the spending fell short of expectations.
In any case, the money has done little to pave over the accumulating strategic differences between the two nations.
Broadly, the Americans seek a strong and relatively centralized Afghan government commanding a large army that can control its territory. Almost all those ends are objectionable to Pakistan, which while it calls for a stable Afghanistan, prefers a more loosely governed neighbor where it can influence events, if need be, through Taliban proxies, the newspaper said.
