ISLAMABAD — Two leading U.S. senators attempted Friday to depict U.S.-Pakistani relations as a crucial friendship, but their brief visit to the Pakistani capital highlighted tensions between the anti-terrorist allies, especially a disagreement over strikes by unmanned aircraft against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.
“Friends don’t always agree on every issue,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said at a news conference in Islamabad.
He added that the United States will “try to find common ground” with Pakistani leaders on the drone issue but “we have to do everything we feel is necessary to protect Americans from the attacks of terrorists who may be based here.”
On Thursday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari asked McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who traveled to Pakistan with two other senators, to seek a halt to the drone attacks. He said they are undermining domestic support for the war against Islamist militants and asked that the U.S. give Pakistan the technology to carry out strikes on its own.
Lieberman stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation against Islamist extremism and tried to reassure Pakistanis that the United States will not abandon them as it did after Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.
McCain also played down the disagreements as “respectful differences among friends.”
But the senator took a tough stance on the drone issue, brushing aside a journalist who asked whether he understood that fatal drone attacks soured Pakistani opinions of the United States.
McCain said some “elements” operating in Pakistan would like to “go to Afghanistan and kill Americans” and “re-establish Afghanistan as a base for attacks on the United States and our allies. That’s what I understand.”
