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ignored the rumors and misinformation routinely circulated through Pakistan’s media, though sometimes they reacted to point out the absurdity ofthe tactic. Holbrooke once mentioned a story in which Pasha had snubbed Mullen, “the highest ranking U.S. military officer” and “the Special Representative of the U.S.” He said he realized that it may have something to do with “perceived domestic needs in Pakistan,” but it should not be forgotten that “there were domestic political compulsions on the US side as well.” He asked, “Now why would your side lie about something like that?”
    Parallel to the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialog, Holbrooke also initiated tripartite talks between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States. After the first round of the tripartite talks Pasha complained that this format amounted to boxing Pakistan in. The civilians were able to keep the dialogue going. But more often than not, discussions about Afghanistan always ended up being about the ISI’s role there. One of Holbrooke’s deputies remarked that the frequency of interaction had only one advantage: it had inadvertently made Pakistan’s generals incrementally less deceitful.
    US media and members of Congress criticized Pakistan for its appeasement of terrorists when, on several occasions, it showed a preference for talking to Taliban instead of fighting them. Although several agreements were signed in different parts of the country, the Taliban broke all of them. Americans could not understand why Pakistani leaders had difficulty making a clear choice, but Zardari and Gilani did not find sufficient support at home for a bold decision. They thought US economic support was insufficient and anti-Americanism in Pakistan was too strong to sign up as closer US allies than they already were.
    During the first year of the Obama administration some US officials had already reached the conclusion that the United States could not achieve its goals in Afghanistan as long as Pakistan continued to support the Taliban with “weapons and logistical support.” There were calls for cutting off military aid and reimbursements under the Coalition Support Funds program as a substitute for trying “to buy off Islamabad with more economic aid.” 9
    Clinton and Holbrooke were largely responsible for preventing that from happening. Congress approved $828 million for aid to Pakistan in 2009. That same year an international conference in Tokyo pledged $5.5billion to be provided by various international donors. But for Pakistanis, the money was never enough. Every now and then Pakistani officials showed up with charts to illustrate the presumed economic loss the country suffered because of terrorism and the war against it. They asked the United States to compensate Pakistan for lost investment, lost revenue, and lost economic opportunities. Americans considered the aid they were already giving to be a huge amount of money and did not accept that US taxpayers should bear even greater cost for Pakistan’s sake. No one in Washington believed that Pakistan’s problems were America’s responsibility and that they were caused exclusively by the country’s role in the anti-Soviet Jihad and the war after 9/11 against terrorism. US officials were often too polite to say so directly, but in their view, successive Pakistani leaders had made a series of wrong choices, and blaming the United States was just a way of refusing to take responsibility for those Pakistani decisions.
    In May Zardari and Obama had their first meeting as presidents. Obama had hosted a trilateral meeting that also included Karzai. Likewise, he invited Zardari to the White House for a direct conversation. Obama said that “the average U.S. Congressman” wanted to help Pakistan in beating back terrorism, but US aid was being used “to bolster conventional arms against India.” “We do not begrudge your