NEW YORK: A major American newspaper has criticised the US Congress for not finding a way to send an aid package to Pakistan to help it fight the insurgency and for humanitarian assistance of internally displaced people.

Calling the ‘slow roll’ to aid as being ‘myopic and dangerous’, the Wall Street Journal said in an editorial: ‘If Pakistan fails to defeat the Islamist insurgency, the consequences will resonate far and wide, in the worst case with Al Qaeda getting Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile.’

The editorial, ‘Pakistan fights, Congress Sleeps’, observed that earlier this year the Obama administration prodded, pleaded and shamed Pakistan to fight.

Passive acceptance of Taliban gains turned into the current counter-offensive. The military has since taken back the Swat valley and shifted its sights to such tribal regions as Waziristan. Count that a tentative success for Pakistan and the Obama foreign policy team. 

‘More now than ever, Pakistan is acting as if it is committed to fighting the Taliban. The military in recent days has expanded a high-stakes offensive along the Afghan border, while the government enjoys wide public support, even as casualties and refugees mount.’

The WSJ noted that an aid package had hit repeated hurdles on Capitol Hill, while US allies shortchanged Pakistan on humanitarian assistance for the people displaced by the fighting. 

The WSJ said: ‘More disappointing has been the slow Congressional progress of the five-year, $7.5 billion aid package requested by President Obama. The bill got bogged down in the House over Pakistan’s past sins of nuclear proliferation and abetting of terrorism.’

While saying that ‘we share the anger over atomic salesman A.Q. Khan and the use of Pakistani safe havens to launch attacks against Afghanistan and in November against Mumbai’, the WSJ nevertheless asserted: ‘The explicit certification requirements written into the House bill by California Democrat Howard Berman would have tied the administration’s hands and angered Pakistanis.’

Those requirements were toned down in the bill that passed last month. It now has to be reconciled with the Senate’s Kerry-Lugar package, which passed last week.

The package is supposed to signal America’s commitment to a long-term partnership, but the delay gives Pakistan good cause to question Washington’s sincerity.