WASHINGTON, Oct 11: The United States needs to review its policies towards Pakistan because even $10 billion of US assistance has failed to arrest the spread of extremism in that country, says chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Witnesses, who appeared before the committee on a three-hour long hearing on Pakistan, also urged the United States to reach out to Pakistan’s civilian leaders and promote fair and free elections to build support for fighting.

The United States should prepare for “the likelihood that the political power equation in Pakistan will change, and (needs to know) what that could mean for the US-Pakistan security relationship,” said Congressman Duncan Hunter, the ranking Republican member of the committee.

Lisa Curtis, a South Asia expert at Washington’s Heritage Foundation, told the committee even if there’s a change of government in the United States, “pursuing a strong and stable relationship with Pakistan will be one of America’s most important foreign policy objectives for several years to come.”

Ms Curtis pointed out two irritants that bedevil this relationship: Pakistan’s failure to root out terrorist ‘safe havens’ in the tribal area and a US legislation conditioning military assistance to Pakistan to its performance in the war against terror.

This legislation, she said, was causing doubts about the US as a reliable long-term partner.

Recalling how a similar law, known as the Presslar Amendment undermined US-Pakistan relations in the 1990s, Ms Curtis warned: “We should not repeat mistakes of the past.”

She acknowledged that Pakistan faced a complex situation in the tribal “where the local populations share a Pashtun identity with about 30 percent of the Pakistan army.”

Another witness, Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, urged the US to seek deeper ties with Pakistan and engage the Pakistani nation and “not just to think in terms of this individual or that individual.”