WASHINGTON: Just back from a visit to Pakistan, Senator John Kerry says the Obama administration's plan for the country, rolled out last month with great fanfare," is not a real strategy."
"Pakistan is in a moment of peril," Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a session with a US newspaper. "And I believe there is not in place yet an adequate policy or plan to deal with it."
In an interview after the session, Kerry advised the Obama administration to stop using the term "Af-Pak," to describe a unified strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, because "I think it does a disservice to both countries and to the policy. The two governments, he said, are "very sensitive to it" and "don't see the linkage."
Kerry's comments amounted to one of the sharpest appraisals by a Democrat of one of Obama's signature foreign policies. They marked a change from his initial reaction to Obama's announcement of his plan for the region in a speech March 27, when Kerry issued a statement calling it "realistic and bold."
"Obviously the president disagrees with the chairman on this, and the issues he raised are being aggressively worked in the president's new strategy," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in an e-mail.
Later clarifying his comments Kerry said he did not mean to criticize Obama. "I was not blasting the president," he said. "What I'm saying is that the details have not been fleshed out. We're working hand in hand on it."
Kerry praised Obama's stepped-up attacks against insurgents in Pakistan by unmanned U.S. drone aircraft, saying they had driven "bad guys" into Yemen.
"I think it has had a dramatic impact, and I think that is one of the reasons why people are screaming about it," he said, adding that he did not think there has been inordinate civilian casualties.
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