i think pakistan should have asked for just economic aid instead of F-16s. that is the problem of sending military personal for negotiations. they think in form of military hardware. if pakistan had received, say a few billion $$$ the moment the war started, then pak govt could have used the money to start building infrastrucutre in the North. this would keep the pashthuns happy and prevent them supporting taliban. that in itself would have been a big bonus. if pakistan had negotiated just for economic aid, they would have recieved a lot of it in 2001 when the US still had a lot of money to throw around, and money could have been used for infrastructure development.
once infrastructure development starts people would be able to see clearly that US is supporting pak grow. that would in turn make the people support the war on terror. instead pak asked for f-16s. now even if those f-16s arrived on time, and did not have all the restrictions that the us put on them, the general populace wont be satisfied because those f-16s wont be making their life any easier.
This is not thread for this argument, but I disagree with that assertion, on two levels -
1. That such aid would not have been used for bolstering the military, and
2. The effectiveness of "building infrastructure" in assuaging Pashtun opposition to the US invasion.
Even if the US had given Pakistan billions in economic aid/grants/loans, instead of military aid, the events subsequent to the Afghan Invasion, specifically Operation Parakaram, would have caused a large chunk of that money to be utilized to obtain some sort of parity with an aggressive and hostile neighbor. You need to keep in consideration the precedent set by the US, and largely supported by the world, in invading Afghanistan - that terrorism sponsored by another nation was just cause for a victim nation to take action to protect its interests. Operation Parakaram in that light was India attempting to go the same road and, given the historical animosity between the two nations, there was reason to be concerned at a mismatched military not being able to defend Pakistani borders in a campaign launched by India on some "cooked up terrorism" pretext.
Now the other flaw in your argument is that Pakistan simply received "F-16's as Aid" - A large part of the ten billion or so disbursed by the US to Pakistan (about 5.5 billion) was reimbursement for expenses undertaken in providing support for coalition efforts - there is no way that money could have simply been "turned into aid" -the support was required, and so was the reimbursement. The remainder of the ten billion was split up between economic assistance, budgetary support, and a smaller amount for military assistance.
Personally I disagree with incentives such as grants/loans etc. directly to governments, since a large amount gets wasted in bureaucratic red tape and corruption. Assistance (Loans/aid/grants) for specific programs in education, sanitation, infrastructure etc. (as Senator Biden suggested) is a far more efficient and productive route to go. Even better are moves such as the ROZ's currently pending approval in Congress, and PTA's and/or FTA's, that encourage the country's businesses to expand and create jobs and increase Government revenues. The latter I would argue is analogous to "teaching someone to catch fish, rather than giving them fish". On that count the US has not really shown much of an interest - the ROZ' bill has only recently been placed in front of Congress, after the seriousness of the situation in Afghanistan and FATA has become apparent, and FTA talks have gone nowhere.
On the issue of "infrastructure building" and "keeping the Pashtuns happy" - The first error in your reasoning is assuming that there is no infrastructure in the North - The NWFP has industrial estates, railway lines, highways etc. Recently the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway was also completed, which links to the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway, and then various highways to Karachi. The lack of infrastructure is an issue primarily in FATA.
The second error is that the Pashtun, and specifically the Tribesmen, supported the Taliban because of the lack of "development" - At the onset the issue for the Pashtun was very much linked with their ethnic identity, religion and their "people" coming under attack from "foreigners" (NATO). Development would have done very little in assuaging the sentiments of the people at that point, and this is validated when you look at the opposition to the US invasion in "settled" and "developed" parts of the Pashtun belt.
Development is important, and will indeed play a key role in winning over the loyalties of the people, but I believe your argument of Pakistan using the US Aid it received (as I mentioned before, the portion of that aid that could have been utilized for "development" in FATA was much smaller than the "billions" figure bandied about") into building "infrastructure" in FATA, and being able to "preempt" the local support for the Taliban, is flawed.
