Atlantic Council South Asia Center director Shuja Nawaz appeared on the radio show Background Briefing with Ian Masters out of KPFK-FM Los Angeles

The firestorm in Pakistan-US relations set off by the November 26 NATO assault on Pakistan’s border posts was a crisis waiting to happen.

Diplomatic efforts have helped in the past week to defuse the latest crisis to rock Pakistan-US relations. Although the immediate tensions have dissipated these developments have reaffirmed the tenuous quality of the relationship.

When it seems U.S.-Pakistan relations cannot get worse, they do.

This past week, The New York Times, perhaps coaxed by the White House or CIA, held Pakistan's army and Inter-Services Intelligence responsible for the killing of a journalist and called for the resignation of the ISI director general.

South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz appeared on NPR to discuss U.S.-Pakistan relations after the bin Laden raid.

The ingredients for a pluperfect national storm coupled with a pluperfect action completed at or before the time of another past action are the best way to try to understand the crazy mixed-up -- but still critically important -- alliance between Pakistan and the United States.

Two completely unrelated data points ironically apply to repairing U.S.-Pakistani relations: George Bernard Shaw quipped that America and Britain were two nations divided by a common language. Seventy years ago -- June 22, 1941 -- Nazi shock troops stormed into Soviet Russia in a surprise attack that ultimately helped lead to the defeat of Hitler's Germany in World War II.

South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz spoke with Jackie Northam on NPR's Morning Edition to discuss the sharp downturn in U.S.-Pakistan relations.