AS the news out of Pakistan becomes ever more bewildering, the only clear assessment of Islamabad’s bizarre dealings with the rest of the world has come from outgoing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

He was asked “how long do we support governments that lie to us”, during a hearing of the US Senate defence appropriations subcommittee. The philosophical Mr Gates said, “Most governments lie to each other. That’s the way business gets done.” But no worries: Pakistan’s propensity for not telling the truth was neither new nor unusual.

And Mr Gates added for good measure in response to a question pertaining to the recent arrest of alleged CIA informants in Pakistan: “Sometimes they send people to spy on us, and they’re our close allies. That’s the real world that we deal with.”

Further complicating the US conversation on Pakistan, Karl Inderfurth, a former State Department official, has compared the US-Pakistan relationship to a marriage where both sides have “made their share of mistakes”.

“Whatever the international equivalent of marriage counselling is, we ought to take part in it,” he said.

Gates and Inderfurth’s comments — based on the two officials’ years of experience in trying to manage an increasingly strained and acrimonious relationship with Islamabad — will probably be shrugged off as unimportant by Pakistan’s security and foreign policy establishment.

In fact, these and other equally frank assessments of Pakistan’s dealings with the outside world should make both the civilian leadership and the military security men sit up in alarm.

Most governments do indeed lie to each other. International diplomacy is based on half-truths and embellished facts. Mr Gates should know since he has probably told a few himself and been on the receiving end of many.

But apart from a few exceptions, countries do not relish being described in public as congenitally duplicitous and peddlers of mistruths. It is not a reputation that any country worth its name should covet. Especially not one that wants to be taken seriously as a regional player.

In fact, Mr Gates’ remarks have been noted with interest by European policymakers who are still struggling to win trade concessions for Pakistani exports of textiles. Many European countries — and European textile makers — argue that they cannot trust Pakistan’s assertion that the potential market access opportunities it is seeking will really benefit last year’s flood victims.

And certainly India, which has never really believed a word Islamabad says, is likely to view Mr Gates’ statement as further proof that Pakistan should not be accorded the additional tariff concessions. Even Pakistan’s ‘all-weather’ strategic partner, China, recently had to deny claims (refuted later by the prime minister) by Islamabad that Beijing was going to build a naval base in Gwadar.

So here’s some unwanted advice for political and military strategists in Islamabad. Start trying to tell the truth. Start modestly at home and then gradually make it part of your public statements. Then — and this is really difficult — slowly make it part of the way you conduct yourselves in public and in your dealings with others.

Most of us were taught about the moral and religious hazards of lying in childhood. But life as adults lures most of us to start telling half-truths, making misleading statements and conveniently ‘forgetting’ uncomfortable facts. Politicians tell lies all the time. Soldiers go to war on the basis of fabricated stories like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Today, as the people of Libya and Syria struggle to oust repressive regimes, the leaders of the two countries are engaged in a massive propaganda campaign of lies and more lies.

But I have been thinking: Mr Gates’ casual dismissal of lying and liars is also of course a sign of the times. In today’s wired, fast-moving, world, we expect people to be dishonest. Trust is out of style. To succeed today, you have to hype up your CV, give yourself a ‘make-over’, pretend to be more assertive and self-confident than you are.

With our i-Phones and Blackberries, it is becoming ever easier to lie. Sometimes like US Congressman Anthony Weiner, who has admitted to sending lewd photos of himself to women, you get caught out. But often, you don’t. Social media has made it easier than ever to cheat on your spouse, steal millions of dollars worth of credit information online and publish fictional stories.

But Pakistan can take heart from the fact that as he prepares to hand over the reins to Leon Panetta, Mr Gates has been in feisty mood about other things as well. In Brussels last week, he also delivered a sharp parting shot at European allies, saying Nato risks “collective military irrelevance” unless they bear more of the burden and boost military spending.

In a final policy address before retiring at the end of the month, Mr Gates said that Nato-led operations in Afghanistan and Libya had exposed significant shortcomings in military capabilities and political will among the allies. “The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country — yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the US, once more, to make up the difference,” he said.

Europeans aren’t too happy about the blunt comments made by Mr Gates. But on this question, no one can accuse the outgoing US defence secretary of lying.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.