WASHINGTON — With friends like these . . .
Back-stabbing Afghan President Hamid Karzai stuck it to the United States yesterday — brazenly declaring he’d side with Pakistan if it went to war with America.
“If fighting starts between Pakistan and the US, we are beside Pakistan,” Karzai told Pakistani TV.
“If Pakistan is attacked and the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.”
Karzai sucker-punched the United States — which has lost more than 1,700 soldiers trying to bring freedom to Afghanistan — just days after hosting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Kabul. The two had pressed Pakistan to crack down on militants using its territory for staging cross-border attacks.
The countries have long complained that Pakistan allows the Taliban to hole up in its mountainous border region and launch attacks into Afghanistan.
Karzai’s comments did not sit well with Afghan lawmakers.
“Pakistan has never been honest with Afghanistan,” Ghazni province lawmaker Shah Gul Rezaye said.
US Embassy officials in Kabul downplayed Kar- zai’s comments.
“This is not about war with each other,” spokesman Gavin Sundwall said. “This is about a joint approach to a threat to all three of our countries.”