Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was responding to comments by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Adm. Michael Mullen, who said Pakistan's top spy agency was closely tied to the Haqqani network, the most violent and effective faction among Islamic Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
It is the most serious allegation leveled by the United States against nuclear-armed and Muslim-majority Pakistan since they began an alliance a decade ago.
"You will lose an ally," Khar told Geo TV in New York, where she is attending a U.N. General Assembly meeting.
"You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, you cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people. If you are choosing to do so and if they are choosing to do so it will be at their (the United States') own cost," she said.
"Anything which is said about an ally, about a partner publicly to recriminate it, to humiliate it is not acceptable," Khar added.
'Actively involved'
U.S. military officials told NBC News that the Pakistani government, through its intelligence service, is "actively involved" in directing the militant Haqqani network to launch terrorist attacks against U.S. and Afghan government targets in Kabul.
The officials told NBC News the ISI, Pakistan's powerful spy agency, directed the attacks by Haqqani militants on the U.S. Embassy on Sept. 13 and on the Inter-Continental Hotel on June 28. It is suspected the ISI also had a role in the massive truck bombing targeting an American base in eastern Afghanistan on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the officials said.
In a congressional hearing Thursday, Mullen called the Haqqani network a "veritable arm" of the ISI. Testifying alongside Mullen, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the United States has warned Pakistani authorities it will not tolerate a continuation of the group's cross-border attacks.
Military officials told NBC the Pakistanis are convinced that the United States is preparing to totally withdraw all its forces from Afghanistan and are "hedging their bets" for when that day arrives. "They're looking ahead, well past the Americans," an official said.
According to one senior military official, "the attacks are aimed at undermining the credibility of the Afghan government" so when the Americans leave, Pakistan will wield some influence over Kabul, NBC reported.
"They're double-dealing," the official said. On the one hand, the Pakistanis are cooperating with the United States against al-Qaida in Pakistan, while on the other hand undermining U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, the official told NBC.
Mullen and Panetta have publicly emphasized the United States is prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect American forces in Pakistan. One official said that could include unilateral U.S. military strikes against the Haqqani network inside Pakistan, but added it would be "foolhardy" to discuss any specific planning.
Pakistan relies on Washington for military and economic aid and for acting as a backer on the world stage.
"The message for America is: 'They can't live with us, they can't live without us," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters.
But support in Congress for curbing assistance or making conditions on aid more stringent is rising rapidly.
'Instrument of policy'
In his final congressional testimony before retiring next week, Mullen said success in Afghanistan is threatened by the Pakistani government's support for the Haqqani network.
Repeating a charge he made earlier this week, Mullen said Thursday that with Pakistani support the Haqqanis were behind not only the Sept. 13 embassy assault but also a recent truck bomb that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers and a June 28 attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul — as well as "a host of other smaller but effective operations."
Mullen said Pakistani intelligence is using the Haqqanis and other extremist groups as its proxies inside Afghanistan.
Mullen said Pakistan's government has chosen to "use violent extremism as an instrument of policy," adding that "by exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being."
Mullen also deplored the "pernicious effect" of Afghanistan's own poor governance and corruption.
Panetta also decried Pakistani support for the Haqqani network. He said new CIA Director David Petraeus met recently with the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency and told him the U.S. won't stand for continued cross-border attacks by Haqqani militants.
"They must take steps to prevent the safe haven that the Haqqanis are using," Panetta said. "We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces and then return to Pakistan for safe haven."
He repeated the point later, adding, "That is not tolerable."
Limited 'strategic convergence'
Privately, Pakistani military and intelligence officials have told NBC News that their "strategic convergence" with the United States extends only so far as a stable and secure Afghanistan and the elimination of al-Qaida from the region. The Haqqanis, they argue, have never posed a threat to, nor carried out attacks within, Pakistan.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the group's commander, said in a recent Reuters interview that he would take part in peace talks with Kabul only if the Taliban also joined the negotiations. Pakistani military and intelligence officials have echoed this desire to see the Haqqanis brought into the Afghanistan reconciliation negotiations, rather than targeted militarily.
Video: Tensions remain high between the US and Pakistan (on this page)
Pakistani officials also express concern that launching a full-scale operation against the Haqqanis could lead militants to direct attacks against the Pakistani state rather than against international forces in Afghanistan.
Such a situation would remain a threat to Pakistan's stability long after the United States leaves the region. "We'll be left just like we were after the Soviet war," one Pakistani intelligence official told NBC.
Shift in tone
The remarks by Mullen and Panetta highlight a notable shift in the administration's approach to Pakistan. Whereas U.S. officials previously kept their strongest criticisms of Pakistan private, in recent days they have been explicit in linking the government to extremists who are attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The dangers could be enormous if Washington and Pakistan, a largely dysfunctional state teeming with Islamist militants and run by a weak, military-cowed government, fail to arrest the deterioration in relations.
At stake are the fight against terrorism, the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and — as Islamabad plays off its friendship with China against the United States — regional stability.
NBC News' Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, NBC's Amna Nawaz in Pakistan, The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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