Who needs the Whitney Museum when you have the US Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan? That seems to be the thinking at the State Department, anyway: It just dished out $185,000 for a 9½-foot-square piece of installation art made out of 98 balls of yarn and thread.

One art blog praises the work’s “various sized pieces . . . like precious small gifts, hiding happy mysteries.” A mystery indeed.

Perhaps the giant cat toy will fit right in. After all, it’ll be on display in an embassy just rebuilt for $699 million with the most cutting-edge “green” amenities — low-flow faucets and a design that’s meant to “minimize the use of electricity throughout the day,” according to Ambassador David Hale.

Yes, all spent by a State Department that routinely moans about Congress’ underfunding of its overseas needs.

And it’s dropping all this cash to show off American hipness in . . . Pakistan, a third- world nation full of conservative (and then some) Muslims.

Is State trying to fight radicalization with “pioneering fiber art”?