Pakistan

Friends,

  Pakistan is the problem. O'bama actually seems to recognize this as fact. Whoever inherits this massive mess, will be faced with a radical, secular, nuclear armed nation.

Peace and Love,

Rev O

"Don't mention the Afghan-Pakistan war"

Nelson, Fraser "Don't mention the Afghan-Pakistan war". Spectator, The. . FindArticles.com. 16 Sep. 2008.

Few want to accept that the war is widening; that it now involves Pakistan, a country with an unstable government and nuclear weapons.

But in fact the military commanders know that they are dealing with far more than just a domestic insurgency. Weapons, men and suicide bombers are flooding in from Pakistan every day. Like it or not, war is being waged on Afghanistan from Pakistan.

In theory, the Pakistani government has signed up to the war on terror and is trying as best it can to help us. But in practice, it is playing a dangerous double game. The Pakistani government, army and intelligence services all have their own distinct reasons for keeping the Taleban in business. The Pakistan army effectively ceded Quetta to the Taleban six years ago, for example, hoping their brutal methods would deal with local Baluchistan separatists.

Inside the UK Ministry of Defence the name Quetta is spat out like a curse by British commanders who know they are fighting a lopsided war. 'We have to start looking at this area as a whole battlefield, Pakistan included, ' one senior MoD source tells me.

The American failure to understand the complexity of the Pakistan problem is perhaps one of the biggest strategic errors of the war in Afghanistan. President Pervaiz Musharraf reluctantly agreed to join the war on terror, and Washington was keen to take him at his word. But as the Taleban fell, the Pakistani security establishment opened an escape hatch for the enemy by removing their troops from the border of the Fata, allowing the Taleban to relocate. The jihadis now have bases, broadcasting stations and the protection of being in a territory that is part of a nuclear-armed state. The West invaded Afghanistan to stop terrorism being given a state home. Yet al-Qa'eda is alive, well and living in Fata.

'Because that's what the locals are doing. We have to think the same way.' But they cannot admit as much in public. Handling an insurgency is one thing, but any war involving a nuclear-armed country like Pakistan is almost too frightening a prospect to consider. 

A century ago, Britain left the puzzle of the Fata unsolved. Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, then described its border as 'the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace, of life and death to nations'. As Britain and America brace themselves for the next phase of this expanding Afghan conflict, there will be plenty of time to reflect on how frighteningly true these words remain.

Copyright Spectator Jul 26, 2008
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved