Some might say the South Asia region that includes Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a bit like those unstable-looking geological formations that constantly hiss and spit jets of steam -- but not much else.
(Source: Atlapedia Online)
Even so, it's hard to look at a map of the region and then read the following three news reports and not come away thinking that things are set to blow in that part of the world in the not-so-distant future.
Warning That Pakistan Is In Danger of Collapse Within Months" (Sydney Morning Herald):
PAKISTAN could collapse within months, one of the more influential counter-insurgency voices in Washington says.
The warning comes as the US scrambles to redeploy its military forces and diplomats in an attempt to stem rising violence and anarchy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now," said David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.
"You just can't say that you're not going to worry about al-Qaeda taking control of Pakistan and its nukes," he said.
As the US implements a new strategy in Central Asia so comprehensive that some analysts now dub the cross-border conflict "Obama's war", Dr Kilcullen said time was running out for international efforts to pull both countries back from the brink.
When he unveiled his new "Afpak" policy in Washington last month, the US President, Barack Obama, warned that while al-Qaeda would fill the vacuum if Afghanistan collapsed, the terrorist group was already rooted in Pakistan, plotting more attacks on the US.
"The safety of people round the world is at stake," he said.
Laying out the scale of the challenges facing the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen put the two countries invaded by US-led forces after the September 11 attacks on the US on a par - each had a population of more than 30 million.
"But Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control," he told the Herald .
Added to that, the Pakistani security establishment ignored direction from the elected Government in Islamabad as waves of extremist violence spread across the whole country - not only in the tribal wilds of the Afghan border region.
Cautioning against an excessive focus by Western governments on Afghanistan at the expense of Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen said that "the Kabul tail was wagging the dog". Comparing the challenges in the two, he said Afghanistan was a campaign to defend a reconstruction program. "It's not really about al-Qaeda. Afghanistan doesn't worry me. Pakistan does."
But he was hesitant about the level of resources for, and the likely impact of, Washington's new drive to emulate an Iraq-style "surge" by sending an extra 21,000 troops to Afghanistan.
"In Iraq, five brigades went into the centre of Baghdad in five months. In Afghanistan, it will be two combat brigades [across the country] in 12 months. That will have much less of a punch effect than we had in Iraq.
"We can muddle through in Afghanistan. It is problematic and difficult but we know what to do. What we don't know is if we have the time or if we can afford the cost of what needs to be done."
Dr Kilcullen said a fault line had developed in the West's grasp of circumstances on each side of the Durand Line, the disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"In Afghanistan, it's easy to understand, difficult to execute. But in Pakistan, it is very difficult to understand and it's extremely difficult for us to generate any leverage, because Pakistan does not want our help.
"In a sense there is no Pakistan - no single set of opinion. Pakistan has a military and intelligence establishment that refuses to follow the directions of its civilian leadership. They have a tradition of using regional extremist groups as unconventional counterweights against India's regional influence."
In the absence of a regional diplomatic initiative to build economic and trade confidences before tackling the security issue, the implication, Dr Kilcullen said, was that India alone could not give Pakistan the security guarantees Islamabad required.
The special US envoy Richard Holbrooke has been charged with brokering a regional compact by reaching out to Iran, Russia and China, and Dr Kilcullen said: "This is exactly what he's good at and it could work.
"But will it? It requires regional architecture to give the Pakistani security establishment a sense of security which might make them stop supporting the Taliban," he said.
"The best case scenario is that the US can deal with Afghanistan, with President Obama giving leadership while the extra American troops succeed on the ground - at the same time as Mr Holbrooke seeks a regional security deal," he said. The worst case was that Washington would fail to stabilise Afghanistan, Pakistan would collapse and al-Qaeda would end up running what he called 'Talibanistan.'
"This is not acceptable. You can't have al-Qaeda in control of Pakistan's missiles," he said.
"It's too early to tell which way it will go. We'll start to know about July. That's the peak fighting season … and a month from the Afghan presidential election."
"Pakistan's Move on Islamic Law Seen Widening Influence of Extremists" (McClatchy Newspapers):
Pakistan's president bowed to Islamists' demands Monday and agreed to impose Islamic law in part of the country's North West Frontier province, and al-Qaida-allied militants overran a neighboring district just 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad.
The takeover in Buner in the past several days, with almost no resistance from Pakistani security forces, marked a major advance for the militants, and the government's endorsement of Islamic law in Swat further increased their political clout.
In Washington, the Obama administration had no immediate comment. However, with the Taliban's advances, the military's instability or unwillingness to combat them, the government's weakness and the country's economic crisis, Pakistan constitutes the most serious security threat the administration faces.
President Asif Ali Zardari signed the agreement to introduce Sharia Islamic law in Swat, a huge valley in the North West Frontier province, a few hours after parliament, under what amounted to a death threat from the Pakistani Taliban, unanimously approved a resolution backing the move.
The Pakistani capital itself was on high alert and all but sealed off following threats of a terrorist attack,
A U.S. defense official, however, said the loss of Buner "should be a wake-up call, that (the militants) are just not going to settle for Swat. They're going to continue to consolidate power."
The takeover of Buner and the imposition of Sharia in Swat are an outgrowth of the Taliban's violent conquest of Swat, completed in February. The provincial government in the Frontier province had forged a deal with Taliban extremists, agreeing to the imposition of Islamic law in return for an end to the fighting, but the accord didn't enter into force because Zardari had hesitated to give the necessary assent.
The U.S. has voiced concerns over the deal in Swat as have members of Pakistan's small liberal elite. But politicians said they were left with few options after a band of marauding Taliban defeated the Pakistani army in Swat.
"This (Sharia) has been imposed from a position of defeat," said Iqbal Haider, a co-chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent group. "This is a formula for the Talibanization of Pakistan."
It appears that Western-style schools, where English is the language of instruction, could be the extremists' next target. Several schools in Islamabad closed Monday, and others in Punjab province, the country's most populous region, hurriedly beefed up their security.
In the parliamentary debate, the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party led the argument in favor of introducing Sharia law. Only one political party, the Karachi-based MQM, was critical of the deal, but it abstained rather than vote no. Farooq Sattar, a leader of the MQM, said that his party doesn't believe in "agreements made at gunpoint." Earlier Monday, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., visiting Pakistan, had praised the country's democracy.
Zardari's spokesperson, Farahnaz Ispahani, said the president signed the Sharia agreement "after passing of unanimous resolution by parliament which reflects the wishes of the people of Pakistan."
In Swat, which has suffered a two-year campaign of terror at the hands of the Taliban, there was widespread relief over Zardari's assent. Since the deal was reached with the provincial authorities in February, Taliban forces have taken a much lower profile, but the delay in getting Islamabad's approval raised fears that the gunmen would be back on the streets.
According to reports from Swat late Monday, residents were celebrating by firing guns in the air and handing out candy. The Swat Taliban fighters said they "appreciated" the parliament's endorsement of the deal.
Mehmood Shah, an analyst who formerly was a senior official in the Frontier province, said the Pakistan government "doesn't have a plan" for dealing with the extremists. He said its lack of a strategy is contributing to the militancy's spread.
Swat, a mountainous region, was Pakistan's top tourist destination before Pakistani Taliban militants became entrenched there in 2007. The militants, who are based in the semi-autonomous tribal area west of Swat, are allied with al-Qaida. Until this week, Swat was the only "settled" area in Pakistan - a regular part of the country - that militants have annexed.
The Sharia agreement applies not only in Swat but also in surrounding districts, including Buner to its southeast and Dir to its west. Dir, which borders Afghanistan, appears to be the next Taliban target.
About a week ago, hundreds of armed militants moved into Buner district, which has a population of around 500,000, and killed three policemen and two residents. Now, without resistance by the armed forces, they have taken over a shrine, the homes of tribal leaders, and they now patrol the area, imploring the youth there to join them, according to local media reports. From Buner, the Taliban could go east or west to strategically important positions.
Pakistan's English-language press has been scathing about the Buner debacle. The News, a daily newspaper, said residents "had no support from the federal or provincial government and it was, in military terms, a walk-over for the Taliban."
The Daily Times, in an editorial published Sunday, said: "Pakistan needs help because it can't fight the Taliban. What should the world community do when it sees a state being usurped by terrorists who clearly intend to spread their terrorism around the world?"
"Afghanistan Fears Swat Deal May Harm Its Security" (Reuters):
Afghanistan said on Tuesday it was concerned its own security could be hurt by a deal between Pakistan and Taliban guerrillas to impose Islamic law on a Pakistani valley.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed a regulation on Monday imposing sharia on Swat, a picturesque valley in northwest Pakistan, as part of a deal to end violence from the strict Islamist guerrillas.
But Afghanistan, fighting its own insurgency against the Taliban, has long worried that success by the Taliban in Pakistan could embolden the militants on both sides of the border.
"Since any deal with terrorist groups can have effects on the security of our own country and people, we ask the country of Pakistan to take into consideration the issue of security and its side-effects on relations between the two countries," Afghan presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told a news briefing.
The strict Islamist Taliban, with roots in ethnic Pashtun tribes that straddle the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, have been waging insurgencies in both countries.
Afghanistan has in the past accused Pakistani security forces of tacitly supporting militants who infiltrate across the border into Afghanistan, an accusation that has soured ties between the two key allies of Washington.
Afghanistan has seen a surge of attacks by Taliban in recent years, the bloodiest period since U.S.-backed Afghan forces drove the militants from Kabul in 2001. It has repeatedly said that most of the attacks are organised in Pakistan where the Taliban have havens in lawless tribal areas close to the Afghan border.
Meanwhile, Taliban influence has been spreading through the northwest of Pakistan, reviving concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed state.
Pakistani authorities accepted an Islamist demand for sharia in Swat to end more than a year of fighting, but critics said appeasement would only embolden the militants.
That's the result after centuries of colonization,support of corrupt
government in the Muslim world, even overthrow of elected heads of state
(Mossadeg) Capitalist greed never gave a sh..about the people.
What gave birth to Hitler/ Stalin now is hatching the golden egg of
religious fanaticism
Posted by: roger | April 14, 2009 at 11:44 PM
Agreed. We have some major league problems here!
Pakistan: Country and World in Crisis
When the crisis and danger is finally recognized by The New York Times, it becomes even more apparent that the situation is in fact dire. The articles below had been written by me back to March, when the level of the problem in Pakistan became obvious, to all except the Obama administration which continues to tell us that the situation is being monitored and the Pakistani government is on top of things. Hillary Clinton remains the invisible Secretary of State.
"The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat."(see below)
Funny, as a concerned outside observer I feel there is an iminent threat.
The problem is that we do not really know who is in charge of the government, or more to the point who do those in charge of the government (and by extension the nukes) hold allegiance to. All this as Pakistan remains our "reluctant ally"
Posted by: Michael Haltman | May 04, 2009 at 11:36 AM