we're in a cleft stick

[winterbadger]

If the Pakistanis don't deal with the Taliban sheltering in their country, we are going to feel the need to go in and deal with them ourselves (as will, in time, the Afghans).

But when we do so more and more openly and violently, this sort of thing is bound to happen. Keep going this way, and the Pakistanis will be killing NATO troops soon.

We need to find a way out of this situation, but I can't for the life of me imagine what it is...

Comments

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Sometimes there isn't any good answer -- it's just a question of choosing the "least bad" answer. What I *hope* will happen is that the Pakistanis will actually step up and do some serious fighting, which will mean we don't have to. What I *suspect* will happen is that some set of levers will be found to put enough pressure on the Pakistani government that they will drop objections to our actions, and cooperate as best they can. This may involve some struggles to clean up the ISI, but that job may just be too big for them. Another US President not named "Bush" might have more influence.

Failing that... the next Indo-Pakistani war will be very very ugly, I'm afraid. Pay attention to Indian politics, as they may play a very influential role in how the 21st Century turns out.

[winterbadger]

Sometimes there isn't any good answer -- it's just a question of choosing the "least bad" answer.

Agreed. In our dealings with Pakistan, a terrifically complex country, we have no simple solutions.

some set of levers will be found to put enough pressure on the Pakistani government that they will drop objections to our actions, and cooperate as best they can

The problem as far as I can see from press reporting and reading what I can pick up in bookstores and on the Internet is that it is almost impossible for any Pakistani government to drop objections to our intervention. Look at the US in 1812; we were the youngest and weakest of the 'modern' nations, but we were still propelled into a war with one of the world's leading superpowers (the UK) because we did not like the way their war with France intruded on our commerce. We are telling Pakistan how to run its foreign relations, telling them to attack and kill their countrymen and coreligionists because *we* have beef with them. And *we* created the 'foreign fighter' community in Pakistan (the part Pakistanis have the least tolerance for).

We've also reveled in as much cooperation from and influence over a Pakistani government as any US administration has had, and now the president who gave us that influence is gone. General Musharraf was unpopular because he was an autocrat and a dictator who had stolen power from an elected government, but General Zia was all those things and was one of the (perhaps the) most beloved leader in Pakistan's short history. In no small part, this was because he was a strong and proud leader who used the US, rather than the other way around.

The ISI is another 'interesting' problem. On one level, there is the question of how far radical Salafism has infiltrated the Pakistani armed forces, including the ISI. Then, on the other hand, there's the 'simple' problem of the ISI's historical desire to play kingmaker, almost act as the national government itself. And the broader problem of the hostility between the military, which sees itself as the neutral, apolitical guardian of the nation (see Hapsburg Austro-Hungary or most of 20th century Latin America) and the civilian politican classes, which are wholly and completely corrupt in a way that would have been familiar to 18th century Britons or 19th century Americans, but which today we think of as fundamentally undemocratic. No one in the foreseeable future of Pakistani politics is going to treat governing as anything but the opportunity to reap the spoils of patronage; after a stint of military rule, people want civilian government again, but as soon as they've had a few years of King Stork, they'll be wanting King Log back again.

India... the two countries have avoided several opportunities for a mutual nuclear war up to now. I can only hope that they will feel that all the money that both of them pour into conventional weapons will require them to stick to those for their next war. But that's not a very powerful hope.As much as the US wants to bend Pakistan to its will, we really have to always make our priority maintaining peace between the two because a war would very likely be a global disaster.