Pakistan

Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut Vietcong supply lines. As a result, America's war with Vietnamese communism spread into Cambodia, leading to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. But these horrors occurred after the US itself had quit Vietnam and after the US-backed regime in South Vietnam had collapsed. Washington's widening of the war benefited neither America nor its local allies.

The US is now making the… more

What is even more troubling is that support for the insurgents in Pakistan appears to be growing at an alarming rate. Dr Anatol Lieven, a terrorism expert from King's College London, who has just returned from a six-week tour of the region, said yesterday that virtually every local Pashtun tribesman he encountered expressed their support for the Taliban and their allies in their war against "the infidel occupier". There was also widespread sympathy for the attacks on the Pakistani government… more

Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut Vietcong supply lines.

As a result, America's war with Vietnamese Communism spread into Cambodia, leading to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. But these horrors occurred after the U.S. itself had quit Vietnam and after the U.S.-backed regime in South Vietnam had collapsed. Washington's widening of the war benefited neither America nor its local allies.

The U.S. is now making the same mistake in… more

Anatol Lieven, a professor at King's College London, said that the extent to which conspiracy theories dominate Pakistani political debate may seriously damage "effective policymaking". LINK

The attack on the Marriott hotel is a shocking blow to Pakistan. What is really frightening is that the security measures in place worked: the lorry was stopped by guards at the barrier outside. As I found during visits to the Marriott during my recent stay in Pakistan, they were vigilant and effective.

Against a tonne of explosives, however, there is not much that can be done – except to cordon off the entire neighbourhood. Most of the Western embassies and consulates in Pakistan are protected in… more

According to Anatol Lieven, writing in the International Herald Tribune, the fear is that by the time a new US administration has begun to work out its plans, it will be next spring, which may be too late, some Pakistanis feel. “If the government here cannot do something serious to help the population economically within six months, it will be finished,” a newspaper editor told Lieven. The new president Asif Ali Zardari is seen as too pro-American. His government’s prestige… more

The Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, has drawn up an excellent long-term plan for the United States to help Pakistan economically, thereby strengthening the state against Islamist extremism. This is a vital American interest, not just because of the role of Pakistani Pashtuns in supporting the Taliban's campaign in Afghanistan, but even more importantly because Pakistan itself risks becoming a source of threats to the West that will vastly outweigh those from Afghanistan. It is to be hoped that if John McCain wins the presidential election, his administration too… more

Given all this, one might ask whether it was worth getting rid of Mr Musharraf. Although he too pursued an alliance with the US, he was at least personally honest, whereas Mr Zardari is widely known as “Mr Ten Per Cent”, because of his behaviour when his wife was Prime Minister in the 1990s.

If things go badly, many Pakistanis may come to regret Mr Musharraf's overthrow. But it's no good crying over spilt milk. As I found talking to ordinary people in the weeks before… more

This month marks 20 years since al-Qaeda was founded in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar by Osama bin Laden and a handful of veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the group is more famous and feared than ever. But its grand project – to transform the Muslim world into a militant Islamist caliphate – has been, by any measure, a resounding failure.

That's largely because Mr. bin Laden's strategy for arriving at this promised land is a fantasy. Al-Qaeda's leader prides… more

Opening the papers in Pakistan this morning, two French maxims came to mind. The first is that “every man has to digest a toad every day before breakfast.” This thought was inspired by the front page news that the next President of Pakistan will most probably be Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the late Benazir Bhutto, and widely known among both Pakistanis and Westerners here as “Mr. Ten Percent.” Corruption charges against him were dropped--contrary to Pakistan’s law and constitution--on the orders of now ex-President Musharraf as… more