Red Circles and Dead Opium Merchants
I'm trying to compose a poem about red circles drawn on a map of Paki nukes in anticipation of a successful fundamentalist coup but the real key to Paki stability is cut off Taliban funding via disrupting the opium flow/cash, so to my hammer and tongs way of thinking, the SFers and other 'crews' need to be hunting a different kind of prey. A late night thought anyway......
yes, we're not discussing this enough...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tequila
Things are not looking good.
Agreed--in fact, I think they're looking very bad. Judging from some of the arrests that are now being reported (including Gen. Hameed Gull, the former head of ISI) there are already serious splits in the national security establishment.
The fact that martial law seems to have been imposed over an issue of Musharraf's personal power (the impending Supreme Court ruling on his reelection) rather than on an issue of policy or principle is likely to further fracture his military support base--and, for that matter, sap the willingness of individual soldiers to fight regime opponents, including pro-Taliban elements in the FATA.
Call me a wet blanket but
I think Al Qaeda is going to get Pakistan. I've thought that for quite a while. If they don't it will be because they have a dictator. Unfortunately, our nation is pretty darn lacking in realpolitik thinking these days on both sides of the aisle.
Things are going to get pretty interesting for the next president. (And the American public.)
Pakistan: the world's most dangerous country
The (London) Daily Telegraph, under this title Pakistan: the world's most dangerous country, has this column:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...06/wpak306.xml
JCustis - the interests of the USA may not be met by Pakistan today, neither the USA or the wider Western interest can afford to see this dangerous country lost.
BBC Radio 4 has just had a small item on what happens to Pakistan's nuclear weapons and contingency plans to ensure they do not fall into untrustworthy hands.
Here the press are reporting the parliamentary elections will take place in January 2008, partly as external pressure is exerted.
davidbfpo
Pakistani politics opens up
Reported on the link the return of Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan; Benazir Bhutto's main secular rival and a man who opposes military rule. Interesting to note his return is a few days after Musharraf visited Saudi Arabia, where Sharif has been in exile.
http://www.pakistanpolicy.com/
Elsewhere the BBC report two suicide bomb attacks in Rawlpindi, including a blast on a packed bus at an ISI site.
davidbfpo
Nuclear weapons writing frenzy?
Reported in the UK and the USA, in a way that arouses some concern:
In the UK Guardian, referring to Frederick Kagan's writing on 1/12/07:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/S...rc=rss&feed=12
On a US blogsite and written by Richard Sale, ex-UPI intelligence writer (id'd in a comment on the blogsite):
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_s...n-pakista.html
On National Review Online by Henry Sokolski, on Pakistan's nuclear options due to the changing situation, especially the India-US relationship:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...lhZTgzODk3YTI=
Which cites a longer analysis by Thomas Donnelly on intervention options to secure Pakistan's nukes and he dismisses them:
http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20060528-Donnelly.pdf
All very interesting and curious by their timing. Worst case scenario commentaries, which serve what interests? Or do they reflect increasing pessimism - in Washington - about the prospects in Pakistan?
davidbfpo
Kinda Skimpy on Some of the Details, But. . .
. . .better than nothing. I read a CRS report on it last summer when I worked in Congress, I just found it online from another source:
"Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Weapons" http://www.ndu.edu/library/docs/crs/...37_17feb05.pdf
Matt
Parallels with Iran under the Shah?
From JCustis
Quote:
This is not an original question as I read the bits on another board. Am I, however, the only one who sees some parallels with the Shah of Iran, who also at one point had a handle on his military?
Are there things to be learned from his capitulation that can help folks at Foggy Bottom avoid repeating history? Or are these issues to much a matter of apples-oranges?
In reply we, in the West, find it hard to understand how a society like Iran can chose a theocratic dictatorship - which is what Ayatollah Khomeni clearly offered. This comment was made at a Whitehall conference recently by Prof. Christopher Andrew, an intelligence historian.
It is a long time since I read about the Iranian revolution.
What I do recall is that the West, in particular foreign policy experts, did not realize how unpopular the Shah's rule was. That we relied on the intelligence relationship with Savak (secret police), a relationship fraught with problems. The flow of propaganda from Ayatollah Khomeni in Paris, mainly audio tapes, which radicalized many missed out by the Shah's reign. Even the Imperial Guard at the end failed to support the Shah, although my recollection is that the Iranian Army did not have an internal security role like the Pakistani Army. The Shah's reforms only too late we found were without a foundation for such a conservative and religious society.
Pakistan is very different and despite all its problems has a strong national desire to be democratic. Secondly, it is far more open society, more diverse and many live abroad (not just in the UK). Finally they play cricket!
davidbfpo
Musharraf issues warning to West
Musharraf is in London and addressing the RUSI.
BBC story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7209611.stm
The RUSI has a link to an .mp3 of the speech and Q&A - but it did not work for me - http://www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E4794DB1E93E7C/
Analysis here http://www.rusi.org/research/studies...479AEE81E8F91/