salahuldin786
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At last night's Democratic debate, the candidates again ganged up on Sen. Barack Obama and defended poor Pakistan. Clearest and most articulate, as usual, was Sen. Hilary Clinton, who lectured Obama about the world's realities, frequently over boos from the audience.
Which got me to thinking: How is it that the government of nuclear-armed, military-ruled, non-democratic Pakistan has acquired a bipartisan troupe of Washington apologists? The answer is that it possesses nuclear weapons, the ultimate trump card. And nuclear diplomacy is something that most foreign policy specialists, certainly the senior varsity, always fall back upon, feeling right at home.
Let me recount two conversations I had yesterday, one with a colleague who also follows national security and the other with an intelligence official whom I trust.
They were both talking about threats, and they both mentioned nuclear-armed Pakistan as one of their biggest worries. It made me think how much President Pervez Musharraf might be using his nuclear weapons as a "deterrent" against more forceful American action -- that is, by subtly suggesting a catastrophe of nuclear proportions were he to be defied or toppled from power. It doesn't even have to be mentioned per se; the assumption of catastrophe is all Musharraf needs to have power.
Pakistan has been in the news ever since Obama said he would use unilateral American force -- if necessary, if actionable intelligence were available, and if Pakistan failed to act -- to strike a valuable target like Osama bin Laden. His Democratic and Republican rivals attacked him as naïve, and the government of Pakistan let loose, inserting itself into American electoral politics. Yesterday Musharraf himself said that all this talk of unilateral U.S. military strikes against al-Qaeda is counterproductive and that only Pakistan's forces can be effective in the country.
I say, go, go, go: We're waiting.
At last night's debate, Clinton said that unilateral action could destabilize the Musharraf regime. "You can think big, but remember you shouldn't always say everything you think if you're running for president, because it has consequences across the world," she said. She then raised the specter of "Islamist extremists who are in bed with al Qaeda and the Taliban" taking power.
Before the debate, this is exactly what I was hearing from my friends: Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is in an unsteady nuclear stand-off with India. The Pakistani establishment is riddled with Islamic extremists and al Qaeda sympathizers. The nuclear warheads are potentially vulnerable to seizure; Pakistani nuclear specialists are known to have made contact with al Qaeda in the past, and current scientists are under suspicion.
My friends weren't necessarily saying that only Musharraf stood between the current uneasy peace and Armageddon. But both were worried that chaos in Pakistan had world-ending consequences.
The enterprising reporter Elaine Grossman also has an exclusive interview with Adm. William Fallon, the commander of the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East. Fallon assures the Global Security Newswire that Pakistan is not a nuclear menace. Despite new programs of U.S.-India cooperation, Pakistan is unlikely to get into a nuclear arms race with India, he said. "I feel very confident that the leadership of both countries recognize this is not a place they want to go," he said.
Largely invisible on Iraq since he took command in March, Fallon's portfolio clearly concentrates more on South Asia and Iran. During a June meeting in Islamabad, Fallon says he urged Musharraf to take further steps to ease tensions with India and focus on Islamic extremism on Pakistan's western borders.
Back to my friend in intelligence: Pakistan's nukes, he said, were once hailed as the "Islamic" bomb and represented independence and solidarity for that part of the world. But since 9/11, he said, and certainly since Musharraf, no one refers to them this way. Musharraf, in fact, is seen as so hostile to radical Islamic goals, and such a puppet of the West, that Pakistan's nuclear weapons have practically vanished from view.
Then he spun an interesting scenario: Suppose Pakistan is ruled again by a civilian, by a reformer, by someone who wants "progress" and insists on more starkly drawing the line between the lawless and the rest of the society. Then, he says, Pakistan's nuclear weapons become more vulnerable as the gulf in Pakistani society widens. Musharraf's success, he said, has been in allowing the lawless to fester while keeping an extremely complex society otherwise under control and in check.
Which got me to thinking: How is it that the government of nuclear-armed, military-ruled, non-democratic Pakistan has acquired a bipartisan troupe of Washington apologists? The answer is that it possesses nuclear weapons, the ultimate trump card. And nuclear diplomacy is something that most foreign policy specialists, certainly the senior varsity, always fall back upon, feeling right at home.
Let me recount two conversations I had yesterday, one with a colleague who also follows national security and the other with an intelligence official whom I trust.
They were both talking about threats, and they both mentioned nuclear-armed Pakistan as one of their biggest worries. It made me think how much President Pervez Musharraf might be using his nuclear weapons as a "deterrent" against more forceful American action -- that is, by subtly suggesting a catastrophe of nuclear proportions were he to be defied or toppled from power. It doesn't even have to be mentioned per se; the assumption of catastrophe is all Musharraf needs to have power.
Pakistan has been in the news ever since Obama said he would use unilateral American force -- if necessary, if actionable intelligence were available, and if Pakistan failed to act -- to strike a valuable target like Osama bin Laden. His Democratic and Republican rivals attacked him as naïve, and the government of Pakistan let loose, inserting itself into American electoral politics. Yesterday Musharraf himself said that all this talk of unilateral U.S. military strikes against al-Qaeda is counterproductive and that only Pakistan's forces can be effective in the country.
I say, go, go, go: We're waiting.
At last night's debate, Clinton said that unilateral action could destabilize the Musharraf regime. "You can think big, but remember you shouldn't always say everything you think if you're running for president, because it has consequences across the world," she said. She then raised the specter of "Islamist extremists who are in bed with al Qaeda and the Taliban" taking power.
Before the debate, this is exactly what I was hearing from my friends: Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is in an unsteady nuclear stand-off with India. The Pakistani establishment is riddled with Islamic extremists and al Qaeda sympathizers. The nuclear warheads are potentially vulnerable to seizure; Pakistani nuclear specialists are known to have made contact with al Qaeda in the past, and current scientists are under suspicion.
My friends weren't necessarily saying that only Musharraf stood between the current uneasy peace and Armageddon. But both were worried that chaos in Pakistan had world-ending consequences.
The enterprising reporter Elaine Grossman also has an exclusive interview with Adm. William Fallon, the commander of the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East. Fallon assures the Global Security Newswire that Pakistan is not a nuclear menace. Despite new programs of U.S.-India cooperation, Pakistan is unlikely to get into a nuclear arms race with India, he said. "I feel very confident that the leadership of both countries recognize this is not a place they want to go," he said.
Largely invisible on Iraq since he took command in March, Fallon's portfolio clearly concentrates more on South Asia and Iran. During a June meeting in Islamabad, Fallon says he urged Musharraf to take further steps to ease tensions with India and focus on Islamic extremism on Pakistan's western borders.
Back to my friend in intelligence: Pakistan's nukes, he said, were once hailed as the "Islamic" bomb and represented independence and solidarity for that part of the world. But since 9/11, he said, and certainly since Musharraf, no one refers to them this way. Musharraf, in fact, is seen as so hostile to radical Islamic goals, and such a puppet of the West, that Pakistan's nuclear weapons have practically vanished from view.
Then he spun an interesting scenario: Suppose Pakistan is ruled again by a civilian, by a reformer, by someone who wants "progress" and insists on more starkly drawing the line between the lawless and the rest of the society. Then, he says, Pakistan's nuclear weapons become more vulnerable as the gulf in Pakistani society widens. Musharraf's success, he said, has been in allowing the lawless to fester while keeping an extremely complex society otherwise under control and in check.
