Islamabad dismayed by 'dithering' US
By Zahid U Kramet
Asia Times
LAHORE - As White House officials continue to debate the call of the United States' military chief in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for an additional force of 40,000 to win the war against Taliban insurgents in the Afghanistan-Pakistan war theater, the overall impression in Pakistan is that rather than any decisive victory, the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are now looking for a face-saving exit to leave Pakistan to face the brunt of the fallout - once again.
Unsurprisingly then, Pakistan has been guarded about launching committed strikes against the Taliban holing up in the porous Af-Pak border belts in the past. And, while it has embarked on a 30,000-strong military mission to crush the insurgency in its South Waziristan tribal area following attacks on its security
apparatus in Peshawar, Lahore and Islamabad by suspected Taliban militants, reservations remain.
On these, Dan Twining pertinently asked last month in an encompassing Foreign Policy article [1], "Why should the Pakistani military take on the militant groups that regularly launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan when the NATO targets of those attacks will soon slink away?" This is the thought that holds the public's attention in Afghanistan, and particularly in Pakistan.
(More here.)
Asia Times
LAHORE - As White House officials continue to debate the call of the United States' military chief in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for an additional force of 40,000 to win the war against Taliban insurgents in the Afghanistan-Pakistan war theater, the overall impression in Pakistan is that rather than any decisive victory, the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are now looking for a face-saving exit to leave Pakistan to face the brunt of the fallout - once again.
Unsurprisingly then, Pakistan has been guarded about launching committed strikes against the Taliban holing up in the porous Af-Pak border belts in the past. And, while it has embarked on a 30,000-strong military mission to crush the insurgency in its South Waziristan tribal area following attacks on its security
apparatus in Peshawar, Lahore and Islamabad by suspected Taliban militants, reservations remain.
On these, Dan Twining pertinently asked last month in an encompassing Foreign Policy article [1], "Why should the Pakistani military take on the militant groups that regularly launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan when the NATO targets of those attacks will soon slink away?" This is the thought that holds the public's attention in Afghanistan, and particularly in Pakistan.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home