Radio Azadi reports in Dari Persian that center-right Pakistani politician and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif says that the Pakistani government should initiate the reconciliation talks with the Taliban.
It is stunning how Pakistan, which only a month was the subject of speculation on Government collapse and the Taliban taking over nuclear weapons, has receded from the headlines. Part of the explanation is the screen of the Pakistani military’s “success” in clearing insurgents out of cities like Mingora. The bigger story remains, however: the manoeuvring between Islamabad and the insurgency in and beyond the Swat Valley has left more than two million Pakistanis “internally displaced”.
A briefing by President Obama’s envoy Richard Holbrooke on Wednesday captured (inadvertently, possibly) the tension as he says in different places: “The military is still in the process of cleaning out Swat and Buner and other areas” vs. “It’s not a good sight, but it has not yet reached the level of a situation where people are dying of cholera.”
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: This trip was the idea of President Obama. It was not one of the regularly scheduled trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan that I have been making. I’ve made two already, both of which included stops in India. This was, at President Obama’s personal direction, a trip to go only to Pakistan in the region – I also went to the Gulf – and to show American concern and support for the humanitarian crisis enveloping western Pakistan and to offer more support. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re still working through the analysis of yesterday’s “summit” between President Obama and his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari. Let’s just say, however, that there wasn’t much of significance.
Obama’s misleading line of a united fight against “Al Qa’eda and its extremist allies” was more than enough for Helene Cooper of The New York Times, who has been passing on the Administration’s line for weeks, while The Washington Post settled for “Joint Action Against Taliban Push in South Asia”. There was nothing — nothing — of consequence regarding future US political and military measures, only the platitudes of American officials: “The focus was on ways that Afghanistan and Pakistan, both unstable and strategically vital, could work with each other and with the United States to fight the militants who plague both countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
Enduring America, 18 March: “Having failed to get “stability” with Musharraf, having failed with Zardari, it is not hope that moves Washington but this question: Who or what can come next?
Soon after the Obama Administration took office, we concluded that its Pakistan policy was going around President Asif Ali Zardari, rather than working with him. Two weeks ago, we wrote that the US was behind a de facto military leadership of Pakistani policy, especially in the fight against insurgents in the northwest of the country.
Now Washington’s idea of a political alternative is emerging. The New York Times revealed on Saturday that the US is trying to bring Zardari’s long-time rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (pictured), into the Pakistani Government. Administration officials told the newspaper, “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together.” Read the rest of this entry »
Question of the Day: Who is the most important “reliable” leader in Pakistan?
No, it’s not — at least if you’re a key official in the Obama Administration — President Asif Ali Zardari. The correct answer is General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani (pictured).
A disturbing picture is emerging of one of the countries at the center of the Global War on Terror, a terrifying confluence of events which constitutes a “perfect storm” of instability. This country, which President Bush formerly praised as a “leader” in the fight against militant Islamism in Central Asia, now appears to be increasingly ungovernable, what we in the West commonly refer to as a “Failed State.”
A porous border facilitates the funneling of arms and resources to a booming narco-insurgency next-door, an insurgency which takes the lives of innocent civilians, militants, soldiers and police on a daily basis. In the halls of power and government, corrupt western-educated oligarchs continue to, in the midst of catastrophic economic collapse, wildly pillage the state treasuries while their rural fundamentalist constituencies, and the militant industries they patronize, fuel money and weapons to the neighboring insurgency, often with the explicit help of state intelligence services. And yet even though the citizens have recently achieved some modest democratic gains, the central government seems oblivious to their cries for justice against members of the criminal ex-regime. Meanwhile, a brutal domestic terrorist outbreak, flush with recently unemployed recruits, continues without mercy, killing over 50 civilians and security services in a series of suicide attacks over the last month.
The spin is in. The allies (NATO) and no-longer-allies (Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a phone call from Barack Obama) have been briefed. So today, in time for Hillary Clinton’s showcase conference on Afghanistan at The Hague and the NATO summit over the next two weeks, the grand Obama strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan will be unveiled.
STEP 1. TO THE CORE IN PAKISTAN
That’s right. All the early-Administration scrapping over Afghanistan — how many troops? nation-building or no nation-buiding? Karzai or no Karzai? — is still significant but it’s not the priority in this plan. Read the rest of this entry »
Update (23 March): President Zardari has responded to the political manoeuvres with his own call for reconciliation. In an address on Pakistan Day, he asked “everyone to work in the spirit of tolerance, mutual accommodation and respect for dissent and invite everyone to participate in the national effort for … reconciliation and healing the wounds”.
I’m not sure if this development will be noticed in the British and American press, but it could be the sign of a political arrangement for a new coalition Government and the political demise of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) responded in kind, saying it has no objection to a coalition government with the PPP in Punjab. Presumably this would include the restoration of Shahbaz Sharif as Chief Minister of the province.
And the striking absence in the Dawn story? Not a word from President Zardari.
Juan Cole offers a valuable overview of a series of important developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan:
Comments Off 
It is stunning how Pakistan, which only a month was the subject of speculation on Government collapse and the Taliban taking over nuclear weapons, has receded from the headlines. Part of the explanation is the screen of the Pakistani military’s “success” in clearing insurgents out of cities like Mingora. The bigger story remains, however: the manoeuvring between Islamabad and the insurgency in and beyond the Swat Valley has left more than two million Pakistanis “internally displaced”. 
We’re still working through the analysis of yesterday’s “summit” between President Obama and his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari. Let’s just say, however, that there wasn’t much of significance.
Soon after the Obama Administration took office, we concluded that its Pakistan policy was going around President Asif Ali Zardari, rather than working with him. Two weeks ago, we wrote that 
Question of the Day: Who is the most important “reliable” leader in Pakistan?
The spin is in. The allies (NATO) and no-longer-allies (Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a phone call from Barack Obama) have been briefed. So today, in time for Hillary Clinton’s showcase conference on Afghanistan at The Hague and the NATO summit over the next two weeks, the grand Obama strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan will be unveiled.
Update (23 March): President Zardari has responded to the political manoeuvres with his own call for reconciliation. 
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