First Musharraf tells a Singapore paper that American troops had better stay out of Pakistan - or else - now Asia Times Online reports that Pakistan's powers that be are thinking about turning neutral on the War on Terror:
"Following a meeting of the Pakistan corps commanders headed by the new chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kiani, a press release said there would be a review of the situation in the tribal areas and, instead of citing any plans for military operations there against militants, the release said the military's decisions would be based on "the wishes of the nation".
Islamabad's rethink has been prompted by the violence and political crisis resulting from the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi last month. In turn, this has fueled intense speculation in the Western media of the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of militants.
Most recently, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, voiced concerns over the this possibility. "I fear chaos ... an extremist regime could take root in that country, which has 30 to 40 warheads," ElBaradei told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.
Such comments are viewed in Pakistan's strategic quarters as deliberate mischief on the part of the West. On the one hand it insists that Islamabad come down hard on militancy, but when this is done, the militants react against the government. The West then points to the problem of rising extremism and projects the danger posed to Pakistan's arsenal. "
Going neutral would mean giving up the military effort to confront the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the tribal lands adjacent to Afghanistan. That, in turn, would greatly complicate NATO's efforts to curb the insurgency in southern Afghanistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment