November 19, 2007

Debating The 'Nuclear Option' In Pakistan

Thanks to the New York Times, we know more about the extent to which Washington has been secretly aiding Pakistan's military. It's doubtful, though, that this new information is making anyone feel better about the situation.

The bright line here is between Taliban sympathizers/al-Qaida and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Everyone agrees that crossing that line would be disastrous beyond imagination. So, we aren't too surprised that Michael O'Hanlon and Frederick Kagan, of the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute, respectively, agree that the U.S. needs to consider military intervention.

"The task of stabilizing a collapsed Pakistan is beyond the means of the United States and its allies," they wrote in an op-ed published in yesterday's Times. "Thus, if we have any hope of success, we would have to act before a complete government collapse, and we would need the cooperation of moderate Pakistani forces."

One option Kagan and O'Hanlon float is deploying Special Forces to secure Pakistan's nuclear material and possibly shipping it elsewhere to "someplace like New Mexico." Another possibility would be deploying security forces from the U.S. and other allies to bolster the Pakistani military.

Meanwhile, activist Salman Ahmad warns that the West's romanticization of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is both undeserved and potentially dangerous. "Her time as prime minister brought staggering levels of corruption and graft," he writes in the Washington Post. "She continues to see Pakistan as her personal feudal fiefdom to be plundered. A false prophet of democracy, she threatens to bring back the rule of the gangster rather than the rule of law."

Musharraf has made a couple of token gestures to his critics, allowing two independent TV stations to go back on the air and promising again to step down as head of the military after he wins re-election in January. Yet he seems aware of how very tenuous his hold on power is at the moment, hence his refusal to lift martial law and restore the constitution.

The Economist appears to be in the minority of voices calling for a complete halt to U.S. aid to Pakistan. But there is strong pressure on Washington to add new conditions to the billions it pours into Islamabad. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Pentagon is already in the process of rejiggering its financial relationship with Pakistan.

Today, the New York Times reported that Washington is considering applying the Anbar province model to the northern Pakistani territories by enlisting tribal leaders in the hunt against violent Islamists. While the Bush administration rethinks its partnership with Pakistan in the war on terror, Americans, lawyers in particular, are mulling the ways in which they can support the country's pro-democracy movement. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor last week, William Neukom, president of the American Bar Association, vowed that the American legal community would "continue working until the rule of law is restored in Pakistan."

Posted at 3:45 PM
Posted to: Asia, Bush Administration, Pakistan
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