So the ISI decided to blow the cover of our CIA Station Chief in Islamabad, causing his recall from Pakistan. The two obvious motivators for this?
Obama’s speech was followed Friday with fresh evidence that the United States will continue pounding militant groups when Pakistan can’t or won’t. Three CIA drone attacks reportedly killed as many as 54 suspected militants in the Khyber tribal area near the Afghan border, an unusually large casualty count.
The ISI, as the Pakistani service is known, may have done so in retaliation for a civil lawsuit filed in New York last month accusing ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha of being involved in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, U.S. officials suggested.
Our relationship with Pakistan is the most complicated and contradictory bilateral relationship in the world, so I am not going to poke logic holes in our policy. Nothing over there is going to pass a strict logic test. But we do need someone who is a little more sophisticated than John Bolton there to replace the recently deceased Richard Holbrooke.
If the ISI was involved in bombing in Mumbai, the Indian embassy in Kabul, and the outing of our CIA Station Chief, they aren’t exactly reliable partners in a war against Muslim extremism. On the other hand, what country sides with an outside power that kills 54 of their people in a single weekend.
Our policy should be disengagement from Pakistan and closer relationships with their neighbors. The only merit in our current relationship with Pakistan is contained in that old saw about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
I know I’ve bee a little out of it lately, but you’re just making a laughable example when you mention John Bolton, right?
Hope your holidays are fab.
::
One of the things you have to remember about Pakistan is that the government, the military, and the ISI have severe internal divisions and there is domestic politics being played in all these moves.
That makes diplomacy with Pakistan even more complicated. And for some in the military and ISI, the annexation of the Indian part of Kashmir is the most foreign policy objective and national interest. Which automatically puts them in a position against India and contributes to some protection of terrorist organizations aimed at attacking India to weaken its resolve about retaining Kashmir. The behavior of the government with respect to US interests indicates that this is most likely a minority view for the moment.
And no doubt some of these folks were allied with the efforts at nuclear proliferation of the A. Q. Khan network.
Complicating this is the actions of Indian businesses, with or without the knowledge of the Indian government in supplying Iran with materials for their nuclear program.
Hopefully, we will be able to find someone with the negotiation skills and depth of knowledge of Richard Holbrooke.
the GOP doesn’t like all this talk about nuclear disarmament. It smacks of the government coming to snatch our guns or at least not allow the easy dissemination of assault rifles. Hey, it’s a dangerous world and if we have 2000 nukes we can always outnuke some wily persians or queda or what-have-you.
Yep. 2000 nukes is what we will have left, and so will the Russians. Down from 20,000 when Reagan and Gorbachev negotiated the first START treaty.
Still more than enough to create a nuclear winter.
The Republicans still have not grasped the fundamental fact that nukes are fundamentally unusable, but to succeed as a deterrent folks have to pretend they will be used. One suspects even North Korea and Israel have discovered this contradiction by now.
I received a call from from Veterans for Peace. The gentlemen is a Vietnem vet. He said they are trying to jump start the peace movement in this country. Last Thursday 131 people were arrested in front of the White House protesting the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Here is a link: Veterans for Peace