President Obama’s strategy of offering Pakistan a partnership to defeat the insurgency here calls for a virtual remaking of this nation’s institutions and even of the national psyche, an ambitious agenda that Pakistan’s politicians and people appear unprepared to take up.
Officially, Pakistan’s government welcomed Mr. Obama’s strategy, with its hefty infusions of American money, hailing it as a “positive change.” But as the Obama administration tries to bring Pakistanis to its side, large parts of the public, the political class and the military have brushed off the plan, rebuffing the idea that the threat from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which Washington calls a common enemy, is so urgent.
Some, including the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the president, Asif Ali Zardari, may be coming around. But for the military, at least, India remains priority No. 1, as it has for the 61 years of Pakistan’s existence.
Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s New York Times.
“..calls for a virtual remaking of this nation’s institutions and even of the national psyche”
In other words – this plan is highly unlikely to succeed.
Are we ready for a war with Pakistan?
Don
It’s well on its way to being a failed state – with nuclear weapons.
Pakistan: one of the many Really Bad Ideas of the Twentieth Century.
Now playing in a dozen English cities.