Pak situation could spell disaster:US
A political meltdown in Pakistan, where al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and nuclear weapons are all in play, could be a disaster for the Bush administration, analysts say.
By PTI |
NEW YORK: A political meltdown in Pakistan, where al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and nuclear weapons are all in play, could be a disaster for the Bush administration, analysts say.
White House officials insisted in interviews with a news daily that they had confidence that their longtime ally, President General Pervez Musharraf, would maintain enough influence to keep the country stable as he edged toward a power-sharing agreement with his main rival, Benazir Bhutto.
But it also quoted other current and former officials cautioning that six years after the United States forced General Musharraf to choose sides in the days after the September 11 attacks, American leverage over Pakistan is now limited. And General Musharraf is weakened.
His effort at conciliation in Pakistan's tribal areas, where al-Qaeda and the Taliban plot and train, has proved a failure, the paper noted, adding his efforts to take them on militarily have so far proved ineffective and politically costly.
Almost every major terror attack since 9/11 has been traced back to Pakistani territory, leading many who work in intelligence to believe that Pakistan, not Iraq, is the place Bush should consider the "central front" in the battle against terrorism, the Times said. It was also the source of the greatest leakage of nuclear arms technology in modern times.
After years of compromises and trade-offs, there are questions inside and outside the administration about whether Bush has invested too heavily in a single Pakistani leader, an over-reliance that may have prevented the United States from examining other long-term strategies, the paper writes.
White House officials insisted in interviews with a news daily that they had confidence that their longtime ally, President General Pervez Musharraf, would maintain enough influence to keep the country stable as he edged toward a power-sharing agreement with his main rival, Benazir Bhutto.
But it also quoted other current and former officials cautioning that six years after the United States forced General Musharraf to choose sides in the days after the September 11 attacks, American leverage over Pakistan is now limited. And General Musharraf is weakened.
His effort at conciliation in Pakistan's tribal areas, where al-Qaeda and the Taliban plot and train, has proved a failure, the paper noted, adding his efforts to take them on militarily have so far proved ineffective and politically costly.
Almost every major terror attack since 9/11 has been traced back to Pakistani territory, leading many who work in intelligence to believe that Pakistan, not Iraq, is the place Bush should consider the "central front" in the battle against terrorism, the Times said. It was also the source of the greatest leakage of nuclear arms technology in modern times.
After years of compromises and trade-offs, there are questions inside and outside the administration about whether Bush has invested too heavily in a single Pakistani leader, an over-reliance that may have prevented the United States from examining other long-term strategies, the paper writes.
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