As the world awaits the President’s new Afghanistan strategy, the government of Pakistan appears to be throwing down the gauntlet in the event of an Obama “surge.”
This editorial from Pakistan’s The Nation warns that a buildup of U.S. troops along the Pakistan border would be bad for the United States, bad for Afghanistan, and nearly catastrophic for Pakistan.
The Nation editorial says in part:
“Pakistan is a frontline state in this erroneous, U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and it’s Pakistan that also continues to pay the biggest price for it … The leadership must take a firm stand on the issue of the surge and insist on being consulted before Washington makes a paradigm shift in its Afghan policy. Up to now, Pakistan has never been asked for its input on America’s Afghan policy; we have simply been confronted with the consequences and have effectively been told to accept U.S. policy regardless of the costs to our nation. This must end and Pakistan now has the capacity and space to have an impact on U.S. decisions, since without our cooperation, the U.S. would suffer even greater losses. On this point there can be no doubt.
“What makes this insistence on the part of Pakistan such a strategic imperative is the volatile situation not just in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but in Baluchistan as well. With the government finally moving to rectify decades of neglect in this province, it cannot afford to have the situation destabilized by an American surge. Already, India is using Afghanistan to this end.”
EDITORIAL
November 28, 2009
Pakistan – The Nation – Original Article (English)
Prime Minister Gilani has voiced Pakistan’s legitimate concern over the anticipated U.S. surge in Afghanistan, particularly with regard to a troop surge in Helmand Province that threatens to inundate Baluchistan with militants fleeing Helmand. Given the poor track record of the U.S. and NATO in sealing borders – some would call it a deliberately poor record – any expansion of America’s presence in provinces of Afghanistan that border Pakistan pose an immediate threat to this country.
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