Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Pakistani security forces made a sweep in Pakistani Kashmir, arresting two dozen members of front groups for Lashkar-e Tayiba. The offices of the Jama'at al-Da'wa were targeted and among those arrested was "top Lashkar commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi."
The US is applauding the rumored strike by the Pakistani military.
posted by Juan Cole @ 12/09/2008 01:09:00 AM
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Winner, October 5, 2007, Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship (Awarded by the Graduate Students of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania).
Winner, 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Hunter College.
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2 Comments:
Who cares if and when America applauds ?? Is this really news?
The action by the Pakistan government is a welcome development from the Indian and US perspective as it shows the willingness of the political establishment to confront the military and get it to deliver, in the least, a token confrontation with the very Islamist radicals that the Pak military has groomed for the last many decades.
This is nothing less than a struggle to control Pak foreign policy between the Pak legislature and the Pak military (predominantly - the ISI). The Pakistani legislature has, historically speaking, always lost this tussle.
To a large degree, the US strategic goals in the region are dominated by concerns regarding Afghanistan and the US needs the bulk of Pak military on the Western front to help protect the US interests in Afghanistan from cross-border activities. Any Eastward move of the Pak military front is, therefore, a troublesome development for the US, and therefore it needs, to some degree, to lower the tensions on the Indian crises.
In the long run, the US has to develop a strategy that goes beyond merely balancing Pak and India against each other and establish a clear roadmap for peace between the two nations that settles various border disputes, including Kashmir, and also establishes a verifiable treaty on rolling back of terrorist camps and containment of the nuclear weapons programs.
It is, of course, in the interest of the extremist elements in Pak military to upset this scenario for a resolution with India (through the use of non-state actors like Lashkar-e-Tayyba) because the crises endears the historic military power and prowess in Pakistan.
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