Pakistan’s next batch of intrigues
The generals play politics
America has suffered Pakistan's duplicity out of a feeling of helplessness
Since the decade-old war in Afghanistan forced America and Pakistan back together, they have maintained a mutually understood deception. America considers Pakistan a threat to world peace, sponsor of terrorism, obliging host to the Taliban and so enemy of the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Yet it calls it an ally and has showered it with money. Pakistan has trousered the cash, put up a decent fight against its own Islamist militants and continued to oblige the Taliban.
This is unsustainable, and in 2012 will cause serious friction between the two countries. America has suffered Pakistan’s duplicity out of a feeling of helplessness that it can do otherwise and a hope that the Pakistanis will come round. That will not happen. Pakistan’s generals are convinced the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is against their interests and that, once NATO leaves Afghanistan, the Taliban will regain power there.
That looks a fair bet, with America due to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by 2014 and the Taliban insurgency mounting. To help prevent it, the Pakistanis want a bigger say in Afghanistan’s post-NATO affairs, which would imply handing some control to the Taliban, at least in the south of the country. In 2012 America will not countenance this; by 2014 it may have to.
Pakistan’s generals are harder-pressed at home. The American dispatch of Osama bin Laden, in northern Pakistan in May 2011, was embarrassing: it is widely assumed he was another army guest. This encouraged Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s opposition leader, to attack the top brass and vow to make peace with their chief bugbear, India. President Asif Zardari hopes to deny him the chance. He is struggling to hold together a fissiparous coalition, led by his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), at least until an upper-house election, due in March. If he succeeds, his government may become the country’s first democratic government to complete its term.
Mr Sharif, a two-time former prime minister, therefore hopes to bring down the government before the poll. But Mr Zardari, the widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, will succeed: he has proved wilier than expected, though he remains vulnerable to the country’s interventionist judges, who are aching to hear corruption and other charges against him.
As for providing its people with jobs, Pakistan will remain hampered by its woeful infrastructure, education and economic management. Global warming, to which Pakistan is especially vulnerable, will worsen its problems.
And, in hard times, more disaffected Pakistanis will embrace the Utopian promise of Islamic fundamentalism. Its advance, Pakistan’s most predictable recent feature, will continue in 2012.
James Astill: energy and environment editor and former South Asia correspondent, The Economist
The generals play politics
America has suffered Pakistan's duplicity out of a feeling of helplessness
Since the decade-old war in Afghanistan forced America and Pakistan back together, they have maintained a mutually understood deception. America considers Pakistan a threat to world peace, sponsor of terrorism, obliging host to the Taliban and so enemy of the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Yet it calls it an ally and has showered it with money. Pakistan has trousered the cash, put up a decent fight against its own Islamist militants and continued to oblige the Taliban.
This is unsustainable, and in 2012 will cause serious friction between the two countries. America has suffered Pakistan’s duplicity out of a feeling of helplessness that it can do otherwise and a hope that the Pakistanis will come round. That will not happen. Pakistan’s generals are convinced the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is against their interests and that, once NATO leaves Afghanistan, the Taliban will regain power there.
That looks a fair bet, with America due to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by 2014 and the Taliban insurgency mounting. To help prevent it, the Pakistanis want a bigger say in Afghanistan’s post-NATO affairs, which would imply handing some control to the Taliban, at least in the south of the country. In 2012 America will not countenance this; by 2014 it may have to.
Pakistan’s generals are harder-pressed at home. The American dispatch of Osama bin Laden, in northern Pakistan in May 2011, was embarrassing: it is widely assumed he was another army guest. This encouraged Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s opposition leader, to attack the top brass and vow to make peace with their chief bugbear, India. President Asif Zardari hopes to deny him the chance. He is struggling to hold together a fissiparous coalition, led by his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), at least until an upper-house election, due in March. If he succeeds, his government may become the country’s first democratic government to complete its term.
Mr Sharif, a two-time former prime minister, therefore hopes to bring down the government before the poll. But Mr Zardari, the widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, will succeed: he has proved wilier than expected, though he remains vulnerable to the country’s interventionist judges, who are aching to hear corruption and other charges against him.
As for providing its people with jobs, Pakistan will remain hampered by its woeful infrastructure, education and economic management. Global warming, to which Pakistan is especially vulnerable, will worsen its problems.
And, in hard times, more disaffected Pakistanis will embrace the Utopian promise of Islamic fundamentalism. Its advance, Pakistan’s most predictable recent feature, will continue in 2012.
James Astill: energy and environment editor and former South Asia correspondent, The Economist
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