Pakistan Cracking
August 19th, 2008Pakistan’s President, Perves Musharraf, resigned, and now there are “cracks appear[ing]” in the new government’s ruling coalition. Worse is this article about Pakistan’s intelligence agency and its “rogue behavior” in recent months.
Pakistan’s new government has failed to prevent the country’s intelligence agency from aiding terrorist attacks and supporting the Taliban, a senior US official has told the Financial Times. Speaking under condition of anonymity, the state department official added Pakistan needed to speed up efforts to control the ISI, the intelligence agency, after the resignation of Pervez Musharraf as president.
“The position of the ISI has always been ambiguous [but] they may have been more directly involved in actions in more recent months because of lack of supervision,” he said, referring to “a lot of allegations” that the agency was involved in the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan.
This article makes a compelling case that nuclear weapons will be unaffected by Musharraf’s fall, noting the intense security around the facilities, but this editorial calls Pakistan the West’s “worst nightmare.” I understand that the prospect of nuclear weapons being given to terrorists by Pakistan is a slim one but it is still possible and a potential nightmare, as is the general situation in that country. I hope they can stabilize soon.