THE PAKISTAN CONUNDRUM
My latest is up at Frontpage.com and it’s about how the US is trapped by strategic necessity in ignoring the two faced nature of their dealings with us. This is made evident by a series of meetings last week in Washington between Pakistan’s foreign minister and various government officials:
As the meetings in Washington are demonstrating, the United States has little choice but to continue the unsatisfying and derelict policy of pretending that Pakistan is a good ally, while turning the other way when it proves the opposite. It is, as Mr. Rothkopf says, “realpolitik at its most stark, loaded, and complex.” He adds:
And it underscores that within every compromise or look the other way associated with the “swallow-hard and pursue the national interest” dimension of realpolitik there are the seeds of the strategy’s own destruction. Embrace flawed allies and the relationship turns on whether it is driven by the objectives of the alliance or the flaws that are being overlooked in its favor. And — as we have seen from Saigon to Baghdad to tin pot dictatorships worldwide — more often than not the flaws win out in the long run.
There is almost something nightmarish in being forced to walk this path — knowing it will probably fail in the end, knowing that it must fail — and yet being powerless to stop it due to geo-strategic necessities having to do with the war in Afghanistan and the security of nuclear weapons. It’s no wonder the Obama administration wants out of Afghanistan and is now desperate to bring the Taliban to the table and manage an agreement with the government of Hamid Karzai that would almost certainly be unsatisfactory but would allow for an orderly withdrawal of most American combat troops.