Sorry Wretchard, but I had a full post on Pakistan composed and missed getting it in on the previous thread by a few minutes when you shut it down after it was up a short time and only 70 posts. So here it is:
Teresita – Wicked comeback to the deranged, idiotic saber-rattler John Samford. (Last thread comment on Musharraf)
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Pakistan has some hard days coming. Its economy is in tatters and its polity is divided. It is now being hit by factional terrorist bombings and leaders of all movements fear (wisely so) that they may be targets of assassination by other factions.
The big problem is that the basis of Pakistan was to be a Pure Muslim (Pak in Urdu) nation (Stan in Urdu and other CA languages). Where all ethnicities were supposed to get along under Islam and a British Democratic derived, Islam-modified system.
It hasn’t worked recently as Baluchis fight Punjabis and the Sind and Punjabi and Indian exiles contend with the dangerous and independent Pashtun and Kashmir separatists. Ethnicity and degree of Islamic radicalization have trumped the national dream of 60 years ago and created a near-failed, nuclear armed state.
It’s exceptionally dangerous because Pakistan desperately added more Islamization, getting the bomb, and nationalist hostility on “never” giving up the jihad for Kashmir. And any that advocate backing away from those positions gets killed. And only the military holds the mess at a pressure below that of an explosion and civil war.
And in all that, Pakistan has a well educated middle class that is justly fearful that their prosperity and position is being negated…
And to make matters worse, the Pashtuns have used their autonomy, radical Islam to make inroads into the ISI and military and offered training and sanctuary to all Islamic terrorists under the shield of Pakistani sovereignity. And that is putting them square in the crosshairs of India, the US, the EU – as they realize how their domestic Muslim terrorists are aided and even trained by bad guys sheltered in Pakistan. And Russia. And Iran, which has a long history of enemity – from ancient Persian, Mogul Empire days to Sunni Pak persecution of Iranian and other ethnic Shiites directly, or within Afghanistan. Even China, Pakistans other twisty as the situation demands ally during the Cold War, besides the USA, has major concerns as it is finding its Muslim rebels are being trained in Pashtun lands.
A country with the bomb, falling apart – with every other major power now deeply concerned about it being the training source and sanctuary of global terrorists. And the spiritual homeland of the growingly terroristic and fundamentalist Pakistani diaspora now “blessing” the West as immigrants or descendents of immigrants.
The people talking Partition of Pakistan may have about the only solution short of war to a dangerous ungovernorable place. Strip off the ungovernable Northwest Territories and Baluchistan. Make the welcome of those ethnicities remaining in what’s left conditional on not subverting it. The Punjabis, Sindhs, and Indian exiles all seem to work well together and have the same goals of education, prosperity, and building the Pakistan of 60 years ago that Muhammed Jinnah and the Muslim League wanted. Present-day Pakistan isn’t it.
