In Preparing for Peace in Pakistan and Is Pakistan Appeasing the Taliban?, Mehlaqa Samdani and Sharad Joshi offered different interpretations of the ongoing negotiations between the Pakistani government and extremist groups operating along the country’s frontiers. Here they respond to each other’s arguments. In addition, Tarique Niazi, author of several FPIF briefs on Pakistan, responds to both initial essays.
Criticism has been leveled against the Pakistani government’s efforts to hold talks with militant groups. While concerns about the Taliban regrouping remain valid, it is in America’s long-term security interest not only to support the multidimensional peace plans being formulated, but refrain from words and actions that could jeopardize the process.
Against the backdrop of fear and horror spread by suicide bombers, a groundswell of hope has emerged in Pakistan after a decisively anti-Musharraf election result. Even as secular opposition parties gained a clear majority in the February 18 parliamentary election, the Pakistani president dismissed any thought of resigning and said he’ll work with the new elected civilian setup. To back him up, the State Department reaffirmed America’s main policy objective in Pakistan for which it deems Musharraf to be indispensable.
This past week, both the House and the Senate debated and voted on legislation affecting the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq. In the Senate, the issue was the length of time soldiers and Marines would have at home between deployments to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the House, Ike Skelton (D-MO) introduced a bill requiring the secretary of defense to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 120 days of the legislation becoming law and complete the drawdown to a “limited presence” – a heretofore unknown parameter – by April 1, 2008.
President Bush’s Naval War College graduation speech on June 28 demonstrated, yet again, the true disarray of America’s public diplomacy effort. In comparing Iraq with Israel, the president managed to do even more damage to reform efforts in the Middle East.
On May 2, President George W. Bush addressed the Associated General Contractors of America at the Willard Hotel in Washington. An appropriate venue: in the 19th century, favor-seekers waited in the hotel’s lobby for politicians to drop by after work. Thereafter, they were known as lobbyists.
The sudden defeat of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) by the Ethiopian army and their U.S. backers proved easier then expected. A reported 15,000 Ethiopian troops and U.S. aerial bombardment succeeded in installing the Transitional Federal Government, two years after its formation in neighboring Kenya.
President George W. Bush’s October 6 address at the National Endowment for Democracy illustrated his administration’s increasingly desperate effort to justify the increasingly unpopular U.S. war in Iraq. The speech focused upon the Bush administration’s claim that the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. occupation forces somehow constituted a grave threat to the security of the United States and the entire civilized world.
Key Points
Key Points