Pakistan may overshadow Afghanistan in Washington talks

[Pharaoh]

By Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/67572.html




WASHINGTON — With nuclear-armed Pakistan increasingly threatened by Islamist militants, President Barack Obama will urge the country's leader on Wednesday to confront the threat head-on, while offering promises of long-term U.S. support, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Obama is simultaneously hosting presidents Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the White House, but fear for Pakistan's future has now eclipsed the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and risen to the top of U.S. security concerns.

The administration has called the religious extremists' advances a "mortal threat" to the U.S. and the world. Nevertheless, top administration officials decided at a meeting Saturday to postpone until June 20 a gathering to decide how to implement a U.S. strategy for Pakistan, three U.S. officials told McClatchy, requesting anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

In the meantime, Obama and his team are urging Zardari to mount a sustained offensive against the Taliban and its allies, who're imposing a brutal form of Islamic rule across the country's northwest.

Religious militants, who aspire to fundamentalist religious rule like the Taliban maintained in Afghanistan for five years until 2001, took advantage of a cease-fire with the government to win control over the scenic Swat valley and have since moved into neighboring districts, some of which are 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad.

The government began a counteroffensive this week, but Obama aides are skeptical that Zardari's government will persist or that Pakistan's armed forces will overcome their deep-seated reluctance to fight fellow Muslims.

[KharmaTrain]

1. It's A Matter of Nationalism rather than Religious Extremism...

That's a major problem with our view and diplomatic efforts in this region. The Paksitani nation is a patchwork of different tribes and ethnic groups. While they share an Islamic faith, their loyalties go no further...this country has never been a true nation rather than a confederation of territories to fill out the atlass. The people in Karachi or Islamabad have little in common with those in Peshwar. Pressure on the tribal areas gives the military greater power as well as the ISI that, in turn, works against whatever fragile democracy the country has. Push for political reform and the tribal areas become more autonomous.