The Absurd Report

Ten days after the Pakistani elections, the geopolitical consequences of President Pervez Musharraf’s defeat are beginning to come into focus. And they are grim.

By any measure, Pakistan is a dysfunctional state. At least 25 percent of its 160 million people live in abject poverty. A third of Pakistanis suffer from illiteracy. The only prospering school system in the country is the Islamist system, where millions of children are indoctrinated by preachers who share the world views, religious beliefs and political goals of al-Qaida and the Taliban.

As to that, with popular backing, the Taliban is currently fighting to extend its control over Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. It has controlled North and South Waziristan since 2005. It is now asserting its control over the Kurran, Kyber, Mohmand, Orakzai and Bajaur agencies and much of the Swat Valley. This control, together with the Taliban and al-Qaida’s territorial gains in eastern Afghanistan over the past year, are enabling the two Islamist organizations to intensify their insurgency in Afghanistan and to increase their popularity in Pakistan.

In a report this week, Asia Time’s Pakistan bureau chief Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote that with their territorial gains on both sides of the border, the Taliban and al-Qaida intend to create a strategic corridor from western Pakistan to Kabul and cut off NATO forces’ supply lines from Pakistan. Those supply lines were already attacked in January.

Shahzad reported that the Pakistani military and NATO forces in Afghanistan are gearing up to preempt the Taliban-al-Qaida offensive, scheduled for April, with an offensive of their own in March. But he notes that the election results in Pakistan could prevent such an offensive from taking place.

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Tags: Global War on Terrorism

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