Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in the Washington Post:
After the debacle of Vietnam, the United States could pack up and leave with minimal consequences for its genuine national interests; similarly, for the British in the subcontinent and the French in Algeria. But the West, indeed the entire civilized world, does not have that luxury in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the Taliban and al-Qaeda are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents.
In Pakistan today, democracy must succeed. The forces of extremism must be vanquished. Failure is not an option; not for us, not for the world.
How can we ensure that the forces of freedom defeat the forces of fanaticism? The problems that have fueled extremism are multifaceted and the solutions equally multidimensional. We need short- and long-term strategies, and we must realize that to truly eliminate the terrorist menace, we have to succeed not only militarily but politically, economically and socially. More:
New book claims President Musharraf’s military actively supported Taleban whilst taking millions of US dollars to fight them. Catherine Philp in The Times:
Washington sent Special Forces into Pakistan last summer after intercepting a call by the Pakistani army chief referring to a notorious Taleban leader as a “strategic asset,” a new book has claimed.
The intercept was ordered to confirm suspicions that the Pakistani military were still actively supporting the Taleban whilst taking millions of dollars in US military aid to fight them, according to the “The Inheritance,” by the New York Times correspondent David Sanger.
In a transcript passed to Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence in May 2008, General Ashfaq Kayani, the military chief who replaced Pervez Musharraf, was overheard referring to Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani as “a strategic asset”. The remark was the first real evidence of the double game that Washington had long suspected President Musharraf was playing as he continued receiving US military aid while aiding the Taleban.
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Laura Rozen in Foreign Policy on India’s stealth lobbying against Richard Holbrooke’s brief:
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — flanked by President Obama — introduced Richard Holbrooke as the formidable new U.S. envoy to South Asia at a State Department ceremony on Thursday, India was noticeably absent from his title.
Holbrooke, the veteran negotiator of the Dayton accords and sharp-elbowed foreign policy hand who has long advised Clinton, was officially named “special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan” in what was meant to be one of the signature foreign policy acts of Obama’s first week in office.
But the omission of India from his title, and from Clinton’s official remarks introducing the new diplomatic push in the region was no accident — not to mention a sharp departure from Obama’s own previously stated approach of engaging India, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a regional dialogue. Multiple sources told The Cable that India vigorously — and successfully — lobbied the Obama transition team to make sure that neither India nor Kashmir was included in Holbrooke’s official brief.
“When the Indian government learned Holbrooke was going to do [Pakistan]-India, they swung into action and lobbied to have India excluded from his purview,” relayed one source. “And they succeeded. Holbrooke’s account officially does not include India.”
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And click here to read The Washington Post story.
Previously in AW:
From IHT:
Richard Holbrooke, a former United Nations ambassador, was chosen Thursday for the post of special envoy to Pakistan and India.
[ Update: India managed to trim Holbrooke's portfolio to Pakistan and Afghanistan -- basically eliminating the contested region of Kashmir from his job description. Click here to read The Washington Post story]
Holbrooke has more than 45 years of foreign policy and diplomatic experience, including brokering a peace pact between warring factions in Bosnia that led to the 1995 Dayton peace accords.
Holbrooke, who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic primaries, is good friends with two early supporters of Barack Obama: James Johnson, who headed Obama’s vice-presidential search team, and Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning human rights expert. And Holbrooke took pains to avoid criticism of Obama.
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