Can Pakistan Be Governed?

PAKISTAN

Can Pakistan Be Governed? - James Traub, New York Times


Pakistan has made itself the supreme conundrum of American foreign policy. During the campaign, Obama often said that the heart of the terrorist threat was not Iraq but Afghanistan and Pakistan, and once in office he had senior policy makers undertake an array of reviews designed to coordinate policy in the region. They seem to have narrowed the target area even further, to the Pakistani frontier. “For the American people,” Obama announced on March 27, “this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world.” Some officials see Pakistan as a volcano that, should it blow, would send an inconceivable amount of poisonous ash raining down on the world around it. David Kilcullen, a key adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, recently asserted that “within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state,” a calamity that, given the country’s size, strategic location and nuclear stockpile, would “dwarf” all other current crises.

More at The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/magazine/05zardari-t.html?_r=2&ref=asia

Pakistan's Taliban Leader Threatens Attacks in the US - Zulfiqar Ali and Laura King, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-threat1-2009apr01,0,1183316.story

Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban movement, threatened Tuesday to launch attacks in the United States in retaliation for missile strikes by American drones aimed at militant leaders sheltering in Pakistan's tribal areas.

In an unusual step, the normally reclusive Mahsud personally made a round of telephone calls to news media representatives claiming responsibility for an audacious commando-style strike on a police training school near the eastern city of Lahore a day earlier. In those calls, he also threatened to widen his campaign of attacks.

More at the Los Angeles Times and:

Taliban Chief Threatens US Mainland - Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033100333.html

Pakistan Militant Threatens DC - Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123847850370972947.html

Pakistani Taliban Claims Responsibility in Lahore Police Attack - VOA
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-31-voa57.cfm

Pakistan Taliban Chief Brags of Attack on Police - Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033100333.html

Pakistan Court Restores Opposition Gov't in Punjab - Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033100912.html