Pakistan anticipates the end of Western presence
First, the country of 180 million was rocked by the flood of thousands of Wikileaks that gave credence to claims that Pakistan not only is funding and arming the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, but also is playing an operational role by directing specific attacks against the U.S. and NATO forces. Then, in quick succession, Pakistan was hit by the worst floods in the country's 63-year history, drowning thousands and stranding almost 3 million of its 180 million people without shelter or food.
Death, destruction, devastation and despair were beyond description, reported United Press International's South Asian consultant Ammar Turabi. It was the apocalypse. He saw tens of thousands trapped by the floodwaters as he made his way through the Swat Valley from the city of Mingora to the Kalam region and Charsadda district. Desperate people, weeping as they waded through mud looking for relatives, watched helpless as others were swept away by walls of fast-moving water. Seventy percent of the livestock perished.
At the height of Pakistan's unprecedented natural disaster, Mr. Cameron was in India, where he accused Pakistan of "looking both ways" in the war on terror and promoting terrorism by talking to groups carrying out terrorist attacks. This brought tens of thousands of religious party demonstrators into the streets of Karachi, where they set fire to effigies of Mr. Cameron. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of intelligence, canceled a planned trip to London. It also was a signal to express the army's wrath over Mr. Zardari's trip to Britain.
Mr. Cameron's accusations exacerbated an already tense situation. More than 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed fighting Taliban and al Qaeda-backed terror groups in the lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border. More than 8,000 civilians have been killed in suicide bombings in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. Religious extremists have shown they can strike anywhere in the country, from the inner security cordon of Benazir Bhutto's rallies in Karachi and Rawalpindi, where she was assassinated, to the army's general headquarters in the same city.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project recently found that 65 percent of Pakistanis want U.S. and NATO soldiers out of Afghanistan. Just 25 percent say it would be bad if the Taliban took over in Kabul again. And half the population does not view al Qaeda unfavorably, while more than half say extremists could take over Pakistan. Reminder: Pakistan is one of the world's eight nuclear-weapons powers.
Now Pakistan's military high command sees that sooner or later, the United States and NATO will give up their quest to defeat the Taliban - and will be looking for a way out. They reckon, like most American commentators, that if the U.S. is still fighting the Taliban in 2012, President Obama's chances for re-election will be slim to none. A reformed Taliban, favorable to the education of girls and stripped of religious cruelty, is the rabbit some Pakistanis believe they can pull out of the turban.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor-at-large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
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