Apr 23 2009
Will Pakistan Fall To The Taliban?
The Taliban have taken control of another province in Pakistan. Taliban militants moved into Buner district in force with heavily armed gunmen. This takeover puts the Pakistani Taliban within 60 miles of the capital Islamabad. This is the equivalent of having the Russians at the doorstep of Washington!!
With these event unfolding in Pakistan, is it fair to assume that the Pakistani government will fall to the Taliban within the next year or so? If so what is the contingency plan if something like this happens? How will President Obama handle this situation? This is is a pressing issue that Obama needs to address urgently given the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons that could fall into the wrong hands if the government were to collapse. I will address the following questions in order.
I believe that it is reasonable to believe that the Pakistani government could fall to the Taliban within the next two years. I think this could happen because the Pakistani government still believes that appeasing the Taliban will eventually work. This strategy has failed miserably. Every time there is an agreement with the Taliban, the pact is broken by the Taliban.
They simply use these lulls in fighting to re-arm and recruit more members. Plain and simple. The only goal that the Taliban have is to implement Sharia Law in Pakistan. In order to do this the Taliban believe that they have to destroy the “apostate” regime in order to implement sharia law. To them democracy and Islam can not co-exist. It’s like mixing oil and water, they don’t mix.
They believe this because democracy basically means the “will of the people” whereas Islam means “submission to god”. Being the ultra-hard adherents to the faith, they believe that the laws of man are flawed and corrupt. Only Islam or the complete submission to Allah should govern people. If you look at it from their point of view. it is impossible to see where there could be compromise. The government is naive to think that they can co-op the Taliban to a peace deal. So how do you deal with this problem?
This is a very sticky situation that I would not want to deal with if I was in President Obama’s shoes. The current policy towards Pakistan as it stands now is to dump billions of dollars on the problem and hopes it magically works. This policy has had mixed results but as a whole has been a failure obviously. The Taliban are gaining ground every week it seems like even though the United States has poured billions into their armed forces.
Given the past results of this policy, is it time to re-think this policy with Pakistan? If I was Obama I would hedge my bets on Pakistani falling to the Taliban. The government doesn’t have the leadership or the political will to stand up to a enemy that will blow themselves up for the cause.
Having to negotiate with the Taliban will probably become a political reality and President Obama will have to deal with this. This being said, if I was commander-in-chief I would take the nuclear weapons from Pakistan and put them in a safe place so the militants could not get control of it. Having a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of people who will not think twice about killing innocent people would spell trouble for the world.
Keeping nuclear weapons out the Taliban hands should be top priority over whether or not the Pakistani state survives in its current state. The United States deals with evil dictators and evil regimes all the time, whats the difference with the Taliban? The United States are friends with the Saudis, shake hands with Venezuela, and have bases in central Asian countries that do not have a good human rights track record. I think thats par for the course don’t you think?
