Once again Senator John Kerry has swooped in to save the diplomatic day. The former democratic presidential nominee and possible replacement for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State jetted into Pakistan on this week to meet with Pakistani leaders. The issue at hand was, of course, the fraying of U.S.-Pakistani relations after the Osama bin Laden raid in Abbottabad. Kerry presented President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, and Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani with a list of U.S. demands, while the Pakistanis undoubtedly had a few demands of his own. The Pakistani military has been . . .
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Islamabad is livid. Not surprisingly, reactions to the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden have been quite emphatic in their condemnation of a breach of Pakistani sovereignty. Former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi went so far as to say that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani should resign because the raid represented a failure of government. While Qureshi is no longer a cabinet member, he is thought to be close to the military and his comments thus reflect that institution’s thinking, according to the Washington Post. The confrontational tone is indicative of an establishment . . . Roughly 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, is where they finally found him. Thanks to a massive intelligence operation, members of the Navy SEALs’ elite Team 6 entered a mansion-cum-fortress in the middle of a suburb populated by retired military officers and killed Osama bin Laden. That the notorious terrorist leader was found in Pakistan hardly came as a surprise to anyone with a minimum knowledge of bin Laden and his terrorist network al Qaeda. Most thought he was in Quetta or Karachi, and certainly not a place like Abbottabad, but Pakistan . . . Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is concerned – about Afghanistan. More specifically, he is concerned about the war in Afghanistan and its effect on Pakistan. Speaking to the Guardian’s Simon Tisdall in Islamabad, Zardari said that the war is undermining Pakistan’s efforts to restore democratic institutions and economic prosperity: Just as the Mexican drug war on US borders makes a difference to Texas and American society, we are talking about a war on our border which is obviously having a huge effect. Only today a suicide bomber has attacked a police compound in Baluchistan. I think it [the Afghan . . . |
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