It was three days after the Sept. 11 assaults when Pakistan’s leader respected the American requests — yet additionally conveyed an admonition.
President Pervez Musharraf told the American diplomat in Islamabad that his nation would help the United States in its approaching war against the Taliban, long the beneficiaries of Pakistan’s support.
However, he stated, he trusted the war would be short and restricted in scope, and would not make a threatening neighbor for Pakistan.
Truth be told, the Afghan war has been long, grisly and destabilizing. In any case, over 18 years after the fact, and following quite a while of mystery intrigues by Pakistan’s covert operative support or help prepare and account the Taliban, a delicate arrangement expedited a weekend ago holds the guarantee of a perfect result for Islamabad: a frail and malleable neighbor that Pakistan can impact long into what’s to come.
Pakistan’s political and military foundation has since quite a while ago sought after a conclusion to the granulating viciousness in Afghanistan and the possible withdrawal of American powers from the nation, the two of which the United States and the Taliban probably consented to in Doha, Qatar.
Additionally, the Taliban control enormous pieces of the Afghan open country — a long way from the control of the American-supported government in Kabul — guaranteeing that Pakistan’s long-term intermediaries employ extensive power over the nation’s course.
But then territorial specialists caution that Pakistan dangers playing a perilous game if the American military withdrawal prompts a further plunge into turmoil — powering a full-scale common war were India, Russia, and others back various groups and hauling Pakistan into an extended clash.
Douglas London, a resigned C.I.A. official who ran counterterrorism activities for South and Southwest Asia, said Pakistan’s essential concentration in Afghanistan was restricting the impact of India.
Pakistan’s longstanding connections to the Taliban were conceived from the Afghan common war of the 1990s when Islamabad saw the Pashtun bunch as a significant intermediary against other warring groups that had the help of India.
That relationship was radioactive after the Sept. 11 assaults, when it became evident that Al Qaeda had arranged the strikes from a place of refuge the Taliban had accommodated the fear-based oppressor gathering. Today, a few Pakistani authorities contend that the Taliban is far unique in relation to the obsessive band once drove during the Sept.
