A Look Into The Mindset Of Pakistan's Young Elite -- A Revealing Editorial

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Pakistan Shall Plan For The Worst (Commentary)
-- Pakistan Daily

It is said that one shall hope for the best but plan for the worst. Let’s analyze some of the rhetoric coming from top US leadership. Admiral Mike Mullen told the House Armed Services Committee that he thinks that US is loosing in Afghanistan and that a new strategy needs to be formulated to counter the threat of militants in Pakistan. He further emphasized that new military strategy covering both [Afghanistan and Pakistan] sides of the border is essential. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in an interview with the BBC argued in favor of the American right of striking at miscreants on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border and taking all necessary actions in self defense. In the debate held at Oxford, Democratic Senator Obama, American president hopeful said “If the United States has Al Qaeda, (Osama) bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to act, then we should take them out”. Last but not the least, the New York Times newspaper
recently published a report claiming that “President Bush had approved orders in July to allow US Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without Pakistani approval”. Having read all these, I still believe that the possibility of American ground forces attack on Pakistan soil are very remote.

Let us try to find an answer to a question,”Can American really endanger its interest in South Asia by indulging in war with its front line ally on war on terror, which has best trained military and missile system capable of taking nuclear arsenals?” An objective and unemotional analysis will make it clear that the US attack on Pakistan is a remote possibility. To see how much odds are against Pakistan , lets see in historical background, how American behaved in different scenarios.

Read more ....

My Comment: A PhD student .... highly educated .... and he is convinced that India is responsible for the Taliban in Pakistan .... and that once Pakistan's reasserts its sovereignty everything will be OK again. I do not think so.

But the part of his article that bothered me the most is his historical analysis of American military behavior. He voices the idea that America will only attack weaker nation states. On the contrary. Throughout history America has fought wars against nation states that were stronger than what they were at the time.

Britain in the war of independence. Japan (and Germany) in 1941. The Cold War with another superpower .... a war in which the Eastern bloc had superior conventional forces. These battles occurred when the outcome was never sure, and where the odds were against American success.

The problem on the international scene is not America attacking weaker states .... but weaker states attacking America. The Taliban's support of Al Qaeda is a perfect example of this.