Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

After a long series detailing the challenges in Pakistan, McClatchy out and out says that it is the central front in the war on terror.

A new generation of "very battle-hardened" young Islamic militants is destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan, and the country's U.S.-backed military is nowhere near ready to conduct major operations against it, senior American intelligence officials said Friday.

The militants have expanded their violent campaign from Pakistan's ungoverned tribal areas to "Pakistan proper" and they killed more people last year than they did in all the years from 2001 to 2006 combined, said the officials, speaking in testimony to Congress and in interviews.

The officials also acknowledged that al Qaida, which cooperates with the homegrown Pakistani militants and with the Taliban, who're battling Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, is planning more attacks on the West in the haven it's re-established along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

The assessments raise new questions about the wisdom of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq before American-led forces had defeated al Qaida in Afghanistan. Speaking Friday in Germany, Defense Secretary Robert Gates also conceded that European nations critical of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq are reluctant to support its efforts to secure Afghanistan.

Pakistan's government is newly aware of the threats, but despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid, its army remains unable to conduct the sophisticated counter-insurgency campaign that Washington wants, the officials said.

Afghanistan has slipped to the background of the events of the day, but it's not only slipping away, the militants who are fighting effectively there are also growing strong enough to mount an insurgency inside Pakistan. We hitched ourselves to a dictator hungry for his own power and more concerned with making a deal with the Taliban for political expediency than taking them on. And just recently, Pervez Musharraf has brokered another deal that does not only destabilize his own country, but Afghanistan as well.

The announcement of a cease-fire just a few weeks into a determined military operation against one of Pakistan’s most wanted men, the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, has once again raised questions about the Pakistani government’s commitment to combating militancy in the country’s tribal areas.

Pakistani analysts said they feared that the cease-fire was reminiscent of past deals that allowed the militants to regroup and fortify their stronghold, turning the tribal areas into a veritable ministate for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. United States officials have long voiced reservations that any further deals with the militants would be counterproductive.

Spokesmen for Mr. Mehsud, who Pakistani and American officials say is linked to Al Qaeda and the attack that killed the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, announced the cease-fire last week. The government has not confirmed it, and a military spokesman said military operations against Mr. Mehsud and his followers, estimated in the thousands, were continuing.

But two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists, said a cease-fire was in place.

Why would anyone be surprised by this. Musharraf will hook up with anyone as long as they allow him to control the country with an iron fist.

This is fast going the way of Iraq, an intractable situation where the President's bungling has gotten us into a situation it will be almost impossible for the next President to extricate him or herself from. Why anyone would want that job at this point is beyond me.