Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

Pakistan has seen yet another deadly attack today.

Bombs exploded at a federal police building and in a residential area of the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding many more, police said.

The Federal Investigation Agency in downtown Lahore was devastated by a bomb planted near an elevator, said Mirza Mohammed Yasin, an FIA official in the capital, Islamabad. At least a dozen people died, said Mohammed Afzal, a Lahore police official.

Three more died in a second bombing at a house in an upscale residential area, Afzal said. It was not immediately clear who lived there.

The militants engages in these attacks are trying to influence the country in a way they couldn't at the ballot box. It's doubtless that their numbers are being fed by increasing uneasiness and anxiety with the economic situation in the country. As the US recession inevitably goes global, this will become yet another obstacle to global stability, particularly with respect to food and energy prices. We're going to see global poverty spike on a massive scale. Relating specifically to Pakistan, this was more likely the cause of Pervez Musharraf's electoral failure than any widespread yearning for freedom or democracy. People vote with their pocketbooks.

With consumer prices for basic goods hitting new highs in Pakistan, anxieties about the country's economy are also on the rise. After seeing five years of strong gains under the government of President Pervez Musharraf, officials are scaling back expectations for growth in the face of wrenching food and energy shortages.

The crisis has taken a severe toll on Musharraf politically -- public frustration with rising prices helped the opposition win big in parliamentary elections last month. Now those parties, the Pakistan People's Party and a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif, must confront the unpleasant task of managing the crisis. Economists here say a surge of foreign investment and export growth are needed.

It's the poor and the middle class being affected. Which has led to this weak position for Musharraf, one that will be exploited by the incoming government, which plans to join forces to reinstate judges over Musharraf's protests. When or if this will happen is another story.

It is up to Mr. Musharraf to convene Parliament. On Friday, at a time when agreement between the two parties seemed somewhat distant, the president said he would call the Parliament in 10 days “if there was peace in the country.”

And again we see the attacks inside Pakistan as something Musharraf needs to survive politically. Could this be why the US government, which is nominally backing Musharraf's continued hold on power, is funding tribal militias who have questionable allegiances?

The outpost's defenders belonged to Pakistan's Frontier Corps, an 85,000-member tribal militia that, according to the latest Pentagon budget, is set to receive up to $75 million in training and equipment this year, the first injection of what could be more than $400 million to be delivered over the next several years. Beyond this, little is known about the plan, the details of which remain classified. As reported by the New York Times, a 40-page secret document called "Plan for Training the Frontier Corps" is currently being circulated at the U.S. Central Command, awaiting final approval by its commander, Admiral William J. Fallon, and other senior defense officials. The use of the Frontier Corps in the fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan augurs a new approach to dealing with rising Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan's tribal region. Like U.S. plans to fund it, the Frontier Corps has largely escaped scrutiny, but there are questions about its allegiances, competence, and suitability to the proposed mission. Support for tribal militias has become a centerpiece of the U.S. strategy in Iraq, one that carries with it inherent risks in terms of inadvertently backing potential enemies in the pursuit of short-term security goals. Supporting the Frontier Corps is similarly dicey.

My feeling is that trying to pursue an "Anbar Awakening" inside the frontier areas is simply, in the short term, pushing the Taliban/militant forces deeper inside Pakistan. Where they plot and carry out more attacks, giving Musharraf more of a reason to crack down and maybe impose martial law again. I could be wrong, but it does seem that Musharraf and the militants are mutually sustaining. In the long term, bolstering the Frontier Corps seems to be to be lunacy, ripe for blowback, and simply horrendous policy.