Pakistán, entre la espada y la pared
Por Gabriel Reyes Leguen, coordinador de proyectos en el Programa de Oriente Medio y del Mediterráneo del Centro Internacional de Toledo para la Paz (EL PAÍS, 22/12/08):
Salvar a Pakistán para salvarnos a nosotros mismos, señalaba un titular del India Times tras los atentados de Bombay el pasado 27 de noviembre. Ya no hay duda, si es que alguna vez la hubo desde el 11-S, de que la estabilidad de Pakistán es clave tanto para la seguridad internacional como para la de la región, y que el colapso de su Estado tendría consecuencias desastrosas -en especial, pero no sólo, para su vecina…
Caos y terrorismo en ‘el otro Oriente Próximo’
Por Robert D. Kaplan, analista político de la revista The Atlantic y socio numerario del Center for a New American Security (EL MUNDO, 15/12/08):
Las divisiones conforme a las que fue compartimentado el mundo durante la Guerra Fría se han venido finalmente abajo por culpa de los recientes atentados terroristas de Bombay. Desde ahora, no vamos a considerar nunca más el sur de Asia como una zona distinta de Oriente Próximo. En estos momentos hay un único y extenso continuum, que abarca desde el Mediterráneo a las junglas de Birmania, con todo un sinfín de crisis: desde el conflicto entre israelíes…
El hervidero tras los atentados de Bombay
Por Emilio Menéndez del Valle, embajador de España y eurodiputado socialista (EL PAÍS, 13/12/08):
Bombay (que hubo de pasar a denominarse Mumbai a causa de las presiones de los fanáticos hinduistas) quedará grabado en la memoria de la humanidad. Tras los atentados allí ocurridos, hay que resaltar dos factores. Uno, el terrorismo de los fundamentalistas islámicos está a la ofensiva. Dos, no habrá solución al gigantesco arco de crisis que va desde el Mediterráneo oriental (Palestina) hasta el Mar de China, pasando por Afganistán, hasta que se produzca un acercamiento real entre India y Pakistán. Tal acercamiento no será del todo…
The Terrorists Want to Destroy Pakistan, Too
By Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 09/12/08):
The recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on Oct. 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in…
The Sovereignty Dodge
By Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who writes a monthly column for The Post (THE WASHINGTON POST, 02/12/08):
“We don’t think the world’s great nations and countries can be held hostage by non-state actors,” Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said yesterday. Fair enough. But what is the world to do when those non-state actors operate from the territory of a state and are the creation of that state’s intelligence services?
One can feel sympathy for Zardari’s plight. He and his new civilian government did not train or assist the Pakistani terrorist organizations that probably carried…
Fresh Blood From an Old Wound
By Pankaj Mishra, the author of Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 02/12/08):
Midway through last week’s murderous rampage in Mumbai, one of the suspected gunmen at the besieged Jewish center called a popular Indian TV channel. Speaking in Urdu (the primary language of Pakistan and many Indian Muslims), he ranted against the recent visit of an Israeli general to the Indian-ruled section of the Kashmir Valley. Referring to the Pakistan-backed insurgency in the valley, and the Indian military response to it, he asked, “Are you aware how many people…
We must not lose sight of the real enemy
By Bronwen Maddox (THE TIMES, 01/12/08):
Yesterday a Pakistani security official said that if India now put more forces on to the disputed Kashmir border, the Pakistani Army would do likewise. By the way, that would mean that Pakistan put less effort into fighting the Taleban on its western border, he added, in an unsubtle warning to the US and Britain. Pakistan understands only too well that for the West its border with Afghanistan represents the frontline in the war on terror.
On the Pakistani side priorities are different. As the calls go up for a clampdown on terrorists, Islamabad’s most urgent desire…
Fallout From Mumbai
By Jim Hoagland (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/11/08):
“This cannot be,” Henry Kissinger once muttered in exasperation when an unexpectedly positive development occurred during a Democratic administration. “The wrong people are doing the right thing.”
I have thought of the Kissinger anomaly in recent weeks while watching Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari confound the low expectations he inspired when he took charge of the most dangerous place on Earth in September.
Zardari is the corruption-tainted amateur politician who became president in the wake of the assassination of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, late last year. He seemed absolutely the wrong man to handle Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and its…
Bound by sorrows
By Mohsin Hamid, the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (THE GUARDIAN, 29/11/08):
In the rush to blame Pakistan for the terrorist atrocity in Mumbai, a dangerous mistake is being made. The impulse to implicate Pakistan is of course understandable: the past is replete with examples of Pakistani and Indian intelligence agencies working to destabilise the historical enemy across the border.
But it is too soon to know who is behind the current attacks. Some or all of the attackers may indeed come from or have supporters in Pakistan. Equally, some or all may be Indian. The desire of some in India to ascribe…
EEUU, Pakistán y la Línea Durand
Por Gabriel Reyes, coordinador de Proyectos, Programa de Oriente Medio y del Mediterráneo, Centro Internacional de Toledo para la Paz (REAL INSTITUTO ELCANO, 13/11/08):
Tema: Frustrado por la falta de resultados en su campaña afgana, EEUU ha decidido cruzar la Línea Durand que delimita la frontera entre Afganistán y Pakistán a lo largo de 2.400 km, en su intento de neutralizar a los elementos yihadistas afincados en territorio paquistaní. Esa estrategia unilateral de incursiones transfronterizas ha llevado a las relaciones con Pakistán a su punto más bajo desde 2001.
Resumen: Si bien el incremento de actividad insurgente en Afganistán por parte de yihadistas con…
What do you mean, bin Laden doesn’t exist?
By Anthony Loyd (THE TIMES, 06/11/08):
America’s President-elect was being watched a lot closer to the front lines of the US War on Terror than he may have been aware on Saturday night.
As Barack Obama’s face shone from a huge wide screen television into the officers’ mess at a Pakistani army fortress in Khar, in the tribal area of Bajaur, the room shook to heavy artillery blasting from gun positions at the gates. Barely a mile up the road Pakistani troops traded fire with Taleban raiding parties.
“I want to increase non-military aid,” Mr Obama, interviewed on CNN, announced to a handful of…
A Quiet Deal With Pakistan
By David Ignatius (THE WASHINGTON POST, 04/11/08):
Pakistan is publicly complaining about U.S. airstrikes. But the country’s new chief of intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, visited Washington last week for talks with America’s top military and spy chiefs, and everyone seemed to come away smiling.
They could pat themselves on the back, for starters, for the assassination of Khalid Habib, al-Qaeda’s deputy chief of operations. According to Pakistani officials, he was killed on Oct. 16 by a Predator strike in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan. Habib, reckoned by some to be the No. 4 leader in al-Qaeda, was involved in…
Wrong Way in Pakistan
By Marvin G. Weinbaum, a scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute and a former State Department intelligence and research analyst on Pakistan and Afghanistan (THE WASHINGTON POST, 27/10/08):
In its eagerness to reverse the mounting insurgency in Afghanistan, the United States has embarked on a policy course that could shatter our vital strategic partnership with Pakistan. By allowing American combat forces to freely conduct raids into Pakistani territory, a move that President Bush authorized in July, the United States intends to pressure Pakistani leaders to step up the fight against militants ensconced in the borderlands. But this policy threatens cooperation…
Reforming the Judiciary in Pakistan
Asia Report N°160 (CRISIS GROUP, 16/10/08):
Pakistan’s return to civilian government after eight years of military rule and the sidelining of the military’s religious allies in the February 2008 elections offer an opportunity to restore the rule of law and to review and repeal discriminatory religious laws that restrict fundamental rights, fuel extremism and destabilise the country. Judicial reforms would remove the legal cover under which extremists target their rivals and exploit a culture of violence and impunity. Ensuring judicial independence would also strengthen the transition to democracy at a time when it is being undermined by worsening violence.
Laws that discriminate…
Casualties of another war
By Tariq Ali, the author of The Duel: Pakistan On the Flight Path of American Power (THE GUARDIAN, 23/09/08):
The deadly blast in Islamabad was a revenge attack for what has been going on over the past few weeks in the badlands of the North-West Frontier. It highlighted the crisis confronting the new government in the wake of intensified US strikes in the tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Hellfire missiles, drones, special operation raids inside Pakistan and the resulting deaths of innocents have fuelled Pashtun nationalism. It is this spillage from the war in Afghanistan that is now destabilising Pakistan.
The de facto…
High stakes in Islamabad and Washington
By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 23/09/08):
George Bush and Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, have more in common than one might think. As younger men, both had reputations as playboy hell-raisers. As the current, more sober leaders of their respective countries, both are deeply unpopular with large numbers of fellow citizens. For his part, Bush is on his way out. And if the Islamists who bombed the Islamabad Marriott at the weekend have their way, Zardari, husband of the murdered Benazir Bhutto, will surely follow him – one way or another.
The stakes for this odd couple are high. Zardari is engaged in an…
Urge una estrategia regional contra el terrorismo islámico
Por Ahmed Rashid, periodista y escritor paquistaní, autor del libro Los talibán, Editorial Península (EL MUNDO, 22/09/08):
El devastador camión bomba que estalló en el Hotel Marriott en el centro de Islamabad, acabando con la vida de más de 50 personas e hiriendo a 150, es una señal más de que Pakistán se ha convertido en el epicentro de una tormenta de fuego, que ha sumido Asia central y meridional en el enfrentamiento de consecuencias más imprevisibles con los extremistas talibán desde el 11-S. La ofensiva a gran escala de los talibán en Afganistán y Pakistán, los atentados en la India…
Facing Islamist chaos and America’s Rambo, Pakistan is turning to No 10
By Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, the authors of Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy (THE GUARDIAN, 16/09/08):
After claiming to have spent nine years nurturing democracy in Pakistan and festooning the country’s military dictatorship with $11bn in aid, the Bush administration’s policy is careering out of control, as US soldiers trade bullets with the forces of what was once a most-favoured ally in the “war on terror”. On Sunday night, Pakistan border troops fired on a raiding party of American commandos emerging from two Chinooks in an attempt to cross on foot from Afghanistan into the…
Pakistán, ‘el Padrino’ en la presidencia
Por Tariq Alí, novelista y ensayista paquistaní; su último libro, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power, será publicado próximamente. Traducción de Jesús Cuéllar Menezo (EL PAÍS, 16/09/08):
Asif Alí Zardari -que, elegido por el destino para convertirse en esposo de Benazir Bhutto, hizo posteriormente todo lo que pudo para evitar caer de nuevo en el olvido- no tardará en ser el nuevo presidente de Pakistán. Los empalagosos parásitos que tanto abundan en el país montarán unas cuantas celebraciones y las lenguas siempre prestas de los antiguos compinches (algunos ahora nombrados embajadores en capitales occidentales) hablarán de cuánto ha…
Bush secret order to send special forces into Pakistan
By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 12/09/08):
A secret order issued by George Bush giving US special forces carte blanche to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistani territory raised fears last night that escalating conflict was spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan and could ignite a region-wide war.
The unprecedented executive order, signed by Bush in July after an intense internal administration debate, comes amid western concern that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and its al-Qaida backers based in “safe havens” in western Pakistan’s tribal belt is being lost.
Following Bush’s decision, US navy Seals commandos, backed by attack helicopters, launched a ground raid into…
