The Ongoing Pakistan Issue

In light of Pakistani President Zardari's warning that US troops crossing the border into Pakistan without authorization would be subject to attack, a new BBC poll on world attitudes toward Al Qaeda is particularly interesting.

Zardari's cover for his position, while asking out of the other side of his mouth for US aid, is that the terrorist organizations in his country will 1) unify; and 2) attack inside Pakistan in protest if the US continues its policy of only informing Pakistan of its cross border actions instead of asking for permission from that sovereign nation. His point was more than borne out when terrorists blew through the Marriott in downtown Islamabad on September 21 of this year. It should be no surprise that Al Qaeda is suspected in the attack.

Which brings us full circle back to the BBC poll regarding world attitudes toward Al Qaeda. To a country, attitudes were negative toward the organization, except in Egypt and ... can you guess? ... Pakistan. We are in the process of spending obscene amounts of money and obscene numbers of American lives to "root out" Al Qaeda in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan only to encourage it, by our actions, to gain strength in Pakistan. We are playing a very dangerous game in Pakistan: enforcing our will against the wishes of the people and government with the effect of strengthening the one terrorist organization we fear most. This is one to watch, folks, and watch very closely.