muse
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Close, but no cigar. After all, Pakistan had to approve the request and they did, so what else might be brewing? For instance the case of disputed Kashmir remains on the boil and so long as the Indian is belligerent about that, there is little likelihood of moving forward -- UNLESS, there is reason to believe that the Indian is saying something else in private (maybe Holbrooke is more successful than it seems)
(think regionally)
So, what happens if the Talib movement in Afghanistan, decides it does not want to be known as the talib movement, what if it transforms itself into a Islamist political party of some sort (one that the world can live with) - and "developments" allow the US to declare victory and move out -- who would that leave holding the bag? After all where is the larger Islamist problem??
And what's all this about transferring "surplus" US equipment to Pakistan to help in Waziristan?? It would require a much larger bureaucracy to handle that, where would these be positioned?
Mr. gates says that the US would seek to help Pakistan out of it's "economic problems" - in financial circles, the word is gaining ground that the Pakistan economy now has a strong and significantly large "middle class" (read investment).
Now the most confusing thing for me in this scenario is that Pakistan has not requested similar facilities - could it be that the Pakistani govt has every intention of failing at this as well??
What's wrong with this picture??