US gives clear message to Pakistan: Get al-Qaeda for us or we are coming
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Pakistan test firing a short-range missile early today is not going to deter the American senators from ordering their forces deployed in Afghanistan to strike Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in the unruly Pakistani border belt with Afghanistan.
President Musharraf is facing a tough standoff with the US, urging him to do more to curb Islamic extremists operating in his country. However, Gen Musharraf is facing consummate global criticism for his apparent reluctance to wrap up extremist groups who still operate with impunity and brazen openness in Pakistan.
The message that Dick Cheney, the Vice-President of America, carried to Pakistan recently is slowly emerging from the closet.
'Mr. President Musharaff, either you get the fugitive Taliban commanders for us or we go for them ourselves' - does seem to be the threat that Cheney conveyed to Prevez Musharraf when he had lunch with him on 26 Feb 2007.
Not just threats of cutting off military aid to Pakistan, the US senate members are asking President Bush to launch military strikes against al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan, which are no more in the realm of probability but only a question of timing now.
In these heady days, as the 'Real men go to Pakistan,' and as US-Pakistani relations show growing signs of strain over Afghanistan-related security issues, it is likely that partners in the war against terrorism could turn adversaries. Eventually worse will follow. Much of it is connected with domestic politics - ensuring Gen Musharraf's political survival, retaining the military as the unquestioned power in the country at the expense of political parties and civil society and making sure that the military's national agenda is the only agenda.
Political realities in Pakistan need to be better understood by the Americans. They could do with more consideration for the sentiments of a smaller power that America claims to be its ally. The present crisis comes at a time when Gen Musharraf's popularity has hit an all-time low as major scandals related to the stock market, privatization and high inflation rock the country.
It is Gen Musharraf's pressing political agenda for which time and credibility is in short supply that pushes his continued love affair with the fundamentalists, even though the same fundamentalists have shown little real love for the people or the military's national agenda. However, if pushed to the wall the unstable Musharraf government may collapse. De-stabilizing a nuclear tipped Islamic nation would pitch the odds in favor of the very forces that the Americans are battling today.
