A Second Middle East

India seems to have plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing to some state sponsorship of last week's attack, although the relationship between Lakshar group and Pakistan's intelligence agency is murky, as is the ISI's relationship to the Pakistani governing apparatus. The Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are on their way to the region; the first nuclear flashpoint of the 21st century is as likely to be an exchange of destructive weapons among nation-states instigated by state-less actors  than it is to be an irradiated American city.

 

Pakistan's biggest threats come from within (it's broke, radical Islamists in the tribal areas, barely functioning civil society), but the key to resolving them lies in easing the anxieties from without; (money, resolving the Kashmir question, defeating the Taliban (or coexisting with the Taliban) in Afghanistan, formal peace negotiations with India), which can only come about through some vague mechanism of engagement. The regular solutions: arm the tribes, flood troops in the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan or unleash the Predator drones... seem a bit passe post-Bombay. 

 

Pakistani President Kardarshi, speaking to Larry King, seems almost helpless:

"Like I said, these are stateless individuals who operate throughout -- I mean, I've got a situation in Pakistan that the fourth largest army in the world is challenged on my border on the west. I've got 150 people out, boys out, soldiers out. We have casualties every day. We've had incidents just the past two days in Karachi where we've lost more than 40 to 45 people, hundreds injured. These are stateless actors who are moving throughout this region."

The congressional WMD report recommends, among other things, proritizing Pakistani stability above all else in the region; doing so would require significant amounts of economic assistance to Pakistan, and "involve the use of all elements of national power--including those of so-called soft power, such as public diplomacy, strategic communications, and development assistance--to counter violent extremist anti-Americanism, create a universal culture of revulsion against the use of WMD, and lower the demand for WMD by terrorists."

 

The report notes that "[t]he potential benefits of U.S. assistance were illustrated recently, albeit briefly, in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, when the United States provided over half a billion dollars in relief. The terrorists tried to compete, but the U.S. assistance was so large-scale and visible that Pakistanis began giving out small toy Chinook helicopters--the main purveyors of the food, blankets, and medicine. In return, the United States received a great deal of Pakistani goodwill."

It's the Middle East with nuclear weapons on both sides. If soft power doesn't work, do you despose the Pakistani government and take possession of their nuclear program? Let them have a nuclear exchange and hope that it somehow does not spread?  The next steps for the US aren't clear. President Obama might appoint an envoy to the region, empowered to engage in shuttle diplomacy a la Richard Holbrooke, Geroge Tenet or Dennis Ross.