By PKonweb Monitor
A news analysis in The Times UK today suggests PM Gordon Brown may be actually strengthening President Zardari and PM Gilani’s hands against the Pakistan Army, which has been ‘ambivalent’ about further action, more particularly against the Al Qaeda leadership which the West claims remains embedded in Southern Waziristan. President Obama is to announce hisAfghanistan strategy this week including sending additional 30,000 to 40,000 US troops there. It is almost a done deal according to several reports. Meanwhile, PM Gilani is to meet German leadership this week followed by a meeting with Gordon Brown in a couple of days. Gilani has warned that adding more troops in Afghanistan will increase instability in the northern areas of Pakistan and may send militants across the border -a situation that may not be helpful to Pakistani efforts already underway in South Waziristan and other tribal areas against the Taliban and their supporters.
In a related development, the Foreign Office today expressed its surprise over UK demand to ‘do more’. The official FO spokesman said those (PM Gordon Brown) making statements regarding whereabouts of Osama Bin Ladin should share with Pakistan information about his whereabouts if they so possessed it. Perhaps Britain has nothing more left to throw into the Afghan war than rhetoric, chastisement and an exhortation to do more, directed this time against Pakistan, he said. It seems no coincidence that Gordon Brown lobbed his unusual criticism at the Pakistani Government just two days before President Obama is expected to announce the 30,000-odd increase of US troops in Afghanistan, the FO spokesman told the briefing.
The Times UK news analysis in detail…………>>>>>
The Prime Minister has a fair point, and is making it now in service of the Nato effort in Afghanistan, even if Britain has very few more troops to add to that deployment. British and American intelligence officials believe that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have been living on the Pakistan side of the border since the end of 2001. They can have survived so far only with considerable help — and, Brown implied — the support or at least indifference to their capture of a series of governments in Islamabad.
Brown’s harsh words echo the new, tougher, stand towards Kabul at the heart of Obama’s Afghan strategy. Just days before Pakistan’s Prime Minister arrives in London to meet Brown, the remarks are a warning that British aid support is conditional on reciprocal help.
But it is a complicated message. Brown may well intend to give Pakistan cover at home against the huge wave of anti-US sentiment. If Islamabad does take more action, it can point to the pressure from the UK and US. Brown may also want to strengthen the President and Prime Minister against the Pakistani Army, which has been ambivalent about further action. His remarks were also clearly prompted by the need of Britain and the US to show results, and if possible catch bin Laden, before they leave Afghanistan.
As a tactic, it could backfire, however. The Pakistani Government would have some claim to feel aggrieved. It has — after early, calamitous deals with the Taleban — launched a military offensive in South Waziristan, one of the tribal agencies on the Afghan border. Pakistan would be justified in claiming that it has done far more than for years — and Britain and the US would be justified in claiming that it is not enough.
There is a standoff looming once Obama announces his new Afghan drive. On one hand you have the US conviction that part of the purpose of the Afghan war is to stop Pakistan being destabilised, and that the conflict will be won partly on the eastern side of the border. On the other, you have Pakistan’s resistance to foreign interference, and a long-standing tactic of fighting only a bit, until Western pressure eases off, and generally muddling through the web of competing threats and alliances. In the past, Pakistan’s inertia has won over foreign pressure. The outcome will depend, as in other current conflicts, on Obama’s determination. (The Times UK)
