A Difficult Ally and a Dangerous Enemy
Musharraf Goes Splat
By Jim Hoagland Sunday, November 11, 2007; B07
Pakistan is an unusual country -- a nation capable of looking into the abyss, pausing briefly to consider its options and then jumping headfirst into darkness. The willingness to go splat has been the backbone of Pakistan's national survival strategy for its 60-year history.
Whether rattling nuclear rockets at a much more powerful India or allowing terrorist networks to use Pakistani territory to mount plots against Afghan, American and British targets, the country's leaders have raised political blackmail to a national and international art form. Oppose or ignore us at our -- and your -- peril is the unofficial national motto of Islamabad.
. . . Successive leaders, military and civilian, have encouraged or tolerated the world's most damaging spread of nuclear technology and international terrorism from Pakistani territory. They have encouraged or tolerated massive corruption at home, some of it funded by foreign aid …