Pakistan sells nuclear and missile technology to Iran and North Korea and its internal political situation is so complex that probably half of the army and most of its intelligence service are sympathetic to al Qaeda. Yet we are depending upon that country to handle the most sensitive intelligence matters pertaining to islamic terrorism while we fiddle around in Iraq for no good reason.
The Bush Doctrine of "if you feed a terrorist, talk to a terrorist, or harbor a terrorist means you're a terrorist" applies in every aspect to Pakistan. The country is a military dictatorship in which the general in charge suspends the constitution on a regular basis. The country is a powderkeg in a region that is a powderkeg. And yet we have put the real central front in the war on terrorism in their hands.
I know we had to keep them close, but our dependence on them has always seemed to me to be exceedingly dicey. As many commentators have pointed out recently, it's created a dilemma for both countries in that Pakistan is motivated to keep dribbling out al Qaeda from time to time while never actually netting anything definitive or seriously meaningful because to do so would mean the end of huge amounts of American money and support. Crack diplomacy at work, once again.
One can't help but wonder every day, for a hundred different reasons, what we could have acomplished in narrowing the threat of Islamic radicalism if we had focused our best and the best of all of our allies on that problem. It certainly would have been preferable to having Pakistan take the lead on al Qaeda while we fought a completely unnecessary war elsewhere.
But what Digby doesn't do is answer his own question with the obvious: George Bush needs bin Laden and al Qa'ida alive and active.
Digby, like so many others who just won't make that final step, concludes instead....
It all comes back to the delusionary belief among Bush's advisors, even after 9/11, that islamic radicalism is not as great a threat as rogue states.
They're not delusionary about that. They had a plan. They're carrying out that plan. It calls for a viable Islamic enemy. They can't execute the plan without the proper enemy.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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