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Originally Posted by mburbank
Did we need his support to route the Taliban? It was helpful, but that first step was mostly bombing. We could have used him as a wall at Tora Bora, we tried, it didn't work. After that we absolutely needed whatever he cared to give us since we took the war to Iraq.
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You
are mistaken. We pay this regime nearly $100 million every month for logistical support, which includes rights to various air fields, bases, etc.
If we never had that, the invasion (and bombing) of Afghanistan would've been different. Not happen? No, we still would've attacked. But the point is pull out a map, and check out the despots and failed states surrounding Afghanistan.
We needed Pakistan.
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It's ironic that weapons of mass destruction, and passing nuclear knowledge to terrorist regimes, the supposed reasons we had to invade Iraq, are things we looked the other way for with Pakistan, because they were our allies.
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Ok, and despite doing it for the sake of being contrarian, I don't see any solutions or suggestions here. We shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but we should've invaded a country with double the population, and arguably a more militant muslim community? With the Taliban right there? Does that make sense?
We didn't "look the other way," either. We can compel that regime in ways we can't do to others. We certainly wouldn't be able to do so with an Islamic regime.
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Realistically, we have about zero levarage with Pakistan. They can do whatever they want.
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}If you believe this to be true, than why do you think we have no choice but to support Musharraf? Why not move on, start from the drawing board? Pay off some "national front" to topple him, appease the lunatic mullahs and help us out?
There's a balancing act to just how much Musharraf can do for us, lest he come across as he is coming across right now. When a dictator acts, people tend to notice. Motives be damned.
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Either go up against the tribal areas in a very ugly way he hasn't been willing to do this far, or make a deal with them. If he makes a deal, we are so in the shit it costs us little to cut off his cash. If he doesn't, we finance a nuclear military dictatorship in the cause of spreading democracy. But those were almost certainly the choices we'd end up with from the moment we chose to make Mushariff a lynchpin of our foreign policy.
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Welcome to foreign policy. You don't want to "spread democracy," yet you are appalled when we allign with dictators? What's the third way, isolation?
Musharraf can crush the radicals militarily, but then he loses a political battle. I believe the actions over the last two days are the result of a neurotic and besieged military ruler...albeit a basically secular one, who snubs the religious courts and the radical Islamists.
None of this is pretty, and none of it is easy. But our government has taken the correct position here--dismay and discretion. It has been a few days, and we need to see how it plays out.
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