Recent arrests of high-profile Afghan Taliban leadership by Pakistan do not indicate a strategic change in Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy.
Pakistan's support of terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba has stymied the India-Pakistan peace process, hindered U.S.-Pakistan relations, and threatens to undermine any attempts to create stability in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has not taken the necessary steps to dismantle the terrorist group which perpetrated the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, whose network is spreading beyond South Asia and which poses a particular threat to India.
Continued Pakistani support for the terrorist group Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT) threatens to undermine the delicate peace between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan and plunge the region into conflict, with significant consequences for American interests abroad.
Haider Mullick, a fellow at the Joint Special Operations University and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, examined Pakistan's counterinsurgency strategy as well as U.S.-Pakistan relations.
Security and social order in Afghanistan are continuing to deteriorate, especially in the north, and negotiating with the Taliban may become the only viable option for a sustainable peace.
The conference in London failed to suggest viable solutions to the real problems facing Afghanistan, including President Karzai’s lack of credibility, the prevalence of local corruption, and the fragmentation of power into the hands of armed local militias.
American assistance to India should not be conditioned principally on notions of strict or specific reciprocity. Supporting India is in the larger geopolitical interest of the United States.
At the international conference on Afghanistan in London, the international community should address the only issue that really matters for peace in Afghanistan: how to make the Taliban part of a lasting solution.
To maintain power in a prospective Asian century, the United States must sustain its military superiority, deepen and expand its economic ties, and pursue a realistic and multifaceted approach to China.