Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Many in the U.S. have been dissatisfied with Pakistan's performance in the war on terror, and much of the criticism has been based on the assumption that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been perfidious in his execution of counterterror operations.
Frederic Grare, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says Pakistan faces governmental instability following parliamentary elections, as the leading opposition parties face a decision on whether to impeach President Pervez Musharraf. If they do not, he says, they will face the question of how to otherwise apportion power in the new civilian government. Grare regards the election not as an anti-American vote but rather driven by opposition to Musharraf, and he expects the civilians winners will try to establish good relations with Washington.
Bernard Gwertzman from the Council on Foreign Relations interviews Carnegie Endowment's senior associate, Ashley J. Tellis.
Carnegie’s Ashley J. Tellis appeared on BBC World to discuss Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The United States must shift its counterterrorism policy towards Pakistan away from a reciprocal approach—requiring Islamabad to perform desirable actions to receive support—towards one encouraging Pakistan to enact effective counterterrorism policies, not for an immediate payoff, but to strengthen institutionalized trust with the U.S. over time,
On January 18, 2008, Afghanistan's former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullah Abdullah discussed the problems facing Afghanistan and possible solutions. The discussion was moderated by Carnegie's Jessica T. Mathews.
The killing today of Benazir Bhutto was tragic for many reasons. Most obviously, it was another senseless death, adding to the spiraling extremist violence that has spread in recent years from Pakistan's remote regions into the heart of its major cities, including the capital, Islamabad and the nearby military garrison, Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was murdered. But the killing also may push the country even farther from a return to real democracy, already a shaky prospect in a country with a checkered history of electoral politics. For while Bhutto was hardly a saint, she had served as the strongest, most credible opposition voice against the sham elections prepared for early January.