Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Pakistan: NATO's next Iraq?

Pakistan for all intents and purposes is in a state of civil war. There just isn't any other useful way to put it. The Taliban now de facto control over half of Pakistan. The present President of Pakistan is considered corrupt by many and isn't engendering the loyalty of Pakistanis the way the Taliban are as far a recruiting soldiers to die for them goes. So--- one year from now there is a 50-50 chance that the Taliban will have control of at least one nuclear missile with which to either use or to blackmail the free world with to gain power or money. Since Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban are entertwined it is not useful at this point to see them as separate.

All civilians have been ordered out of Swat in Pakistan by the Pakistani Government and outright fighting has begun between the Pakistani Army and the Taliban. Many bridges and roads have already been mined by the Taliban to blow up to prevent the Pakistani ground troops from coming into the area.
So there are approximately 1/2 million are now refugees from Swat. Some of these refugees will be Taliban soldiers in disguise and infiltrating further into Islamabad near where nuclear weapons are located.

So, looking at this, NATO, with most soldiers likely being U.S. will likely have no choice during the next year to at the very least, rescue any nuclear weapons from Taliban hands. It is more likely that NATO will have to do this rather than just India because if India goes in by itself there will be two wars, India versus Pakistan AND Pakistan versus the Taliban. So, to prevent a nuclear war breaking out between India and Pakistan over all this, the most likely scenario would be for NATO to go in to rescue(or blow up or permanently disable) all nuclear weapons in Pakistan in order to keep them out of the hands of the Taliban Permanently. This likely wouldn't happen unless the Taliban executed the President of Pakistan or overthrew the present government of Pakistan.

What a mess!

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