Here's an inconvenient truth for those conservatives demanding robust U.S. action against Pakistan. The Paks' double-dealing -- acting as a U.S. ally in the War with Jihad while simultaneously harboring Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, the governing shura (council) of the Afghanistan Taliban in Quetta and thousands of individual Talibs -- is indeed infuriating. It's also very much in Pakistan's interest.
Pakistan happens to live in a very tough neighborhood. Duplicity is the only way it survives: India to the east of them, Iran to the west of them, China and Russia to the north of them. And an angry America all over them.
Geography -- not the inconvenient truth, it's coming in a minute -- hasn't come up much in all the huffing-and-puffing on the blogs and the cable channels. But neither has the inconvenient truth.
Let's call it the 800-pound gorilla. |