re: #129 Thanos

The way things are going I expect the frontier states to try a breakaway from Pakistan sometime in the next ten years. That’s the other reason the Taliban are working strenuously on the Khyber and other near moderate agencies.

I think it’s going to happen much faster than that. They’ve already been considered semi-autonomous for years, and now that they’re implementing their own law separate from the central law in Islamabad, they’re showing that they have no intention of paying heed to Islamabad at all. In fact, it’s a very ominous warning that Islamabad may soon see still more regions of the country fall to the Islamists and the Taliban.

The Taliban continue setting up these shadow councils where they have sufficient numbers - and with Mehsud showing that he can thwart the Pakistani military efforts in Swat, the Taliban have little to fear from Zardari’s government. They still have to watch the skies for UAVs, but if the Pakistani government cans the UAV access from Pakistani airfields, that capability goes away or is severely diminished (thanks Sen. Feinstein!).

Throw in the way that the Russians have been dicking around with our logistics deals with Central Asia as an alternative to Pakistan and the problems with our ongoing efforts in Afghanistan are only going to get worse no matter what Obama says.

In sum, bad jobu and it’s going to get worse.