The Dodecadialectics of Pakistan Politics 0
Asia Times interviews Sebastian Gorka, a military affairs analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy regarding the complex politics of Pakistan. As is normally the case with Asia Times stories, the article is long and wonky.
It’s also worth at least a skim to provide a frame of reference to the cross-currents and internal contradictions of Pakistani politics.
Here’s a nugget (RFE/RL stands for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty):
Gorka: I think this is a wonderful example of why one cannot talk of Pakistan as a unitary nation. After Bin Laden was killed, the immediate comment one heard in the American media and internationally was, “Clearly Pakistan must have known. Or if Pakistan didn’t know, they were incompetent.” This is a misunderstanding of the reality that is today’s Pakistan. There is no one political elite in Pakistan.
You can quite easily imagine, for example, that the political leadership – the civilian leadership in Islamabad – had no idea that Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. But at the same time, you could imagine, for example, that the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] or that members of the military were well aware of it because, let’s be honest, he was within a block and a half of the equivalent of the [US Military Academy at] West Point for Pakistan.
