While recent Pakistani actions, such as the arrest of U.S. informants who supported the Bin Laden mission, the compromise of operations targeting facilities that produce improvised explosive devices, the reduction of Special Forces components training the Pakistani Frontier Corps, the sharply increased constraints on clandestine American counterterrorism operations inside Pakistan, the demanded diminution in the size and the status of the U.S. military assistance mission in Islamabad and the continued support of jihadi groups that continue to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan, remain disconcerting, the United States will find ways to circumvent these problems, albeit at greater cost and with greater risks.
More significant, however, is the damaging enervation of Pakistan’s already-frail civilian authority. While continuing American appeasement of its generals has contributed mightily to this outcome, the demise of the civilian government on issues of national security will not only undermine President Zardari’s bold assurance that “the war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as it is America’s,” but it will also subvert Pakistan’s stability by further strengthening the power of the very military that has taken the country to perdition repeatedly since its formation.
