US Set To Invade Pakistan?

US set to invade Pakistan by Eric Margolis.

A vicious cycle is now at play. The US pays Pakistan’s armed forces to attack pro-Taliban tribesmen along the border, and aid the US war in Afghanistan. US and Pakistani warplanes bomb Pashtun villages in FATA. Furious Pashtuns retaliate by staging bombing attacks against government targets (aka "terrorism").

The government and US launch more attacks as Pakistanis demand their government stop killing its own people. Musharraf was detested as an American stooge. If Zardari continues Mush’s failed policies, he will also meet the same fate.

The US is about to kick yet another hornet’s nest by ground attacks on Pakistan. Unable to crush growing national resistance to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan and secure planned pipeline routes, the frustrated White House is launching a new conflict when it lacks the soldiers or money to subdue Afghanistan.

Spreading the Afghan War into Pakistan is perilous and foolhardy. It threatens to destabilize and tear apart fragile Pakistan, just as the US has dismembered Iraq. A fragmented Pakistan could tempt India to intervene. Both are nuclear armed.

Asif Zardari is sitting atop a ticking bomb. He needs some new thinking. So do his western patrons, who must urgently end the futile Afghan War before it blows apart Pakistan.