Obama's approach in Pakistan

last updated 8 January 2015

Don't expect tensions in Pakistan to ease any time soon, said Sanjeev Miglani in Reuters. U.S. missiles slammed into targets in Pakistan's al Qaida-infested tribal areas during Barack Obama's first week as U.S. president, "dispelling any possibility that he might relent on these raids that have so angered Pakistanis."

Coddling Pakistan is certainly no solution, said Yasmeen Hassan in The Washington Post. The Taliban have been bombing schools in the tribal region's Swat Valley to enforce a ban on educating girls. To put a stop to this, President Obama will have to "avoid the mistakes of the Bush administration" by pressuring Pakistan to take active steps to "curb the Talibanization of the country."

Peppering Pakistani soil with missiles fired from drones won't help, said Pakistan's The Nation in an editorial. All the airstrikes, which killed 21 people on Friday, will do is fuel resentment of the U.S. and make folk heroes out of the extremists and terrorists rampaging through the Swat Valley.