Pakistan
Editorial
Who do the Americans think they’re trying to kid? asked the Islamabad Nation in an editorial. Vice President Dick Cheney came here last week to deliver a threat: Either Pakistan sends in the army to fight Taliban activity in Waziristan, the tribal area bordering Afghanistan, or the U.S. will cut its annual financial aid to Pakistan. Sorry, but we’re not that easily cowed. As soon as Cheney left, the Foreign Ministry put out a terse statement saying that Pakistan would not follow outside “dictation.” President Pervez Musharraf knows that soldiers can never subdue the tribal areas; only political deals and financial incentives can persuade tribal elders to help the government. He also knows that the American threat to withhold money is an empty one. Most of the aid, after all, “is destined to reinforce Pakistan’s capability to fight America’s War on Terror.” Crippling us would only hurt the United States. Pakistan, then, can comfortably continue on its own course, using “persuasion and development rather than force and coercion.”
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