Carlos Pascual joins Max Boot, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations to assess the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). The NIE reports that al Qaeda has reconstituted itself in the federally administered tribal areas along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and Pascual notes that there is a “limit to how much the U.S. can push Musharraf” to both go on the offensive against al Qaeda with his finite military assets, and to move the nation back to a democratic footing. He argues that to “work effectively we need to maintain cooperation” but questions that policy’s ultimate effectiveness given the unfortunate reality that there is widespread sympathy for the jihadist elements within the Pakistani military and serious anti-American sentiment within the country at large.
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Commentary
Pakistan and the War on Terror
July 19, 2007