At least eighteen people are dead in Karachi, many more wounded, victims of a car bomb and subsequent armed attack that targeted a police compound set up to investigate and counter militant activity in that southern port city. Karachi, the commercial hub and a major political constituency in Pakistan is now increasingly becoming home to the Pakistani Taliban. This is bound to have severely deleterious consequences on the Afghan conflict raging just across and on the border.
This attack and the White House silence on the days events suggest that the militants associated with teh Taliban are rolling over the Pakistani armed forces and that news of such devastating turns against militant terrorism, and organized crime is legion.
Further, recent turns in American politics suggest that the U.S. and its NATO allies will be hard-pressed to turn around the state of play in Pakistan in any quickening measure of time. Jobs, and economic growth are now priority number 1: President Obama’s re-election bid depends on it. Moreover, given the recent polling that reports sedate voter interest in the Af/Pak conflict, political saliency on events transpiring in Pakistan, ticking away, has nearly dropped off the cliff .
India has won hard to fathom plaudits, here. The controversial Cold Start military strategy –the buggaboo of the Pakistani military and the ISI-has been hushed up. India has gained support from President Obama for a permanent seat in the U.N Security Council. The prospects of some forward move on job creation in the United States and economic collaboration has brought the United States closer to India, than ever before, much to the dismay of Pakistanis. In the meantime conflict in Pakistan boils on and over with no clear resolution in sight–and yes, this is a War in Pakistan, as much as there is now an on-going War in Afghanistan.
Indeed, these recent turn of events may well signal (or, more likely be perceived to signal) a final break in the often difficult relationship between the United States and Pakistan. As Pakistan becomes rather more a security issue that couples only with U.S national security concerns, and as India is perceived to sit in better graces with the all-important American economy, the state of politics and of public opinion in Pakistan toward the United States might well nose-dive.
The terrible thing is, of course, that the American public might not care.
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