Secretary Clinton warned yesterday that Pakistan is in danger of abdicating to the Taliban by giving up too much territory. They are becoming, she said, a mortal threat to world peace. The government of Pakistan then sent troops in to a region recently controlled by the Taliban, where they were then attacked by Taliban forces. The encounter ended without any change in the territorial status quo. In this Foreign Affairs piece, How Dangerous Are the Taliban?, John Mueller questions the assumption that the Taliban represent a threat to the U.S., much less to world peace. Since the U.S. is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and actively supporting the Pakistani government against them, we need an accurate assessment of their true threat potential. I suspect that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes represented by Clinton and Mueller’s positions. The pace of events on the ground in Pakistan suggest that we may find out soon enough who is right.
