Riedel: Armageddon In Islamabad

July 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afpak, Nixon Center, The National Interest 

Writing at The National Interest, former CIA officer Bruce Riedel discusses the perilous political dynamic in Pakistan and the specter of a Taliban takeover:

The growing strength of the Taliban in Pakistan has raised the serious possibility of a jihadist takeover of the country. Even with the army’s reluctant efforts in areas like the Swat Valley and sporadic popular revulsion with Taliban violence, at heart the country is unstable. A jihadist victory is neither imminent nor inevitable, but it is now a real possibility in the foreseeable future. This essay presumes (though does not predict) an Islamic-militant victory in Pakistan, examining how the country’s creation of and collusion with extremist groups has left Islamabad vulnerable to an Islamist coup.

THE ORIGINS of today’s crisis of course lie in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The modern global jihad began in the Afghan refugee camps of Pakistan’s frontier lands along the one-thousand-five-hundred-mile border between the two countries. Volunteers from across the Islamic world came to fight with the Afghans. According to a senior Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) commander at the time, the ISI trained eighty thousand fighters from forty-three countries

Reidel discussed his column with TNI editor Justine Rosenthal:

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