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Pakistan Looms
ByAnd you thought Iran was scary. Ignatius:
"We are all Taliban," one young man said - meaning that people in his region support the cause, if not the terrorist tactics. He explained that the insurgency is spreading in Pakistan, not because of proselytizing by leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud, but because of popular anger. For every militant killed by a US Predator drone, he says, 10 more will join the insurgent cause. "You can't come see the people because they hate you," he warned. Listening to them speaking through a translator, you realize that "drone attack" has become a vernacular phrase in Urdu.
You lose by restraint; you lose by attack:
"We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now," said David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House. "You just can't say that you're not going to worry about al-Qaeda taking control of Pakistan and its nukes," he said.
