With a Quiet Blessing, U.S. Attacks on Al Qaeda Spike | Newsweek Scope

Pakistan’s Fickle Ally
Sumit Ganguly 10/9/2009 12:00:00 AM
President Obama is on the verge of signing legislation that would grant $7.5 billion in new aid to Pakistan over the next five years, most of it in the form of economic assistance designed to strengthen the alliance and induce Pakistan to move more aggressively against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
International
Can Pakistan Stay Afloat?
Fasih Ahmed 10/10/2008 12:00:00 AM
This time it wasn't the terrorist scare making Pakistanis nervous. Depositors thronged banks over the last few days to retrieve cash and valuables. Rumors that the government was on the verge of seizing bank lockers and foreign-currency accounts to rescue its deteriorating financial positions had been popping up on cell phones. They were finally laid to rest on Wednesday by Pakistan's newly appointed finance minister, Shaukat Tareen. A well-respected former banker who is not a member of Parliament, he is the third person to head the ministry since government formation in March, and his appointment is intended to signal President Asif Ali Zardari and his government's seriousness about setting the economy straight.
Pakistan’s Double-Cross
Sumit Ganguly 9/18/2008 12:00:00 AM
A reported American missile strike yesterday in the South Waziristan tribal area, which may have killed six people, has again triggered public anger at the United States across much of Pakistan. It follows an earlier helicopter-borne commando assault into Pakistan, after which a Pakistani military official warned that such incursions would provoke a military response. This time, the Pakistani authorities said that unilateral military action by the United States will not be tolerated.
ASIA
Good Intentions
Ron Moreau 9/9/2008 12:00:00 AM
In his first press conference just hours after being sworn in as president today, Asif Ali Zardari chose to share the spotlight with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, apparently in an effort to calm the tense relations between the two neighboring countries, each of which is fighting an expanding Islamic insurgency. Karzai, whom Zardari had invited to his Inauguration at the presidential palace in Islamabad, had had a very rocky relationship with former president Pervez Musharraf. Karzai had blamed the Taliban's resurgence on the sanctuaries that he claimed the guerrillas enjoyed in Pakistan's tribal belt along the two countries' common border. Musharraf denied the charge, shooting back that Karzai should put his own house in order first and that the Taliban was a homegrown problem.
PAKISTAN
‘Victory for Democracy’
Ron Moreau 9/6/2008 12:00:00 AM
As expected Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, was elected president of Pakistan Saturday by a landslide, winning nearly 70 percent of the votes cast. His cheering supporters hailed it as a "victory for democracy." He never faced any serious competition from the two other candidates, one representing Zardari's erstwhile coalition partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the other the routed party of former President Pervez Musharraf. Zardari's election marks a dramatic reversal of fortune for the 53-year-old former playboy and polo player who wed Bhutto in a family-arranged marriage in 1987. Before Bhutto was assassinated last December while campaigning in the general election, Zardari's role seemed to be confined to taking care of their two younger daughters in Dubai, their 19-year-old son in London, and playing a secondary political role at best. Her death, last February's election victory of the Pakistan People's Party of which he is now co-chairman, and his own shrewd politicking have catapulted him into the presidency. He is being sworn into office Saturday as Pakistan's most powerful, and its most controversial, president in the country's 61-year history.
The New 'Forgotten War'
Michael Hirsh 7/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
There's nothing like a presidential race for getting the big issues wrong. While John McCain and Barack Obama engage in a pseudodebate about Iraq—where things are going relatively well, and both candidates will probably end up pursuing similar courses—the real emerging crisis is in Pakistan. And that is where no coherent U.S. policy exists, nor is there even a debate occurring. The problem: while President Pervez Musharraf, the old soldier, is fading slowly away, new Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani is said to be quietly cutting deal after deal with Al Qaeda-linked militants, whose safe haven is growing beyond the tribal regions. And the still-green civilian government of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is all but powerless to interfere. The result is that militant and terrorist groups, feeling almost cozy in their newly secured territory, are mounting a fresh military and propaganda campaign and establishing a breathing space from which to plot future acts of terror.