CFR: The Candidates on U.S.-Pakistan Policy | Newsweek The Council on Foreign Relations

INTELLIGENCE
Was It Al Qaeda?
Mark Hosenball 12/28/2007 12:00:00 AM
U.S. experts believe that Islamic jihadists with possible connections to Al Qaeda are the most likely perpetrators behind Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. But counter-terrorism officials warn that U.S. agencies believe it is still to early to pin the blame for the attack on any particular extremist group or faction.
PAKISTAN
What About the Nukes?
12/28/2007 12:00:00 AM
COMMENTARY
CAMPAIGN 2008
Politics and the Pakistan Effect
Richard Wolffe 12/27/2007 12:00:00 AM
For weeks Hillary Clinton's aides have looked at the landscape through a simple prism: the more dangerous the world looks, the more voters will be drawn to a "safe" candidate like the former first lady. That seemed like an easy and comforting explanation for Barack Obama's rise in the polls—that voters were tempted to "roll the dice" (in Bill Clinton's phrase) only at a relatively stable time when domestic issues started to seem more pressing than foreign affairs.
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
'Almost Certainly Al Qaeda'
12/27/2007 12:00:00 AM
Bruce Riedel, a former defense and intelligence official who helped make South Asia policy in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, says he believes Benazir Bhutto's assassination "was almost certainly the work of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda's Pakistani allies." He says, "Their objective is to destabilize the Pakistani state, to break up the secular political parties, to break up the army so that Pakistan becomes a politically failing state in which the Islamists in time can come to power much as they have in other failing states." He says the United States should press the government of President Pervez Musharraf to go ahead with the parliamentary elections—perhaps after a brief pause. "The only way that Pakistan is going to be able to fight terrorism effectively is to have a legitimate democratically elected secular government that can rally the Pakistani people to engage Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other extremist movements," he says.
Guarding Pakistan’s Nukes
Michael Isikoff 11/7/2007 12:00:00 AM
The latest turmoil in Pakistan has sparked new worry over the prospect that Al Qaeda or other Islamic radicals will acquire access to the country's nuclear arsenal. Pakistan has an estimated 50 nuclear bombs (compared with about 80 in India), which are dispersed throughout the country. U.S. officials acknowledge they do not have as much information about their location and security arrangements as they would like.
PAKISTAN
Al Qaeda’s Newest Triggerman
Sami Yousafzai
How do you track down a foe without a face? That is the challenge posed by Baitullah Mehsud, the man who could well be the newest Enemy No. 1 in the War on Terror. Since he first emerged as a young jihadist leader three years ago, the black-bearded and slow-talking tribal leader has transformed his Mehsud clan's mountainous badlands in the northwest corner of Pakistan into a safe haven for Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and outlawed Pakistani jihadists. Though uneducated, and only in his mid-30s, Baitullah snookered Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf into a fake peace deal two years ago—and even got him to hand over a few hundred thousand dollars. Just as important, Baitullah has learned the hard lessons of previous jihadists who grew too enamored of the spotlight for their own good. According to Afghan Taliban who know him, he travels in a convoy of pickups protected by two dozen heavily armed guards, he rarely sleeps in the same bed twice in a row, and his face has never been photographed. They say his role model is Mullah Mohammed Omar, the equally mysterious Taliban leader who disappeared from view in 2001.