Saturday, October 07, 2006
NATO generals in southern Afghanistan have called on their governments to take a tougher stance with Pakistan over its active support for insurgents fighting Canadian troops, and those of Britain, the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands. It's about time. Pakistan's support for radical Islamic jihadis has been the elephant in the room that everyone has tried to ignore in the war on terror. Iran may be the principal underwriter of terrorism against Israel, and Saudi Arabia the biggest supporter of the insurgency in Iraq, but Pakistan has emerged as the main source of terrorists and terror supplies in Afghanistan, and against the Western world as well. Until Western countries force Pakistan to stop its quiet, but pervasive, encouragement of global jihad -- or at least to get tough with the terrorists who operate with impunity from within its borders -- the war on terror cannot be won.