Does Our Presence in Afghanistan Strengthen Pakistan’s Instability?

United States President Barack Obama recently labeled Pakistan as the most dangerous place in the world. Each day there are reports of attacks, tribal heads who are murdered, schools that go up in flames. The police and army do nothing. And the population? They hate the army, says journalist Antoinette de Jong today in the NRC Handelsblad.

The most important causes for this hatred are the attacks on tribal areas and silent approval from the U.S. of missile launches from unmanned aircraft. That hatred against the army, but also against the corrupt government and against the foreign powers seen as causing the war in neighboring Afghanistan, has found a breeding ground – perhaps not in everyone – but certainly among all social classes in Pakistan, according to De Jong.

Already, last summer, Pakistani students were talking about revolution: They referred to Marx, and to France in 1789. Nevertheless, there will not be a Western-style revolution, writes De Jong. No, the platform for social change is being offered by the Taliban.

“That the Taliban were created, if not nurtured in Pakistan, has been clear from the onset,” according to De Jong. And they are advancing. The biggest terrorist attacks since 9/11, such as those in Madrid and London, had links with the country.

Policy makers have to consider the unthinkable, says De Jong. “Because of the presence of nuclear weapons, the U.S. and India cannot remain on the sidelines in the case of an implosion of the Pakistani state. No one can predict how such a scenario will develop. A split in the army? The balkanization of Pakistan? We don’t know.”

It is clear that insurgency in Afghanistan will continue, as long as there is no end to support for the Taliban in Pakistan, according to De Jong.

What do you think? Does our presence in Afghanistan strengthen the instability of Pakistan? How can we break the Taliban’s power, and therewith, Al-Qaeda’s power?