The recent brazen Taliban attacks on Pakistani military headquarters, the killing of international civilian food program officials, and the taking of hostages has been greeted by a very muted public response from the government of Pakistan. Normally, the head of state would be issuing press releases to the worldwide community, flanked by the top generals, expressing outrage and a program for reestablishing security and punishing the organizers. The most publicly quoted international official has been Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton!
If I were sitting in New Delhi, I would be very worried as well, because there is no real benefit to India from a collapse of the Pakistani state, but it seems as if there are messages being sent by the Pakistani Taliban, paraphrasing Alexander Haig's famous quote, "(We're) in charge now." No targets are off limits, and that includes employees of international agencies, who had traditionally been given safe passage to do their humanitarian work. The international community has also been challenged, and there is no response. I'm not sure what it could be, but unfortunately President Obama's choices in Afghanistan will ultimately trigger events inside the frontier territories of Paksistan, which are becoming nerve centers for the wider conflict in Central Asia.
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