March 11, 2009
by Arsalan Iftikhar
Editor’s Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.
Arsalan Iftikhar | BIO
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com
The word Pakistan literally means ‘land of the pure.’ Sadly, there has been nothing ‘pure’ about the continued downward political spiral of this nuclear-armed, third-world fledgling democracy of 172 million people over the last several years.
From the December 2007 political assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the garrison city of Rawalpindi to the September 2008 terrorist attacks at the Islamabad Marriott hotel (which killed over 54 people, including the Czech Ambassador to Pakistan); it comes as little surprise to any expert on the region that one of our major regional allies in the ‘war on terror’ is now teetering on the brink of political disaster.
Especially in light of the most recent tragedies like the March 2009 Lahore terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team and the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks on the Taj and Oberoi hotels (which killed over 173 people in eight locations); Pakistan has once again infamously proven itself to continue being a focal point for our global realpolitik for the foreseeable future.
Wendy Chamberlin was the United States Ambassador to Pakistan on September 11, 2001. A career diplomat and former Ambassador to Laos, since that infamous day, Ambassador Chamberlin has had the personal ear of both former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto and soft military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.
In an extensive sit-down interview, Ambassador Chamberlin offered her personal views on how American policy toward Pakistan can both improve stability for the people of Pakistan and protect the national security of the United States.
Continue Reading Arsalan’s March 2009 CNN Column Here…
