Scary thought... Taliban in control of Pakistan?

[Elheru Aran]

Okay, okay-- bear with me-- I'm no conspiracy theorist, but this came up in my Geography class today...

See, my teacher was talking about how General Musharraf (the current dictator) is looking to introduce democracy in the country... well, considering how Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Western feeling is on the rise there...

The question is, when (and if) democracy is introduced, if the Taliban is still around by then, could it declare itself a political party and strive to gain power in the country? And if it did so, what would the Western powers do about it?

In my opinion, Taliban + Pakistani nukes= disaster... I just can't see the US allowing something like that to happen. I figure they'd rather eradicate the Talibs before democracy is introduced, as to prevent this from happening. Pretty unethical, but it'd be a way to prevent the Talibs from taking over... the alternative would be to forbid religious groups from having political status, which I think would work best.

Opinions?

[Stormbringer]

Opinions?

Unless Musharaf screws up, that's not likely to happen. He overthrew a democracy once, suppressing another isn't beyond him.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Talaban will never control Pakistan. Only around IIRC 8% of the country is Pashtun, giving them an insignificant support base and they've never even managed to muster enough strength to control all of Afghanistan, let alone Pakistan's 150 million people and three quarters of a million soldiers. A domestic Pakistani fundamentalist group might get in charge, if things went all to hell, but not the Talaban.

[Master of Ossus]

Erm... the Pakistani government was in charge of the Taliban, at least until 9/11. They were pretty much the same group of people, and the Taliban seized Afghanistan with the support of Pakistani military operations and political pressures. Until 9/11, they were the Taliban's best buddies. It's still not entirely clear how the Americans managed to differentiate between the two governments, but it seems to have been at least reasonably effective in the short-run.

[Sea Skimmer]

Erm... the Pakistani government was in charge of the Taliban, at least until 9/11. They were pretty much the same group of people, and the Taliban seized Afghanistan with the support of Pakistani military operations and political pressures.

That's a huge exaggeration. Back in the early 1990's the Pakistanis where very concerned about there northern boarder, on the afghan side no one was in charge while on the Pak side several million people, a great many armed, where sitting in refugee camps sucking up resources and generally creating an unpleasant situation. The Taliban represented the only force within that huge mass of refugees that could accomplish anything, so they encouraged them to go the fuck home and take control of the border areas. After that direct support wasn't very significant and they never where in a position to actually control the group.

[Elheru Aran]

Erm... the Pakistani government was in charge of the Taliban, at least until 9/11. They were pretty much the same group of people, and the Taliban seized Afghanistan with the support of Pakistani military operations and political pressures.

That's a huge exaggeration. Back in the early 1990's the Pakistanis where very concerned about there northern boarder, on the afghan side no one was in charge while on the Pak side several million people, a great many armed, where sitting in refugee camps sucking up resources and generally creating an unpleasant situation. The Taliban represented the only force within that huge mass of refugees that could accomplish anything, so they encouraged them to go the fuck home and take control of the border areas. After that direct support wasn't very significant and they never where in a position to actually control the group.

I agree, that's pretty much my take on it... Pakistan had its own troubles anyway, what with Musharraf taking over and all. Another thing, the situation MoO is describing is not what I'm thinking of-- the Talibs did not have control of Pakistan's government, like I postulated in the original post. What I want to get an inkling of is what might happen if Musharraf is stupid enough to reinstate democracy (from what I've heard, he's not all that heavy-handed a ruler-- hell, even Sani Abacha from Nigeria would've laughed at him) before the Talibs are finished.

Would the Talibs be able to declare themselves a political party and put up candidates for office?

What would the Western world, especially the US, do in the unlikely case that the Taliban gained power?

That's what I'm wanting to get an idea of...

[The Albino Raven]

Would the Talibs be able to declare themselves a political party and put up candidates for office?.

No, I don't think they would be able to.

What would the Western world, especially the US, do in the unlikely case that the Taliban gained power?

We wouldn't do shit as long as they continue to help us. Recall favorable american relations with the Taliban while American companies were striving to build a pipeline across afghanistan. I doubt western nations will do much.

[Andrew J.]

It's still not entirely clear how the Americans managed to differentiate between the two governments, but it seems to have been at least reasonably effective in the short-run.

One could launch nuclear weapons at India, and the other can't.

[The Third Man]

There would be serious implications for the US's closest WoT ally, the UK, if the US decided to intervene in Pakistan. 1.4% of the UK population is of Pakistani origin and most of these people have very close ties to Pakistan. People of this ethnicity make up the bulk of the UKs muslim population - 42.5% of UK muslims give their ethnicity as Pakistani. These figures come from here

Related to this, and maybe also related to the likelihood of a Taliban-type regime in Pakistan, is a recent survey which says 13% of UK muslims support Al-Quaeda attacks against the US, and a further 15% are ambivalent.

Given this, and bearing in mind that the Pakistani population of the UK is a notoriously vocal minority and contains a fair number of militants and extremists, I think the UK would find it politically extremely difficult to support the US against Pakistan.

If a Taliban-ized Pakistan made a serious (maybe nuclear) move against India, the situation gets more complicated; the 'Indian origin' proportion of the population is 2.0%

[Sarevok]

As a Sea Skimmer said the Taliban will never control Pakistan. However it is true that the religous parties are quite strong in Pakistan at this time. To make things worse Musaraff has supported the MMA allowing them to win in the frontier provinces and enact some islamic laws there.

[Aaron]

I think your prof needs to unwrap the tin foil hat from his head.

[The Albino Raven]

Given this, and bearing in mind that the Pakistani population of the UK is a notoriously vocal minority and contains a fair number of militants and extremists, I think the UK would find it politically extremely difficult to support the US against Pakistan.

A majority of people in the UK were against the war in Iraq, and yet their government supported us anyway. The personal beliefs of the people in a country and the actions of a government are not always the same.

[salm]

The question is, when (and if) democracy is introduced, if the Taliban is still around by then, could it declare itself a political party and strive to gain power in the country?

if they´d become democratic they´d have somthing like a constitution in which they could simply outlaw parties like that. germany does that to parties which are left or right extremistst. no problem.

[The Third Man]

The personal beliefs of the people in a country and the actions of a government are not always the same.

Yes, and whether or not the government can politically get away with actions that offend the beliefs of a segment of its population depends on how strongly said segment feels about the action, and how strongly they protest against it. I suggest that, in the case of hypothetical UK support for a US intervention in Pakistan, the strength of feeling would be sufficient to make make such action politically impossible for the UK. The sizeable and vocal 'Pakistani' population of the UK would certainly be up in arms about it, quite possibly literally.

[Sarevok]

The question is, when (and if) democracy is introduced, if the Taliban is still around by then, could it declare itself a political party and strive to gain power in the country?

if they´d become democratic they´d have somthing like a constitution in which they could simply outlaw parties like that. germany does that to parties which are left or right extremistst. no problem.

That is a good idea. Outlawing religious parties would prevent fundermentalists from gaining power.