Hulleye Comes By!

Amid growing insecurity and economic crisis, Pakistan’s government decides to impeach the president

Pakistan is sliding. Taliban commanders are taking over more of the country’s ungoverned north-west by the day. From there they launch attacks into Afghanistan, killing NATO soldiers and countless Afghans. America, hitherto a remarkably forgiving ally, appears to think Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is assisting them. India certainly thinks so. Tensions between South Asia’s nuclear-armed rivals are rising. After a suicide-bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul last month—which India blamed on the ISI—its national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan, warned that India might have to “retaliate in kind”.

The economy is hell-bound. Inflation is running at 25% a year. The stockmarket in Karachi has lost 35% of its value since April. During blackouts, Pakistani businessmen trade tales of capital flight. Foreign-exchange reserves—once emblematic of economic recovery—now barely cover three months of imports.

The government, a coalition led by the Pakistan People Party (PPP), has been paralysed since its formation in February. It has no plan for the north-west and appears to have given little thought to arresting the economy’s decline.

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At least, as its budget deficit rises above 7%, Pakistan will have aid. On July 29th the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee voted to triple America’s non-military assistance, to $1.5 billion a year. Saudi Arabia is expected to defer payment on a $5.9 billion oil bill. But aid is not enough. After 18 months of political turmoil and worsening terrorism, Pakistan needs stability to restore the confidence of foreign investors. This will take a while.

From the Pushtun north-west, the news just gets worse. An unloved truce between the government and several Taliban commanders, including the most powerful, Baitullah Mehsud, has mostly broken down. In Swat, 250km (155 miles) from Islamabad, where a mini-jihad erupted last year, 150 people are reported to have been killed in a week’s fighting between soldiers and militants. On August 5th a spokesmen for Mr Mehsud threatened to bring the jihad to Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and home to many poor Pushtuns.

The army operates more or less freely on the frontier but is reluctant to touch Mr Mehsud. With a forbidding fief in the never-conquered tribal area of South Waziristan, a well-armed militia and suicide-bombers at his disposal, he is a daunting foe. He also holds about 100 soldiers and civil servants hostage. But the army’s diffidence is increasingly being taken as evidence that, despite Mr Musharraf’s protestations to the contrary, Pakistan never abandoned its policy of harbouring terrorists at home and sponsoring them abroad. Afghanistan and India maintain this. America, which is reported to have traced the Indian embassy bombing to the ISI, might be tempted to concur.
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It hardly matters. America appears to have no option but to pour cash into Pakistan, and hope some good comes of it. Afghanistan will not be stable while Pakistan is in chaos. Foreign intervention would be unthinkable. America’s Senate has recognised this. No doubt, so has the ISI.