The BBC reports that the peace deal between the Pakistan government and the Pakistan Taliban forces in the Swat valley isn’t stopping the Taliban from advancing:
Dozens of militants have been streaming into bordering Buner to take over mosques and government offices. Buner is part of the Malakand region, which has just seen the implementation of Sharia law under the peace deal. But the Taleban have mainly operated in Swat, where they fought the army from August 2007 until this year’s deal.
Under the deal the Taleban were expected to disarm.
I think it’s increasingly becoming clear that the “Pak” side of the “Af-Pak” equation is a more objectively troubling situation. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and even besides the nukes is a fairly large and important country. Rather than a situation in which Pakistan matters because events there impinge on events in Afghanistan, I think it’s the case that Afghanistan primarily matters at this point because of its impact on Pakistan.
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